![\"Anrep's](\"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/image12.jpg\")
<\/a>In 1934, Gilbert and Maud Russell bought Mottisfont as their weekend home. \u00a0Maud was from a German Jewish family (Nelkes) and during WW2, she helped Jewish families leave Germany and bought or rented homes for them in England. \u00a0She was a patron of the arts and Mottisfont became a place for artists, designers, writers and philosophers of the day – guests included Ian Fleming, Rex Whistler, Norah Lindsay and Derek Hill to name a few. \u00a0Wandering through the house and gardens today, it must have been a wonderful place to be before the \u00a0horrors of WW2. \u00a0The Tribe always look out for the mosaic angel in a secret corner of the house and garden. Created by the Russian artist Boris Anrep in 1947 (he became Maud’s lover), the angel bears a remarkable resemblence to Maud – Anrep’s angel.<\/p>\n The ancient plane tree outside the house, where the Tribe once climbed and played, is now roped off to prevent any further damage. \u00a0It is believed to be 300 years old and the oldest tree of its kind in the country.<\/p>\n Crossing the Abbey Stream, a man-made channel made to bring the River Test closer to the house, the Tribe spot the new Wild Play Area – a climbing bog. \u00a0Mucky, muddy and perfect! \u00a0Only one of them manages to fall in – I won’t say which one, but you can possibly guess. \u00a0Now they want one at home too – minus the bog perhaps.<\/p>\n We make a quick pitstop at the Kitchen Cafe, situated in the original kitchens, before heading to the grounds next to the stables where the Tribe want to find the old ice house, hidden deep amongst a copse of trees, where ice was once packed tightly together in order to keep meat and other perishables from going off. \u00a0And of course to provide plenty of ice for the occasional G&T.<\/p>\n The Tribe have a final game of chase around the stunning Winter Garden situated near the font – a spring of pure water running for over a thousand years.<\/p>\n On this vist we didn’t see the fishing hut, the stables, the lime walk, the walled rose garden, the old summer house or even visit inside the house. \u00a0Here the Tribe love the beautiful drawing room, known as the Whistler Room. \u00a0Rex Whistler was commissioned to paint it in Gothic fantasy trope l’oeil. \u00a0At the top of one arch he painted a tiny pot of ink with a paintbrush left in it to show that he would be back to finish his work. \u00a0He also wrote in small print, “I was painting this ermine curtain when Britain declared war on the Nazi tyrants, Sunday, September 3rd, RW”. \u00a0Tragicallly he went to the Front never to return. \u00a0Just another fascinating fact to be found amidst this wonderful place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mottisfont is a National Trust property in Hampshire, just 25 minutes away from us. \u00a0 It dates back to medieval times and is set in glorious grounds. \u00a0As it is so close, we have been taking the Tribe there ever since we moved out of London, arriving by both car and bike and we seem…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[226,76],"tags":[229,87,231,227,287,228,230],"class_list":["post-1353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mottisfont","category-uk-days-out","tag-boris-anrep","tag-featured","tag-ice-house","tag-maud-russell","tag-mottisfont","tag-rex-whistler","tag-the-climbing-bog","wpcat-226-id","wpcat-76-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/image22.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4llmx-lP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1353"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1370,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1353\/revisions\/1370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>