A 1918 Christmas at Charlecote - Stepping back

This year as you all know marks 100 years since the end of the 1st World War which is also known as the Great War or the war to end all wars. Charlecote is stepping back in time to remember Christmas that year.

 Each year I try to create something different. This year was not an easy decision. The theme Christmas 1918. War might have been over by November the 11th that year but for many, reality was just hitting home. It was a time to celebrate but also a time to mourn and remember those who would never come back.

How do you celebrate Christmas and remember all that came before it? I wanted to make something moving and personal but also beautiful at the same time. I hope in some way I have managed to do this.

I decided on a gingerbread house as sugar rations had been relaxed a little that Christmas and you can make gingerbread with small amounts of butter and a little local honey to replace some of the sugar if needed. I picked the house because Charlecote is so much more than just a house, it is a home and it is where people came back to after the war. To me it represents a safe place. People still today get home, shut their front doors and leave the outside world exactly where it is, outside. The feelings returning soldiers must have had when they finally walked through their own front door, greeted by family must have been so overwhelming. I am not even going to try to imagine it. You can't unless you have experienced it yourself.

The gingerbread house is for all those that came home but I also wanted to include those who didn't and going on inspiration from Warwick and the Tower of London, I wanted to create a field of poppies to represent the 11,610 soldiers from  the Royal Warwickshire Regiment who didn't come home that Christmas. I have to admit, to me, there is nothing more beautiful than a field full of poppies but at the same time something very sobering too when you remember what they represent. So many people, so many lost lives.

                              586 handmade iced poppies circle the house.

Charlecote was used by the Red Cross to practise skills during this War. Lady Ada Fairfax Lucy and her sister Joyce Alianore played key roles in the Voluntary Aid Detachments in Warwickshire during this time.  Lady Ada was also involved in trying to raise money to help the Red Cross. One idea which she supported was the Pearl necklace fundraiser.

Pearls were donated, first by aristocratic women but as word spread, people from all walks of life donated a pearl if they could, many of them had lost someone in this war and this was their way of helping.

The idea was to make a necklace and sell it by a lottery to raise money but more and more pearls were donated. Lotteries were banned during the war so other ways had to be found to sell these necklaces.  On the 19th of December 1918 a total of  41 pearl necklaces were sold at auction at Christie's raising 84,383 19s 9d towards the Red Cross. The total number of pearls donated were 3,597!


People came together in all sorts of ways when times were hard but I thought the pearl donation was a lovely piece of history to include. To represent this and so much more, I created the gingerbread Christmas tree which stands to the left of the house and sits in the the middle of the poppies. If you look close, the tree is dressed in chains of pearls to remember this too.

This years Christmas edible art installation which sits on a two boards measuring 4ft by 4ft in total, I have called 'Stepping back'.  For the gingerbread mix alone, I have used ....flour 7,2kg, sugar 2,4kg, butter 1,92kg, honey 1,2kg and 24 eggs. I have also used a few spices, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, maize and the star of anise to make it more of a European style spiced ginger base to finally connect where these soldiers and nurses had spent much of their time over the years before coming home that year for Christmas. For the icing, I have used around 13 kg of various icing including royal icing for the snow, modeling and flower icing, I lost count on the eggs and other ingredients to make them. It has taken a total of  220 hours to create from planning to making the stencils through every step of the process to the finished creation.


Below are a few more photos and a short video of how it was made.

One of the owls that sits on the roof at Charlecote.

A close up of one of the stained glass windows made from gelatin sheets.

Below is a video of how I made this creation taken on my mobile phone as I went.

Thank you for your time reading this blog. Hope you enjoyed it. Although I do love creating these edible art installations, this will be my last one and what better time to end than on a special 100 year anniversary. Thank you again.

                                              Safely arrived at Charlecote.

If you are visiting Charlecote this Christmas, please be aware to enter the house itself and see it decorated for a 1918 Christmas, there are bookable timed tickets to control the flow of visitors through the house so that the collection can be better protected. Link below.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/events/fdee47c9-c5b8-456b-bd34-44ae767a5763/pages/details


                                           All images and content copyright
                                                           Jana Eastwood