Category: Places
After spending what Laura Knight described a dreadful six months in Plymouth, where initially Harold had sought medical treatment for his mouth infections, followed by Laura falling severely ill necessitating her having to stay in a nursing home they took a few weeks holiday to stay with Peter Ormrod at his home in Wyresdale Park, Lancashire for Harold to complete a portrait commission of Peter’s wife and their daughter.
Colonel Paynter, who owned an estate covering much land in and around Lamorna, and his wife had become very friendly with Laura Knight and wished to help the Knights in finding a place of their own. The Colonel instructed his Estate agent Gilbert Evans to turn Oakhill, then two cottages, into a completely re furbished house.
On moving into Oakhill the Knights employed a tramp called Ernest who allegedly spoke seven languages and his wife, whom they had been introduced to by Dr Griffin of Plymouth, to completely landscape the waste nland behind the cottage into a beautiful garden
© Reproduced with permission of The Estate Dame Laura Knight DBE RA 2020 All Rights Reserved