Regular visitors and members of the Friends of Kenwood supporters group voiced concerns that a lucrative events hire scheme has damaged the ordinary visitor experience at Kenwood House, at a Winter Events Public Consultation on Monday.
The events, that included weekend festivals and trails, have faced criticism for not being in keeping with the historic site and for obstructing regular visitors’ enjoyment of the property.
Robert Prevezer, 67, who claimed to have visited Kenwood every day for the last fifteen years, said: “It’s all about the event, the event, the event — but what about local visitors?
“Will you take money from whoever will give it?”
Christina Pascoe, National Venue Hire Manager at English Heritage, denied this, claiming that she had turned down many offers from events planners that were ‘not right for Kenwood’.
Kenwood has hosted a number of external events in the past year including the Barcode Festival, the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival, and the FT Weekend Festival.
It also held a Halloween trail in October and will stage a Christmas-themed trail, Neverland, later this month, with both events having been organised by a private contractor, RG Live.
Concern was raised over the closure of the West Lodge car park from October to January so that it could be used as a Halloween ‘boneyard’, which has further exacerbated a shortage of parking spaces at a site popular with dog-walkers and local residents.
Prevezer described the closure of the car park as ‘the most absurd, ridiculous decision that has been made’.
Pascoe explained that this decision was made in response to complaints raised last year over damage done to the grass at the viewpoint where the boneyard used to be situated.
Helen Payne, membership secretary for the Friends of Kenwood, also questioned whether the boneyard infringed the legal protections regarding the view of St Paul’s Cathedral from the park gazebo.
Payne also suggested that the Halloween event threatened the safety of the house.
She said: “Those fireballs were right near the Rembrandts.”
Pascoe replied that every stakeholder had been consulted, including the curators.
Complaints were made that visitors and volunteers were not given advance warning of major decisions such as the closure of the car park.
Payne said: “So many of these problems could have been solved through better communication”.
Further criticising the Halloween at Kenwood event, Prevezer complained about ‘rotting corpses in cages and coffins in front of the house’ that were not suitable for families.
He said Kenwood had a ‘responsibility to protect its heritage’ and restrict events ‘that are not in keeping with the site’.
Pascoe in turn stated that the Halloween and Christmas events, although ‘not for everyone’, would bring in ‘a wide variety of audiences’ who had never visited Kenwood before.
She told the meeting that the Halloween trail attracted 23,000 visitors, but that this was not enough for the event to break even.
This is the latest episode in what some regard as a longstanding failure of English Heritage to control its contractors and a continuing trend towards the ‘dumbing down’ of cultural events at the property in an effort to raise visitor numbers.
Several other attendees remembered with fondness the lakeside classical music concerts that used to be held at Kenwood until complaints from local residents led to their cancellation in 2007.
Kenwood House was gifted to the nation in 1927 by the Earl of Iveagh and ownership was transferred to English Heritage in 1986.
For more information, visit the Kenwood House website.
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