Rye on TV

Two shows next week will put Rye in front of millions of viewers on primetime BBC TV. On Wednesday, May 14 Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr features two Rye shops and on Friday, May 16 Hidden Treasures of the National Trust focuses on Lamb House.

Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr is on BBC One at 9pm on Wednesday, May 14.

This competition starts with ten designers and ends with one life-changing contract for the winner. It stars Alan Carr and interiors guru Michelle Ogundehin who are on the hunt for talent, passion and dazzling designs.

Interior Design Masters sets the amateur interior designers against each other for a chance to win a commercial contract. Each week, a different challenge is set, designed to test their ability to meet various client briefs in different commercial and residential settings. Across the series, the contenders redesign commercial spaces, from shops to restaurants and salons.

Two shops in Rye were chosen for a make-over, The Paper Place and Niche. Rye News will be interviewing their owners over the next few weeks and finding out whether the designs that were created had the ‘wow’ factor that they were looking for.

Hidden Treasures of the National Trust is on BBC Two at 9pm on Friday, May 16.

The third series of Hidden Gems of the National Trust looks at the work the Trust does to conserve objects in its collections and reveals the stories of the objects and their owners. The first episode, focuses on three houses with literary connections including Henry James’ Lamb House in Rye; Hill Top in Cumbria, the home of Beatrix Potter; and Clouds Hill in Dorset, the cottage of writer and soldier, TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). The piece features in Lamb House is Henry James’ secretaire, a writing desk with a cabinet section, which needed repairs to splits, wood veneers and hinges.

As a central piece in James’s life, the secretaire played a significant role in his creative process and was used by James for responding to his personal correspondence. He also used the desk to write and edit his notebooks and perfect some of his most notable works including The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl and his revised 24 volume edition The New York Editions, which he began in 1907 and completed in 1909. James also kept his writing implements in the secretaire: one ink pot, one sand pot (to dry the ink on the paper) and one pot containing a bell (to call a servant to post a letter) were found inside alongside a silver Tiffany inkwell and ebonised, monikered blotter. These are currently in a display case in the White Parlour as they’re too precious to be left out on the secretaire.

Not only used by Henry James, the secretaire continued to be used by other famous literary residents of Lamb House. EF Benson made use of the secretaire often writing after dinner for a few hours, usually between 10pm and midnight. Montgomery-Hyde wrote all of his books, including the Lamb House guidebook at the secretaire. Rumer Godden frequently used the desk to write longhand in exercise books which she then edited by cutting and sellotaping pages together before getting her secretary to type them out. That’s how she wrote The Diddakoi, the first winner of the Children’s Whitbread Literature Prize.

Also featured in the first episode of this series of Hidden Treasures is the restoration of the Green Parlour. The episode is expected to show conservators replastering the walls with lime mix, ensuring the room’s structural integrity while maintaining its historical accuracy.

Image Credits: Blast Films , Chris Pollard , Kt bruce , National Trust Images/Laurence Perry .