VINE COTTAGE – ODD HOME FOR GENIUS
Mr Bertram Jones – the Badsey craftsman who claims to be the last of the London ivory carvers – has had to find a new workshop. Evesham RDC has made an order for the demolition of the one behind his home at Vine Cottage in Chapel Street. Vine Cottage, where Mr Jones has carried on his craft, making beautifully-carved red and white chess sets for sale all over the world, is an unusual building. It has a steeply pitched roof, bricks of odd shapes, two windows which cannot be opened, wall which do not square and old oak beams with mortices where cannot have been partitions.
Says Mr Jones, “There’s a funny thing about this place. They say a famous man, a poet I think, died here. Buried in the Abbey …”
According to local historical research, the famous man was not a poet. He was a musician, the first great pianoforte virtuoso – Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), the man who taught Beethoven and was Haydn’s friend.
He died in Elm Cottage, Evesham, in 1932. Shortly after his death, the cottage was demolished and was bought by a builder who, having taken it down, rebuilt it at Badsey and lived in it himself. Hence the structural oddities of Vine Cottage – once the home of a great musician.
At the moment, Mr Jones is working on decorations for the royal palace at Baghdad – but his royal customers will not be kept waiting. Mr Harry Stewart, one of Badsey’s rural councilors, has provided Mr Jones with a new workshop.
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An article in the Birmingham Daily Post three days earlier said:
IVORY MAN HAS OFFERS OF WORKSHOP
Mr Bertram Jones, the ivory carver of Badsey, near Evesham, whose unusual workshop is to be demolished, has received two offers of alternative accommodation for his workshop – both in Badsey.
When the building he uses for a workshop at the present time is demolished, his living accommodation in that part of the premises called Vine Cottage will not be disturbed.
The Vicar of Badsey (Rev W B Chapman) said yesterday that the demolition was due to an order of Evesham Rural Council and not to the need of churchyard extensions. The land, he said, had not been offered to the church.