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French are
urged to buy poets' home
Call for Premier to intervene
THE French government is under pressure to buy Camden Town’s
very own Poet’s Corner – the house where writers Arthur
Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine lived, loved and fell out.
Campaigners searching for a buyer for No 8 Royal College Street
have claimed silver-haired French Prime Minister Dominique de
Villepin has been personally informed of the possibility that
the house could be sold by the Royal Veterinary College.
It is feared the property could fall into the hands of a developer,
which would bulldoze the building to maximise income from the
land.
The house – built in 1806 – is up for sale but the
college has agreed to hold off completing any deal to see if
a buyer emerges who is interested in preserving the property
as it is.
The sale has sparked a high-profile campaign involving a host
of well-known faces from the world of literature, including
poet Tom Paulin, novelist Julian Barnes, who lives in Highgate,
and actor and writer Simon Callow.
The French poets became lovers and lived in the house in 1873.
But it was also the scene of their fiery falling out after Verlaine
famously hit Rimbaud in the face with a wet fish.
Rimbaud, perhaps best remembered for the poem Les Illuminations,
was later shot by Verlaine.
Rimbaud fan Colette Levy, who lives in Aspern Grove, Belsize
Park, said an intervention by M de Villepin could provide a
solution.
She said: “The answer to the problem concerning this famous
house is simple: Let the French government buy it and turn it
into a lively museum where readings would be welcome. This should
be a really big campaign for Francophiles.”
In 2004, a successful application to English Heritage for a
blue plaque at the house was made by poet Philip Hobsbaum, a
professor of literature at Glasgow University. But an objection
by the College prevented the plaque being put up.
In an article for The Times on Saturday, Mr Callow said: “It
would be wonderful to preserve the house in which they loved,
wrote and fought in its present form: there is some kind of
poetic rightness in the dilapidation of the façade, something
true to the rickety destinies of the two writers.
“But realistically it needs to be restored. The college
is keen to sell the houses – which are Grade II-listed
– to someone who will restore them, particularly No 8,
which might become a study centre or at the very least a place
in which the lives and work of the great poètes maudits
are remembered and celebrated.”
A spokesman for the Veterinary College advised prospective buyers
to contact its property office. |
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