Exhibition Hidden Treasures: Forty Hall, a Family Home.
Visitors are invited to step back in time to when the Hall was a much loved family home and to discover more of Enfield’s rich and fascinating history. Displayed in the Chamber and Corridor Gallery, the public can enjoy an exhibition of photographs and beautifully restored portrait of those who once lived and visited the Hall.
From idea to creation, Forty Hall manger Hatice Abdullah envisaged an exhibition that would “enhance Forty Hall’s role as a heritage attraction, by revealing hidden stories from the past and inspiring personal connections”.
Hidden Treasures: Forty Hall, a Family Home achieves these aims, providing visitors with a glimpse of Forty Hall as it would have been in previous times. Photographs of the Bowles and Parker Bowles family provide a unique insight into the lives of the last family to have lived at the Hall and visitors will recognize the place they know and love captured in reprints of photographs from 1890s and 1950s.
“We explored every pond and stream, clambered amongst the roofs and cellars and played games with a pet goat we named Giddy who we kept tethered under the Cedar tree.” Andrew Parker Bowles reflecting on growing up at Forty Hall.
A highlight of the exhibition, Forty Hall is proud to reveal a recently restored painting of “Portrait of a Woman” newly dated as 1913 and identified as Lady Florence (Dolly) Bowles, the wife of Henry Ferryman Bowles.