The Arts In Berwick -- Visual Arts -- Painting
Lady Waterford's Murals



Living at Ford permanently after the death of her husband in 1859, Louisa, Machioness of Waterford (1818-91) closed the pub and rebuilt the village as a model community, complete with temperance refreshment room.

Architecturally the work at Ford is more Renaissance and Tudor in inspiration than Gothic, but she was nevertheless completely High Victorian in moral intention. Fascinated by the work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters she devoted twenty years to personally adorning the school-house with huge murals on Biblical subjects. Many praised her talent, and she had the dubious distinction of counting the hugely influential critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) among her closest friends.

Constantly giving her advice he seems to have inhibited her style, and his final comment of the murals was "I expected you would have done something better".

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