National Trust brings out the bling as stately house the Vyne gets a makeover

Visitors to the Vyne, a National Trust mansion in Hampshire that was last redecorated in the mid-18th century, will discover some eccentric intruders have got there before them, as a contemporary artist stamps his kitsch character on the place. A shocking-pink chaise longue, trailing silver tassles and ready to scuttle away on scaly legs, has taken up residence in one room, a chandelier incorporating a motorised mirror ball now hangs beneath ornate Georgian plasterwork in another, and a third room sports a chair bristling with Masonic imagery. "I'm sure they were Masons, they were all up to that sort of nonsense in those days," the designer Mark Brazier-Jones says briskly of the latter. Pieces by the New Zealand-born designer are in many museums including the V&A – and in private collections including those of Sir Elton John and Courtney Love – but his intervention in a house famed for interiors which have scarcely changed in more than two centuries is a first for the National Trust. The house near Basingstoke, originally the home of a Tudor courtier, was remodelled in the 17th century with a classical portico inspired by Inigo Jones by Chaloner Chute, who was Commons speaker under the Commonwealth. Then his great-grandson John Chute, who inherited in 1754, refurbished the house in the finest style of the times. John Chute commissioned many pieces for the Vyne, and added treasures from his years on the Grand Tour – the traditional voyage across Europe taken by wealthy young men of the time. He was regarded by his contemporaries as having impeccable taste and, as a friend of Horace Walpole, influenced the design of Strawberry Hill, the house which launched the Gothic revival, now being celebrated in an exhibition at the V&A in South Kensington. Ben Boyle, the visitor services manager at the Vyne, said Chute would have approved of Brazier-Jones's pieces. "John Chute was at the cutting edge of style in his day and Mark's flamboyant designs and vibrant use of colour and materials would have been right up his street." Brazier-Jones, who said he wants his pieces to look like "household pets" in the grand interiors, said Chute "was pretty daring and adventurous for his time, and if he were a client of mine today I'm sure we would get on famously." The designer feels the most sorry for Chute in his opulent dining room – where he has added a cluster of chairs having a chat in a corner. The man who created the room was never able to sit down to a proper dinner. His health was miserable, and after he developed gout he lived on a harrowing diet of milk and turnips. "Imagine all the fantastic things there were to eat in his day, and he couldn't touch any of them, poor man," Brazier-Jones said. Bling Meets Baroque runs at the Vyne from 29 May until 1 August. www.nationaltrust.org.uk or call 01256 883858.