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The gate post and a long avenue of trees was once intended as entrance to a grand house, abode of the Dormer family, at Ascot Park just outside of the Oxfordshire village of Stadhampton. The house itself burned down, and subsequent attempts to rebuild it failed through lack of funds. Nash captures the desolation and atmosphere of the unusual scene. Perhaps the suggestion of an imagery great house also appealed to Nash’s surrealist sensibilities. ‘The pale stone sphere on top of the ruined pillar faces its counterpart the moon, cold and pale and solid as stone. No legend or history attaches to such a picture its drama is inherent in the scene’. Paul Nash.
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