CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 17 EAST ANGLIA COAST arm around Britten’s shoulder. Britten, after years in which their relationship was illegal, was uncomfortable with this openness and the arm was painted over, although it leaves an obvious trace in the picture. The painting summarises the semi-secret nature of the two men’s relationship and now primes the visitor for the rest of the visit to the house. The composition studio is laid out mostly as Britten would have used it. Visitors remain at one end, behind a rope, where there is a display of photographs and explanatory text, and buttons that activate recordings of Britten’s music. Although this is closer to the orthodox museum experience than the main house, the fact that the visitor is here alone and uninvigilated (except by closed-circuit TV and alarms) means that the visit can be an intimate and emotionally immediate one. The visitor experience is a multi-layered one. What is visible to the naked eye may be supplemented by information from an invigilator (factual information from the binder they carry with them, such as details of an artwork; anecdote and conversation; or, in some cases, a glimpse into the cupboards). Within the library, conversation with the invigilator may flesh out how each book may encode associations and relationships (and have ownership inscriptions or presentation letters). Further layers come from the display in the museum gallery across the yard, from information in the archive where talks about items from the collection are given several times a day, or from articles (such as the regular Archive Treasures series) on the Red House website. For each visitor the experience will be slightly different and made up of the interaction of these different elements. In addition, there will be the knowledge of Britten, Pears and their music that the visitor may bring with them: their experience is made the atmosphere is hushed and studious, where everything is static, and the life is sucked out of it (a caricature, of course!).We need to present the house as fluid and changing, as something still living; so as well as preserving the contents of the house, we need to preserve something much more intangible, the life around those objects, the clutter and the layers of association that are part of a living space. The house has several distinct spaces with different regimes. In addition to the Red House itself, in what used to be agricultural buildings across the yard there is Britten’s composition studio, and the two men’s library. Outside these preserved spaces we have a gallery housing display items in cases, and an archive, both of which function as more orthodox heritage spaces. In the house and the library there is minimal labelling, since Britten and Pears themselves would of course not have had labels in their home, and the spaces are presented very much as the men would have known them. Volunteers are present partly to invigilate, and at the entrance to establish the ground rules of the house – that visitors are asked to wear overshoes if the weather is wet and not to lean on furniture – and to answer questions and relay information without labels or captions. The house is full of material, with surfaces cluttered with objects and cupboards crammed (most of these are not visible to the visitor unless a volunteer opens one to show the contents). A light-touch conservation regime means that the house still smells like a home, with the mingled scents of carpet dust, leather from suitcases and so forth having a subconscious effect. The one piece of captioning in the house comes right at the start in the entrance hall, where labels explain a 1968 portrait of Britten and Pears. The two men are painted on a bench in front of Snape Maltings, originally with Pears’ Opposite: The Red House is a Grade II, 17th-century farmhouse. The Library, commissioned by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears and built in 1963, was designed as a study, and as a space for rehearsal and entertaining.
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