By Monica Jones and with thanks to Andy Hill
There is always so much interest from readers when we run anything on D’Oyly Carte Is-land and the Eyot House that sits on it. Those of you who use the towpath and river will have noticed that the moorings around the island are once again filling up and that the house itself has had some changes.
New owner, Andy Hill, promised to keep Sunbury Matters informed as they progress their plans to develop the property and we are delighted to bring you an update.
As a brief reminder of the history, the house was built by Richard D’Oyly Carte, then owner of the Savoy and director of the very successful D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, where he partnered with the famous Gilbert & Sullivan to stage their ever popular operettas. He had originally intended Eyot House to be a 5* boutique hotel, however, when the local council refused a drinking licence, D’Oyly Carte himself moved in.
D’Oyly Carte Island was the weekend retreat for many of D’Oyly’s famous hotel guests. As well as Gilbert & Sullivan, other clients he represented included JM Barrie (Peter Pan) and Oscar Wilde. The island had its own pet crocodile (a possible inspiration for JM Bar-rie) and when it escaped, D’Oyly offered a £250 reward (in todays money) for the return of his “harmless pet”. The house remembers the pet crocodile with a wooden replica housed in one of the window alcoves at the front of the house.
Aiming to retain as many ‘nods’ to the era as possible, Andy Hill has decked the olive trees on the distinctive first floor balcony of Eyot House with fairy lights. The term ‘fairy lights’ was invented at the Savoy Theatre when D’Oyly created miniature lights to adorn the dresses of the lead fairies on the opening night of one of Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic operas.
Another of D’Oyly’s innovations was when he opened the Savoy Theatre in 1881 it was the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity. D’Oyly beat Thomas Eddison, the inventor of the light bulb, by two weeks to his first public building display that was also in London. The new owners of D’Oyly Carte Island have recognised this world first by spectacularly illuminating Eyot House in a style that D’Oyly would have ap-proved of. The difference today is the lights used to illuminate the house and island are extraordinarily environmentally friendly.
The new owners have appointed London Ar-chitects, Parti, who have been instructed to maintain the history, culture and design of Eyot House, and D’Oyly Carte Island, in line with its Grade 2 listed status.
This will include repairing the significant damage caused by vandals, squatters and the elements over the last 10 years together with improvements to enhance the original design. Parti have considered a variety of sensitive alterations which they will discuss with the local authority and English Heritage, fully aware the Architect for Eyot House was the same architect that D’Oyly used at the Savoy Hotel.
As stated, the new owners have reinstated moorings around the island and have been overwhelmed with demand. So the Environ-ment Agency have been asked for ideas about how additional moorings can be provided to help others who wish to moor on the island.
The east end of the island has, since the 1970’s, made one of the two outbuildings fully equipped with a winch and slipway, to clean and maintain boats whilst the second building was used as a retail shop for a varie-ty of boating parts and accessories available to the passing boaters.
Today’s boats are more reliable and require less maintenance and there was nothing in the retail shop that could not be bought and deliv-ered by Amazon the next day! So the plan for the east end of the island is to create some-thing that will support the wider boating com-munity and local residents. Parti have a range of ideas in their feasibility study.
Maybe this area of the island could in fact wel-come the public, by obtaining the licenses that D’Oyly was unable to secure in 1890. What a fitting conclusion to D’Oyly’s unfinished busi-ness and what a very attractive place for locals it would be!
Watch this space!