The Keeper's Random Ramblings - Stylish watering inside the house

Ursula Hayward had a particular passion for growing and arranging cut flowers for her home.  She even had a Flower Room for the purpose designed into the house.  It has a sink, shelves for storing the vases and other equipment  and then a special shelf flap, disguised as an oak panel, that lets down into the Hall so the arrangements can be moved into the house by the servants.

 Once the flower arrangements were in position they would have to have their water topped up, and for this task there are two brass watering cans.

They are no longer used but are displayed in the Flower room and the job is now done with a less stylish but practical yellow plastic watering cans.  However; fresh flowers remain a central part of the life of the house and each week one of four teams of volunteers arrives on a Tuesday to clean out the old flowers and change over the arrangements.  They continue the tradition of cutting fresh flowers and foliage from the gardens and then selecting suitable containers from the Flower Room to make arrangements in six rooms.  Ursula Hayward was a great fan of Constance Spry and her innovative approach to arranging flowers.  There are a dozen or more books by her in the collection on the art of flower arranging (see recent biography ‘The Surprising Life of ConstanceSpry’ by Sue Shephard).  This British woman almost single-handedly changed the approach to arranging flowers, breaking it free from highly architectural arrangements and the dominance of white blooms of 1920s  and 1930s. Her use of unusual vessels for arrangements and informality in their assemblage brought a refreshing visual richness to interiors breaking away from rigid symmetry.
Ursula Hayward acquired three antique cradles and had the copper trays made to line their bottoms so that arrangements and pots of colour such as orchids could be brought into the house.