🔰Exploring Bateman's, home to Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about don't deal in lies, or being hated don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. Batemans is looked after by the National Trust, a charitable body whose purpose is preservation of old buildings and areas of outstanding natural beauty. This is just like a cafe or? Yeah, I mean it serves now as a cafe with National Trust places and facilities. Okay. Ice cream room, yeah, that's really nice. Batemans was bought by Keeping in 1902. He lived here until his death in 1936. When he died, his widow Caroline became a custodian of the place, and in her will, it passed to the National Trust. And here is Rolls-Royce Phantom Mach 1, one of a handful of motor vehicles under custodianship of National Trust. It was purchased by Kipling for £2,833 in 1928, almost a third of what he paid for the house that he bought the house 25 years previously. Obviously, these cars were super expensive. Kipling was a keen motorist and enjoyed exploring Sussex by car. For instance, he took friends to Bolling Castle. The charming sandstone house is the former home of the British author. So, Kipling's house is at my back, and we are entering a small lovely garden. To my left, there's a nice tea room, where people drink a cup of tea, and the garden. So, this is the garden. This was painted by Edward Poynter, it was Kipling's uncle. It was Kipling's noble prize in 1907 for literature. He got £7,700, and he used that money, or some of that money, to land a sketchbook. So, that's, as you see it now, a pond and a laminate. The pond was a boating pond, out to the front of the house, or the back, to the side of the house. You can actually see it's covered up, there's a little paddleboat that used to have a batten on that, and a laminate. When you go to the exhibition, if you see the guest book, and you look down the names, if it says FIP, that means Ferry Pond. By the way, Kipling was the first English-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize. His strong association with India is reflected in oak furniture, Russian rugs, and artifacts displayed in this room. Sheer size of poet. Siberia marked over here, part of Asia. ...and his wife, Caroline Kipling, fell in love with this property at first sight. Nested in the Sussex wild, his sense of romance and seemingly unchanging history appealed to Kipling. This property remains very much as it was when Kipling lived and worked here. And now we are going to the very heart of this house, which is his study. Kipling's study. Thank you. Now this is his study and working library. So it's about two thousand foot in the room, and this is where he'd rush out of work in the mornings. So lovely huge desk, surrounded by all these things, and you can see his method there of writing by longhand. Face paper basket full of discarded pieces. And then the desk over there with the typewriter, the household secretary would probably type what was necessary for the day. Roger Ive would use the typewriter on occasion, it was cold at the time, he didn't like to use it. And so yeah, writing the desk. The day bed, he'd often lie on the day bed when he was wanting inspiration. He'd lie there waiting for what he described as his demon to come to him, so the ideas to come to him. And so sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. And a quarter of them are on India. You say a quarter of the books are on India. Related to India. Because obviously we have a huge collection of India, we were born there, you know, worked there for time, so huge influence on him. So yeah, none of his books are in here. It's his reference. I don't know how they're part of it, but that was restored in 1973, but it's the ship, it dates back to 1720. So it's a shipbuilder's model. And it was rigged at Liverpool, so it's a very nice ship. But it was restored in 73. And one of the models was the Cutty Sark. During the 1914-18 war, Kipling was a correspondent, and he wrote officially for the Royal Navy. And what's here? Jenny, when was the last time you've been here? Oh, like ages ago. I can't remember Cutty. Should be exciting, coming again. I mean, we used to bring friends here, and then they came to stay. This is the dining room, yes. And on the wall, covering is leather. Leather hangings depict birds and foliage. The decoration was inspired by Indian chintz designs. Would you have done when it was actually on the wall, or would they have done it on large tables and hung it? I would imagine that somehow they would have, I mean, it's calf leather, so you know how small a calf is. How many leathers you've got here, or skins, I don't know. I've never been able to see any joins. No, I love it. Whether it's done in a large stretch. Just in flight, you know, too. I mean, Kipling's bought it for £105,000. For my house down in Livington. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch. If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it. And, which is more, you'll be a man, my son.