Rooms to come...

In total I plan to build nearly 30 rooms in the castle, including a library, billiard room, saloon, dining room, kitchen, scullery, cellar, dungeon, Elizabethan long gallery, bedchamber and closets. So I have got a long way to go!

Here are some sneak previews of the ideas I have for some of the rooms...

Here is my hand-made billiard table: a lucky find on e-bay, and, I think, a unique design.

This is the Grotto, the only bit of the gardens I have planned so far. The shells were collected over three generations by my Grandmother, my Mum and myself. I'm glad to have finally given them a home outside of an ice-cream box.

I plan to use poster tubes as towers for spiral staircases.

This is part of the staircase, with a balustrade based on Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. I hope to make loads of portraits, giving a family home to some of those "portraits of an unknown lady or man" pictures you feel curious about and sorry for in museums. I want to call the staircase The Deathly Hallows in honour of HP but also because I want to have paintings on the theme of death, so that the stairs represent a transition to the other world. The cellar and a hallway are beneath, and the battlements above.

Leading to The Deathly Hallows will more stairs, this time made of oak (or rather cardboard balusters and newel posts of bolser wood and an old fan). The room will be a celebration of Shakespeare, with  figures from his plays on top of the newel posts, paintings inspired by the plays on the walls, and stained glass depicting some characters in the Histories, in particular Richard III. The doorway from the stairs to the Great Hall is guarded by a "stuffed" bear called Helena in honour of her namesake's line in A Midsummer Niggt's Dream "I am as ugly as a bear," and of the infamous stage direction "exit pursued by a bear." This room will be called Perchance to Dream.

The most expensive piece in any stately home is the King's Bed, and so it is with mine, a fabulous commission made for me by Peartree Miniatures, overflowing with pagan symbols like dragons, green men, oak leaves, and Pan in the centre. The Mortlake tapestries in the bedchamber are from Hatfield House, and represent the four seasons. The name of the bedroom will be PAN, the theme being the countryside, nature, the Greek faun god himself, and pantheism - the idea that the divine can be found in All That Is.

The Seven Inner Temples

Not content with the Pagan Chapel, I wanted to include a series of further 'sacred' spaces hidden in the wall of the Chapel Tower. The idea came to me over Christmas 2013 whilst building the chapel: what if the effigy of the tomb flipped up to reveal a secret passage, and where would it lead? Following the theme in the chapel of linking up different religions, I started imagining a Roman Temple, a sacred Pagan cave, a garden grotto, an Egyptian chamber... I already had shells for the grotto, stones for the cave and Egyptian figurines I'd collected, so it was only a matter of time before I'd imagined seven tiny scenes to represent the seven chakras. 

This fantasy diversion is not as carefully researched as the rest of the castle, and is only a bit of (time-consuming) fun, but I've enjoyed just going with the flow rather than planning too carefully...

GOGMAGOG: The Earth Chakra

The cave for the Earth or Root Chakra is made from tiny stones and fossils I've collected since I was a child without knowing why. I wasn't sure whether the human skulls made this too much of a crypt, but when naming it, I wanted to use names of giants as they are often associated with the origins of ancient features of the earth. Gog and Magog, the two biblical giants who now guard London (heraldically speaking), seemed to provide a good London-based name for the ancestral skulls in the crypt, and for the shrine itself.

SULIS: The Water Chakra Shrine

Behind the cave is the Water Chakra's grotto, made from shells collected over three generations by my Granny, my Mum and me. I don't think any of us thought they would end up sorted by colour, shape and size, and then stuck in a miniature grotto! 

Five shells have pools of water flowing between them, representing the pentagram of Venus, whose bronze statue rises from them as the myths say she was born - from an oyster shell at sea. The waterfalls were made from transparent plastic wire (the kind used to tag labels to clothes), brushed repeatedly with varnish and held in place with metal rods whilst drying (see below). Seven in number, they represent chi flowing between the seven chakras. 

The entrance to the grotto is a mock Roman Temple facade, and the green man like face in the ceiling is from the Roman Baths of Aquae Sulis (originally an oddly male and Celtic Gorgon, possibly Neptune, within the temple's pediment, surrounded by snakes for hair). Of less erudite interest are the two frogs, the terrapin and Aladdin's lamp, all recycled beads. 

ATEN: The Third Chakra Egyptian Chamber

Leading up from the spiral staircase by the grotto is an Egyptian chamber filled with golden artifacts. I couldn't think how to represent the third chakra, except that it's symbol is a pyramid. So here it is. 

The other entrance to this chamber is via a secret rope ladder, made from skewers and string, hanging beneath the effigy of Paganus Trenchard in the chapel. The Egyptian figurines have to be placed just out of teach of the tomb effigy as it flips up to reveal the secret passage! 

The Heart Chakra

Facing East, in the eyeline of the effigy of Paganus is a gothic window to a tiny chamber containing a statue of the Virgin Mary with a modern stained glass window behind. This figure was bought in Glastonbury when I was a kid and I kept it for twenty odd years, always intended her to be in the castle's chapel. So here she is, the figure of the Divine Feminine in the chamber of the Heart Chakra. She has two windows each side of her, one connecting her to my dead Ancestor, Paganus, the other connecting her to you, the living viewer. 

GUANYIN: The Bellfry

For the throat chakra of communication it seemed appropriate to include a chapel bell. I was thinking of using an old plastic Christmas decoration but then I found a small Buddhist bell, a souvenir from a trip to China, and that seemed to fit the overall polyreligious theme. 

The third eye, centre of wisdom, is here the nest of some wise barn owls, raising their young in the beams. 

And I had to have bats in the Bellfry too, so I thought, as they are a symbol of mammals' evolution from land to air, like birds are to dinosaurs, that they could represent the final chakra of the body, the crown, with its associations of transformation from the physical world to the ethereal. 

And there you have it: a crazy sequence of seven sacred shrines, or chakra chambers, hidden in a cardboard wall three inches wide!

Looking at the shrines later I realise that each shrine is inspired by a different stage in the history of human religion, from its roots in the earth's landscape; through Celtic and Greco-Roman amalgamation of deities; the beginnings of monotheism and resurrectionism in Egypt, leading to Judaism, Christianity and Islam; to Buddhism ringing out its long-suffering bell in the belfry. Perhaps not so crazy as I thought. I often find my instinct for creating something can be explained thematically after the act of creation. 

PAGANUS: Stories in stained glass

I wanted to make the stained glass windows from see-through packaging. The designs are taken from various real life windows that I have photographed in churches I've visited or that I've found photos of online. I then scale down the photograph on a computer to the appropriate size for the window aperture, and then trace the design onto the packaging with Sharpies. I wondered about just colour printing the image but doing it by hand was more fun, and also allowed me to change the colour scheme from the original, and to draw the background designs freehand.

I'm still not sure about the result: the colours of the Sharpies are limited, even considering that I sometimes mix the colours, either like paint on the packaging surface, or by colouring each side with a different colour. I am also not sure whether the pinks and purples are too modern for a Victorian chapel. But I don't really want to remake every window as it is quite a time-consuming process. Any thoughts? Many of the photos below were taken before I had finished all the stained glass, but I've included them to show the process.

I wanted the design to be Christian on the surface, but hiding a secret code. The left hand window represents the Heavens, with angels on a starry sky background - Archangels Raphael, Michael and Gabriel in the main three windows. 

The right hand window with its green leafy background represents the Earthly domain, specifically England, with King Arthur, St George and Joseph of Arimathea in the main three windows, suggesting a secret Grail code. 

The central window has an androgynous St John in the centre, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," thought by some to represent Mary Magdalene in Da Vinci's famous Last Supper. To his/her left is St Christopher who "bears" Christ, and to the right is St Margaret, patron saint of childbirth. Above them will be Gabriel coming from heaven (on the left) to tell Mary she will bear the Christ-child, next to the risen Christ appearing in the garden (on the right) to Mary Magdalene, below the Holy Grail in the topmost window. Any ideas what secret code this window is trying to suggest? It's very derivative from the Da Vinci Code I know...

Each of the three windows has a dragon, slain or tamed by St Michael, St Margaret and St George. The upper scenes in the Earth window also show serpents: the snake tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden, and Moses rebuking the Israelites for worshipping the Bronze Serpent (with a child being compared to it as Christ is the alternative). 

If the secret message of the central window is that Mary Magdalene bore Christ's child (like the serpent arising from the chalice of St John in the centre), then the Earth window suggests that her serpent child came to Britain, and headed a lineage of dragons, the Pendragons, whose most famous King was Arthur. Joseph of Arimathea on the far right looks suspiciously like Merlin, and, with Glastonbury Tor in the background, he guards the San Greal itself. 

PAGANUS: The Ancestral Tomb

The tomb on the South wall of the chapel is for Paganus Trenchard, the earliest recorded Trenchard in England. He collected the Danegeld for Henry I in the Isle of Wight and lived at Hord Hill, or Hordle or Hord Hall: old medieval spellings differ radically thus muddle the place's original association - was it a hall or a hill or both? I have named my castle after this place, so that it is an imaginary family seat, a Hord of all the treasures the family might have passed down to each other through the ages if they hadn't moved to Dorset, Somerset and beyond. 

I have also named the chapel after its deceased occupier, so it is PAGANUS or the Pagan Chapel, with symbolic references in it to Celtic, Roman, Jedi, Jewish, Daoist, Vedic, Christian and pre-Roman Earth religions, and to nature. 

Inspiration for the tomb's design comes from Archbishop ?'s tomb in Norwich Cathedral (below). 

But the effigy itself was a lucky find in Canterbury Cathedral gift shop. It's actually a statue of the Black Prince's tomb (below). I know it has a crown on it which is unbefitting Paganus, but it looks better than the statue of Henry VIII's armour that I was going to use instead.

Below is the tomb in construction with the originally intended effigy occupant: a statuette of Henry VIII's armour from the Tower of London.

The green and red card is from exercise book covers, decorated with gold and black pens to resemble the original model at Norwich, and the stonework is made of layers of cereal packet card, between two and eight layers thick. The fleurs de lys at the top are a brass etching and the bosses beneath include a green man, a dragon, an angel and a squirrel, all cut out of cereal packet card. The backing is wrapping paper, and the side pillars are hexagonal pencils layered up with card strips.

The inside ceiling of the tomb (all cereal packet card again) is probably the most complicated part, and will be hardly visible when finished so here is a photo of it as the effigy would see it.

I want the effigy of the tomb to tip up revealing a secret passageway. This means I have to wait until I've worked out where this leads before I can complete the tomb and the wall behind. This shows the working inside: 

PAGANUS: The Pagan Chapel

I've been making the chapel over about three years (whilst touring so not at home much). I've tried to make as much as possible out of recycled materials: the walls are made from cardboard boxes, the stonework from cereal packet card, and the pillars from pencils, painted to look like marble. 

The floor is colour printed. Some medieval tiles from Clarendon Place are displayed in the British Museum on a wall: I thought they deserved a home on a floor so using a photograph from a book, I have duplicated the tile patterns on the computer to fit my chapel floor, and then scored it to make individual tiles. 

The altar step bears the inscription 

"I am (Yahweh in Hebrew and Judaism) the Way (Tao in Chinese philosophy), the Truth (in Greek philosophy) and the Life" (Prana in Sanskrit and the Vedas). This biblical phrase is usually taken to mean that Christ is the only route to heaven, but I've always thought it should mean the opposite: that enlightenment comes from oneness with All That Is (the great creative principle I Am) and that this doctrine can be discovered in many different cultures, philosophies and religions, not just via Christianity. So in my chapel, one would have to climb this epistological step to reach the altar.

PAGANUS: Chapel in construction

The windows are made from folded up strips of cereal packet. Each window took about two days to make. The design is common in Somerset churches. I had to cheat with the arches as I couldn't bend folded card to the correct angle. Instead I used an arched insert over the inner wall to give the illusion that the window arched.

For the chancel roof, layers of coloured card are kept in place using corrugated card templates and wood glue. The blue starry sky design is loosely based on decoration in the side chapels of Notre Dame.

By contrast, the nave ceiling is largely copied from the tudor Choir roof in Peterborough Cathedral where I used to sing as a Lay Clerk. 

It took me ages to work out how to measure the right angles and curves to cut the card to the right dimensions to form the vaulting.

The bosses are my own design of zodiac signs and other constellations, each less than a cm in diameter, cut out from gold card from a Christmas cracker. 

The yellow background card is stained with tea bags to get a similar colour to the original in Peterborough.

The gold-black ribbing that joins the bosses is made from cocktail sticks and willow reed, all laboriously painted.

And below is the original in Peterborough. Mmm, putting the two photographs together makes me realise how different the colours in my model are from the original but it's too late now!

The central roof boss reflects my love of Star Wars: 

I decapitated a Yoda toy, set him in blue tack and surrounded him with modelling clay painted leaves to make him into a green man boss like the ones in Norwich Cathedral cloister.

The arches beneath the windows in the chancel are decorated with tiny leaves cut from card: oak, vine, ivy and holly. Below is how they looked before being stuck in place.

I debated for ages how to make the capitals of the chancel pillars, but eventually decided to use the same leaf technique as the arches, cutting out a strip of cardboard leaves, and then bending it round layers of card stuck to the pencil.

Opposite the tomb are some romanesque arches, copied from Peterborough and Durham Cathedrals, and Bristol library gateway. 

I eventually found a way to make the curved edges at the bottom of each arch, by curling strips of card, and then tea staining individual 'stones' to make it look less like one piece of cereal packet card.

The photographed skeleton monument in one of the arches is a detail from Norwich Cathedral and bears the inscription: 

"All you that do this place pass bye

Remember death for you must dye

As you are now even so was I

And as I am so shall you be.

Thomas Gooding here doth staye

Waiting for God's judgement daye."

The floor is printed out on a computer: I took a photo of some medieval tiles from Clarendon Place, hanging on the wall in the British Museum. I thought they deserved a chapel floor to belong to so I duplicated the design on the computer to fit my chapel, printed out the results and then scored it to feel like individual tiles.

The perfectionist in me now feels that the overall effect of the chapel is perhaps too colourful and busy to be realistic, and I wish I had studied ecclesiastical architecture's sense of proportion more before I started to better replicate the wall thicknesses, arch angles, vault thickness, etc. Still, it's been an imaginative adventure to create.