A STATELY home has links with a Surrey gallery that won the South-East heat of BBC's Restoration Village.
The Watts Gallery, in Compton, was built to house the work of Victorian artist George Frederic Watts, who had connections with Kiplin Hall, near Scorton. The gallery won the first episode of the show on Friday.
Among Watts' friends and supporters were the Ladies Pembroke, Brownlow and Lothian, sisters of Walter Cecil Talbot, who owned Kiplin Hall from 1868 to 1904. He inherited the hall from his cousin, and his three sisters were painted by Watts several times.
Those portraits and others by Watts hang in the hall, and a sketch sent by Watts to Lady Pembroke after the death of her husband is in the collection.
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