Posted by Ed Kiser on April 04, 2003 at -1:09:55 from 152.163.188.167 user Kisered.
FIRST FLOOR - BECKFOOT
----------------------------RIVER------------
....................................BOATHOUSE
.
.
. y a r d, with daisies
.
.
.
.............KITCHEN
GARAGE
PIGEONLOFT
..................GARDEN.DOOR
...........KITCHENDOOR
......PASSAGEWAY..PANTRY
............REARDOOR
......LIBRARY..H....DINING
...............A...................garden
......OFFICE...L....DRAWING(piano)
...............L...........................woods
......PARLOUR.......CF's.STUDY
...........FRONTDOOR
(Just ignore all those periods. They are there to
keep this picture from being shifted into total
nonsense on the TARBOARD.)
Relative sizes are not to be judged from these
layout. The garage and pigeon loft are well
across the yard, not up next to the house.
The house is not in a truly North/South
orientation, but is more with the kitchen end
being at the NORTH/WEST, and the front door being
at the SOUTH/EAST.
The garden door is on the east side of the
kitchen. The kitchen has two doors, the garden
door to the east, and the kitchen door that opened
into the passageway. To get from kitchen to the
dining room, carrying a tray of food, Cook had to
go out the kitchen door, cross the passageway, go
into the rear door of the main house, then
immediately to the left into the dining-room.
Pretty interesting navigation especially while
juggling a large tray of plates.
The stairs are in the HALL, with the bottom near
the rear door. The top of the stairs come out at
the landing, which is at the front of the upstairs
hall. These stairs are on one side of the hall.
As to which side, I can find no evidence to
determine that specific location. Since there is
a reference to the landing, which is just between
the guest room (G.A.'s bedroom) and CF's bedroom
(where Dick got to spend one night), this seems to
indicate that the top of the stairs is at the
front of the house at the landing, which implies
the bottom is at the rear of the house. It would
take a considerable wider hallway to support the
idea that the stairs have the bottom end at the
front of the house, with a 180 degree turn halfway
up, to have the top back at the front of the
house. The location of the bottom of the stairs
at the rear is indicated by where the G.A. went
when investigating a strange noise during the
burglarly, and that is she went first to the
kitchen, which is at the rear, then made her way
towards the front of the house, checking each of
the rooms in turn, from dining to drawing then
finally to the study.
To go from the garden into the main house, enter
the garden door into the kitchen, then out the
kitchen door into the passageway, then in through
the rear door into the hall way of the main house.
Coming in from the yard, where Rattletrap would be
parked in the garage, or (in earlier stories) the
carriage, entry would be into the passageway, then
into the rear door into the hall way of the main
house.
This mode of entry, here at the rear of the house,
is very convenient to the bottom of the stairs,
thus providing quick access to the upstairs for
anyone coming into the house.
The front door entry way is reserved for more
formal usage, but is normally not the way entry or
exit is made to the house, unless access to CF's
STUDY is the immediate goal upon entry, as when CF
came home and found Dick working with Aqua Regia
in the study, CF may have come in through the
front door, as he was carrying some large piece of
luggage and would want to drop it off as near to
the entrance as possible. However, the manner of
his entry is of no importance and is merely
conjecture on my part.
The passageway is where the teatray and its
pigeon-activated bell is hung from a beam in the
overhead.
To answer a call of the pigeons, one would dash
out the rear of the house, into the passageway,
across the yard to the garage, up the ladder to
the pigeon loft, and pull the swinging pigeon door
back down to still that infernal noise.
Each of these rooms have a doorway to the hall.
Each of these rooms on the first floor have a door
between it and its neighboring room.
A fireplace chimney is in the wall shared by the
dining-room and the drawing-room, with a fireplace
opening on both sides thus serving the heating
needs of both rooms. There is another chimney in
the wall between the study and the drawing-room.
As for the fireplace (or fireplaces) in the
drawing-room, it is not known if that opening is a
part of the chimney shared with the dining room or
the chimney shared with the study. I would
venture the guess that it would be the one shared
with the dining room, since the dining room is apt
to need the heating on a more regular basis than
the study.
The pantry is small, located at the end of the
passageway. There is one reference where Cook
says she was going through the passageway to get
to the pantry.
The passageway is completely open at the end
towards the garage and pigeon loft, the other end
being blocked with the pantry.
The kitchen is in a separate building away from
the main house. It is somewhat connected by this
open air passageway - pantry facility, which is
covered by a roof, as indicated by the mention of
a BEAM overhead in the passageway permitting a
place upon which to hang the noisy teatray and its
pigeon - operated bell.
Perhaps the kitchen is separated from the main
house for two reasons: It is in the kitchen where
the cooking is done, and that involves a fire. At
one time, this fire and the cooking was done in
the fireplace, with a big hook swinging over the
fire in the fireplace from which to hang a kettle,
and later by the use of a stove that was still
heated by a fire, very likely burning wood. The
presence of a fire does present a possible hazard,
so by separating the two buildings, there is hope
that any fire in the kitchen can be contained and
kept from involving the main house itself. The
other reason for a separate kitchen is that
cooking is a year round activity, with a fire
generating heat being used even during the hot
days of Summer. Having this heat in a separate
building will help avoid the unwanted heat in the
main house.
No mention of a woodpile anywhere, but I can
conjecture there may be a supply of wood just
outside the kitchen door in the passageway, where
it is out of the way and out of the weather to
remain dry, leaving enough room to walk past into
the yard.
As to the location of this kitchen fireplace,
there is disagreement from conflicting evidence
shown in two drawings. In one drawing of the D's
on top of the promontory, looking down on the NO
GO message, there is a chimney shown at the
extreme end of the kitchen, the end farthest away
from the main house. Yet in the drawing of the
D's lookin out through the woods down onto the
front of Beckfoot at the gathering crowd of Col.
Joly's firefighters assembling to start the search
for the missing G.A., this shows no chimney at the
far north end of the kitchen, but a shorter
chimney right up against the main part of the
house. Such a location would seem to violate the
two reasons I outlined above justifying the
separation of kitchen from the main house, so I am
inclined to want to consider the chimney being at
the far north end, as far away from the main house
as possible, as shown in the "NO GO" drawing.
If indeed Cook is a "live-in" servant, then her
quarters are probably somewhere in the kitchen,
behind some interior partition. There is no
reference to such in the writings. She never
seemed to sleep; she was just always "there."
The entire other (west) side of downstairs rooms
is purely guesswork, not based on any information
provided anywhere in the stories, at least, none
that I could ascertain. Here, I have suggested a
PARLOUR, an OFFICE (or DEN, if you like) with DESK
from which to conduct the business of the estate,
and then a LIBRARY, which perhaps has large
portraits of ancestors in addition to a few old
books. The Parlour of course is for formal usage
only, to officially greet visitors, to present for
viewing the body of a deceased loved one lying in
state, to visit with the Vicar when he comes
calling, where the weddings are to be held. This
is more for show than for daily usage. This
fireplace is apt to be the most elegant of the
house, perhaps with mohagony colunms on both
sides, with slate facings around the opening, with
a large mirror above the mantlepiece. Upon the
mantle is a large formal photograph of Molly and
Bob, taken at their wedding. This description of
course is not documented anwhere, as it exists
only in my own visual image of the place.
There is a reference to that photograph being on
the mantle piece of the parlour, but that
reference is not in any writings of Ransome
himself, but, if Prue Eckett will look in her
writings about these characters some ten years
later, there is a reference to that wedding
picture in the parlour on the mantlepiece. Not
that such a reference makes it official, but it is
there...
There is probably as many different ideas
regarding this west side of the down stairs as
there are people giving this any thought. I have
offered here my own personal opinion, but cannot
substantiate these with any evidence.
As for the upstairs:
....MOTHER....H....NANCY/
..............H....PEGGY
..............H
..............H
...NURSERY....H....BATH
...PLAYROOM.S.H....ROOM
............S.H
............S.H
...CF'S.....LAND-..GUEST
...BEDROOM..ING....ROOM.(G.A.)
Where "H" is the hallway, and "S" is the upper
portion of the stairs, coming up to the landing
from the first floor.
As a cross reference:
Nancy and Peggy's bedroom is above the dining
room.
The Bath Room is shown above the drawing-room, but
is not necessarily the same size as that room.
The Guest Room is directly above CF's Study.
There is nothing above the kitchen, as it is only
a single story in height.
It is believed that the corner rooms have two
windows, thus providing the cross-ventilation. In
support of this, Nancy looked to the north and saw
the Morse code of "NP" (for North Pole) being
flashed, so knew that the D's were there. She
would be looking from her bedroom, over the top of
the kitchen, towards the north to see this signal.
There is a bathroom, but its location is purely my
guesswork.
The usage of the room between Mother's and CF's
bedroom is also pure guesswork. As the children
became older, this perhaps became a sewing room.
It would be desirable to have a baby near by so
any cry could be heard, but not necessarily right
in the same room as the Mother, so I suggest this
function in this location. There is no mention of
any nursery or sewing room. There probably would
be a door between Mother's and the Nursery rooms,
but no mention of such is in the texts.
These rooms all open onto the hallway. There is
no mention of any other doors between the rooms on
this second floor, which of course does not mean
there are none.
There is a mention of a "box-room", but no
indication as to where such is located. It may be
in an attic location, but not sure how such a
location is to be accessed, or it may be in the
attic of the outbuilding (the garage) beside the
pigeon loft.
In the Red Fox paper back edition of PM, the front
cover shows Beckfoot as having a row of dormer
windows protruding through the roof, thus
suggesting the presence of a third story, or
perhaps, just windows in the attic. This picture
also shows the trellis to be on the LEFT end of
the building, not on the right, as shown in
Ransome's drawing of the "NO GO" view. Such a
picture is to be taken with a grain of salt, as
such was done by some hired graphic artist, not by
Ransome himself, so that artist did not
necessarily have that firm a "picture" in mind of
the house before doing the drawing. I consider
this cover picture to be useless in determining
any feature of this house, and should be ignored.
There is a stable, presumed to be associated with
the garage, as there was a horse to pull the
carriage. Once Rattletrap came into existance,
there is no mention of the continued existance of
the carriage nor of the horse that pulled it.
There is some sort of storage shed, a place in
which to keep the lawn mower, and very likely
other gardening tools. This storage area could be
there along with and beside the garage.
The books that provided most of the text and
pictoral references regarding the layout of
Beckfoot are Pigeon Post and Picts and Martyrs,
with a little info from Winter Holiday. I have
gone through these texts very carefully in order
to draw up the above conclusions. Those items
that either their existance is not known or their
location is not known according to these texts I
have so documented as being shown here with some
guesswork on my part involved. Unless so noted,
the location of the other items I feel fairly
positive about, with justifying references to
afirm these features.
I also wish here to acknowledge the valuable help
provided by John Nichols in Texas, as he and I
have been swapping many emails proving and
disproving various features of this house. This
does not say that he is in full agreement of what
I am proposing here, but I do appreciate his input
and observations as being very helpful in this
process.
Ed Kiser, South Florida