Three Rivers Museum Trust chairman Fabian Hiscock explains how a previous article has brought more information to light about a former building in Rickmansworth.

We don’t usually revisit stories in the column, but this one’s worth it. It’s one of those where it’s the way the story has unfolded (rather than the story itself) that’s interesting to us, and we hope to Watford Observer readers as well.

You’ll remember that we’d got as far as Francis Reckitt founding the Artists’ Rest Home in a new Mount Pleasant building at the top of Solomons Hill, Rickmansworth, in 1929. A few days after that story was published a local man, Mr Brian Marsden, generously brought a painting by Mr Reckitt himself into the museum: his grandmother had worked at Mount Pleasant for some time, and when it closed in 1959 she had been given it as a memento. He had visited the Home with her as a boy, and was able to sketch its location. That led us to a large-scale pre-war map of the area, and although it’s not labelled it’s clear which house it was. That has allowed us to identify it in aerial photos from the 1930s, and the appearance can now be confirmed from two other sources.

Watford Observer: Booklet: The Mount Pleasant Artists Rest Home. Image: Three Rivers Museum Booklet: The Mount Pleasant Artists Rest Home. Image: Three Rivers Museum

The first is a booklet by and about the Home which was for sale by an antiquarian bookseller. Dating from between the first opening in 1929 and Mr Reckitt’s death in 1933, it not only describes the house and its accommodation, but lists the Trustees (led by Mr Reckitt) and the main staff (the medical officer was a local doctor). It gives the house rules, and includes the application form. With the help of a generous grant from the Hertfordshire Heritage Fund, which exists to help local items of this sort to be kept in Hertfordshire, the museum has bought it for our collection - it’s every bit what we hoped, and we’re very grateful to the Fund for their support. It’s how a collection like ours is developed and enriched.

Watford Observer: Photo from the booklet: Mount Pleasant exterior. Image: Three Rivers Museum Photo from the booklet: Mount Pleasant exterior. Image: Three Rivers Museum

One of the photos in the booklet is of the exterior facing out over the town from the hill just below the railway, which confirms the appearance: and another is of the ‘lounge’. That’s important because at the same time the Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust has passed us images of two more paintings, not by him but by ‘guests’ at the Home. One, by the artist Mayer Klang, was thought, but not known, by the Trust to be at Mount Pleasant – our photo of the lounge confirms it. We have no idea who might have been portrayed, but we’ll try to find out! And so the tale will continue to unfold, although not in these pages.

Watford Observer: Photo from the booklet: The lounge at Mount Pleasant. Image: Three Rivers MuseumPhoto from the booklet: The lounge at Mount Pleasant. Image: Three Rivers Museum

Now: what’s important in this story is the way so many small clues have come together to paint an increasingly rich picture. It’s not just ‘nostalgia’: it’s a whole set of things being brought together and then presented to people, like you, our readers, to prompt memory and interest, and perhaps more discoveries. That’s ‘nostalgia’!

Watford Observer: Painting – The Guests. Image: M. Klang, by permission of Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust Painting – The Guests. Image: M. Klang, by permission of Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust

The Hertfordshire Heritage Fund exists to allow accredited museums to acquire and conserve items relating to Hertfordshire’s past and make them available to the public. Find out more at http://www.hertfordshireheritagefund.co.uk/

  • Three Rivers Museum is open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 2pm to 4pm, and Saturday, 10am to 2pm. Visit https://trmt.org.uk