Robert Aickman: Worton Court

One of the highlights of Robert Aickman’s autobiography, The Attempted Rescue, is his evocation of Worton Court, the historic William-and-Mary house in Isleworth, Mid­dlesex, which was the home of his great uncle, Harry Heldmann. During his childhood, Aickman spent time staying there with his mother, and it provided a model to Aickman of how life should be lived. Worton Court included four reception rooms and ten bedrooms. Aickman described a library, a billiard room, wine cellars, back stairs, and servants’ quarters (which he was not allowed to enter). He also gave long descriptions of the fascinat­ing furniture, textiles and pictures from all over the world (including ‘a complete suit of black Japanese armour’).

 

Worton Court c.1945  

Aickman recounted Harry Heldmann’s many achieve­ments and forceful personality, summed up in the portrait:

'The animals barked around him as he strode, a white-haired Dionysus.'

 

 

Alice and Harry Heldman

 

Aickman gave the impression that there was a family fortune and social standing which had largely been lost. It was a lifestyle that Robert Aickman admired and aspired to, but Worton Court was in fact only leased by Harry Heldmann, a self-made man who worked in the City of London. After Great Uncle Harry’s death in 1932, Great Aunt Alice, Harry’s sister, continued to live in the house until her death in 1938.

The 1939 particulars of the sale of contents of Worton Court give some idea of the lavish style in which the Heldmann’s lived.

 

 

Worton Court Sale Particulars

 

 

Cutting from Middlesex Chronicle, 25th February 1939

 

Worton Court seems to have been sold to a property speculator just before the Second World War, and the house stood empty and derelict for several years before being pulled down. When I started to research Aickman’s biography I discovered that I had just missed buying a set of photographs of Worton Court from an online auction. Intriguingly, one had written on the back:

 

 

Some say it was a prison. 

But on the floor was a sheet of music with the title “Home Sweet Home”

 

Another interesting side-note, the property adjoining Worton Court, Worton Manor, was a film studio during the years that Aickman was a visitor. It is curious, given Aickman’s interest in film, that he did not mention this in his autobiography. Much of The African Queen was filmed at Worton Manor in 1951, just before the closure of the studio.

 

 

Filming at Worton Hall Film Studios. (Note local houses in background, behind the immediate set of a scale model of a castle on a hill.)

 

When Robert's Great Aunt Alice died, he spent some time at Worton Court. Aickman suggests that he was given certain duties. His mother’s sister, Aunt (Madge) Shaw, moved into the house, and Aickman may well have also lived there for a while. For a brief period he was in the surroundings to which he aspired, and he invited his girlfriends there to dinner on several occasions. He remembered this as a ‘gay’ time, but it must have also been bittersweet because the house was being prepared for sale (it would eventually be demolished), they would have been letting the servants go, and the contents were being catalogued for disposal at auction.

 

Robert Aickman: An Attempted Biography, by R.B. Russell, Tartarus Press, 2022

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Heather Smith, and Artellus, Ltd.

All photos, unless otherwise stated, are copyright Estate of Robert Aickman/British Library/R.B. Russell, and are not to be reproduced without permission and acknowledgement.