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LES CHARLOT TIÈRES Still not having sold Whitestone, or Elm Row, Ede heard of a house on the edge of Chailles, in the region of Centre-Val de Loire. Les Charlottières was approached by an avenue of pollarded lime trees and a high gate opening onto a courtyard. On either side were dilapidated 15th-century outbuildings and a separate kitchen; beyond, a 17th-century house and twelve acres including woodland, orchards and a small vineyard. The Edes were enchanted. 40 Bought cheaply, by 1952 it had received the 'Ede' treatment: restored only sufficiently to make it habitable. Photographs show the rooms scantly furnished, with softly polished brick floors and light from the tall windows casting patterns. With the death of Ede's mother in January 1953, Ede inherited Jones's beautiful tree painting, Vexilla Regis (1948): this, too, made its way to France. The Edes grew vegetables and flowers, cultivated peaches, walnuts and grapes, preserved cherries in eau-de-vie and foraged in the woods for mushrooms. It was an idyllic existence except for the cold in winter. Inside the house, the temperature dropped to minus five. A small vase by William Staite Murray cracked in the frost. Yet, once more, Ede's ideal appeared to have eluded him. At Whitestone, there had been conviviality and purpose. At Les Charlottières, as Ede confided to Jones, 'I have built a temple of beauty – but it is uninhabited'. 41 Ede tried 'for two years or so before leaving France … to interest various Cambridge colleges in an idea I had'. 42 Bryan Robertson, then Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, recalled travelling across France in 1956 with the artist S.W. Hayter, 'an entirely terrifying driver at the wheel of his "Deux Chevaux"', to meet Ede at Les Charlottières to discuss plans to donate his art collection to Cambridge University. Robertson tried to dissuade Ede: having worked at the Heffer Gallery in Cambridge for three years, he had discovered that 'true enthusiasm for art came from none of the expected sources'. 43 While his advice went unheeded, the meeting with Ede marked the beginning of their friendship. KET TLE'S YARD On 21 November 1956, Ede first saw the location of Kettle's Yard. He had reflected deeply, writing to David Jones that he envisaged being lent a house where he could create in each room lived-in beauty, 'an atmosphere of quiet and simple charm, and open to the public (to Cambridge students especially)'. 44 The idea was an amalgam of spaces he had created or visited. Uppermost was Dumbarton Oaks: the Washington home of Robert and Mildred Bliss, where they had commissioned landscaped gardens and added a music room, library and space for their collections of Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art. When Ede visited in 1938, plans were underway to transfer everything to Harvard University, with acquisitions focusing on creating an outstanding research collection. This was the context in which Ede wrote to Dorothy Elmhirst, owner of Dartington Hall, in December 1956, that he hoped 'to create a very very poor man's Dumbarton 40 Ede, A Way of Life, p. 20. 41 Ede, letter to David Jones, 21 June 1955, David Jones Papers, quoted in Fisher, p.195. 42 Ede, 'Between Two Memories', pp.182–183, quoted in Fisher, p.195. 43 Bryan Robertson, undated letter of wishes, Kettle's Yard Archive, KY/EDE/1/1. 44 Ede to David Jones, 31 January 1956, Kettle's Yard Archive, KY/EDE/1/8/1, quoted in Freeman, p.229. 14