Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts in the final scene from Far From the Madding Crowd, half a mile away from Mapperton.

Outside Mapperton while the filming of the recent Far From the Madding Crowd was happening: here is the trailer.

Mapperton was voted ‘the nation’s finest manor house’ by Country Life and it is indeed quite extraordinary: it has beautiful gardens, an excellent café and a feeling of specialness that you don’t get at eg. the teeming Sissinghurst. We went by train: a half hour walk from the shop over Waterloo Bridge, two and a half peaceful hours to Crewkerne (punctual to the minute, which is quite odd for those of used to the old ‘British Rail’) and then fifteen minutes by taxi through the dreamy Dorset countryside.

And finally: this is a very typique painting by Malvina Cheek. It’s the view from her front steps looking across Gainsborough Gardens and down to the City. Incredibly, the view is still just about the same, Happy Hundredth Birthday Malvina!

After the war ended, two topographical books, illustrated exclusively by Malvina Cheek, were published for the Visions of England series by Paul Elek: The Black Country by Walter Allen in 1946 and Derbyshire by Nellie Kirkham in 1947. This is  Black Country Scene from the former.

Malvina painted Marlborough House, Falmouth in April 1943. It still exists although has had a lot of difficulties, with the owner failing to keep it in good repair (newspaper report here). It has just been re-sold so perhaps it will now be restored. Here is an excellent 1969 Falmouth Civic Society article about the house.

Malvina has lived in Hampstead for seventy years and not that much has changed.This view of her garden north to Well Walk was painted in the 1980s.