Lynn Chadwick

The building is Neo-Gothic in style, with outbuildings and extensions having been added to the house both in 1800 and in 1870.

"This place was the same price as a three-bedroom house ... and nobody wanted it, so ... I borrowed the money and came here. It was sort of wonderful, making another room habitable every year".

He set up a studio in the medieval chapel where he installed the blacksmith's anvil.

Chadwick made it his project to restore the house and garden.

Lynn Russell Chadwick, (24 November 1914 – 25 April 2003) was an English sculptor and artist.

Much of his work is semi-abstract sculpture in bronze or steel.

His work is in the collections of MoMA in New York, the Tate in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Chadwick was born in the suburb of Barnes, in western London, and attended Merchant Taylors' School in Northwood.

While there he expressed an interest in being an artist, though his art master suggested architecture was a more realistic option.

Accordingly, Chadwick became a trainee draughtsman, working first at the offices of architects Donald Hamilton and then Eugen Carl Kauffman, and finally for Rodney Thomas.

Chadwick took great inspiration from Thomas, whose interest in contemporary European architecture and design had a significant effect on his development.

His training in architectural drawing was the only formal education he received as an artist.

He recalled: "What it taught me was how to compose things, a formal exercise in composition, really, it has nothing to do with the building it represents".

In April 1941, having previously been a conscientious objector, Chadwick volunteered to serve in the Fleet Air Arm, and in 1941–1944 he served as a pilot during the Second World War escorting Atlantic convoys.

After the war, Chadwick returned to Rodney Thomas where he became involved in the design of trade-fair stands.

In March 1946, he won a £50 prize in a textile design competition, which led to a contract to produce more designs for Zika and Lida Ascher who had promoted the 's' removed competition and who owned a textile design firm.

Around the same time, Chadwick was commissioned to make exhibition stands for the Aluminium Development Corporation.

Chadwick constructed his first mobile around 1947 – which originated from ideas first proposed by Rodney Thomas.

Very few of these works survive; they were made of wire, balsa wood and cut copper and brass shapes, often fish-like and sometimes coloured.

Some were incorporated as decorative features in exhibition stands, while others found homes amongst Thomas and his circle.

Later he developed ground supports for the mobiles, transforming them into what he called "stabiles".

At the same time, he was designing fabrics and furniture.

Recalling this period, Chadwick said:

"I actually wanted to produce a sort of touchable object, a tangible object. I really wanted to do that rather than be involved with intangible things like architecture which was slightly intangible to me because it had meant, in my case, drawing after drawing after drawing for projects which were never realised. In my case, I wanted to do it to have some reality in front of me."

Desiring a better family life and more room to work, Chadwick left London in 1947, eventually settling in the hamlet of Upper Coberley, near Cheltenham.

Here he converted outbuildings into a working studio in which he worked on his designs and his first sculptures.

In August 1949 one of Chadwick's small mobiles was placed in the window of Gimpel Fils, which promoted modern British art.

In Spring 1950, British architects, artists and designers were making plans for the celebrations surrounding the 1951 Festival of Britain.

Jane Drew commissioned Chadwick to make a large-scale hanging mobile for the tower of her Riverside Restaurant on London's South Bank site, Tower Mobile.

Architect Misha Black then commissioned Chadwick to make a large fixed sculpture for the garden of the Regatta Restaurant, Stabile (Cypress), made from copper sheets and brass rods.

This work was significant in that it demonstrated Chadwick's transition from designer to sculptor.

Working on this larger scale, Chadwick quickly became aware that the techniques required for welding iron, steel, brass and copper would need learning, so in the summer of 1950 he enrolled in a welding course at the British Oxygen Company's Welding School at Cricklewood, north London.

Chadwick felt that this would solve the problem of creating large pieces suitable for public arenas.

The following year, he held his first one-man show there, which led to critical attention and several major commissions: two for the 1951 Festival of Britain complex, Tower and Cypress, and one, Green Finger, for the Battersea Park Open Air Sculpture Exhibition that year

In April 1951 Chadwick received a commission from the Arts Council of Great Britain for a large sculpture, The Fisheater, also for the Festival of Britain.

This was exhibited at the Tate Gallery from autumn 1951 through most of 1952.

In March 1951 he was invited to exhibit with the American Abstract Artists Group in New York.

In January 1952, Chadwick was asked to present to the selection committee of the XXVI Venice Biennale, resulting in his being one of eight young British sculptors who were invited to exhibit at the Biennale, including Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Geoffrey Clarke, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull.

In September 1958, Chadwick bought Lypiatt Park, a historic manor house in Gloucestershire.

In 1986 he purchased the surrounding land in Toadsmoor Valley and began to place his work there.