Allen Seaby has strong associations with the New Forest.
Seaby camping with his son Wilfred and wife Ada. LMGLM:2015.60.2
Its landscape and wildlife was the inspiration for many drawings, paintings and prints, all observed first-hand while on camping holidays in the area. The Seaby family (Allen, his wife Ada, daughter Mildred and sons Philip, Herbert and Wilfred) began camping in homemade tents at Decoy Pond Farm near Beaulieu Road Station.
The first expedition was made in 1918 but heavy rain forced the Seabys to retreat to a boarding house in Lymington. Happily, future trips were more successful and Wilfred recalled that “in the lovely summer of 1919 father was able to cycle round and sketch ponies and scenery for his first pony story Skewbald: The New Forest Pony”.
Sketch entitled ‘Afternoon Reading’, made by Allen Seaby during a family camping trip to Decoy Pond Farm near Beaulieu in 1920.
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In 1928 Seaby bought a piece of land with a well and a pond near the edge of the Forest at Wootton. There he built a wooden hut with a separate earth closet toilet. There were two rooms, one a bedroom the other used for everything else. Later a verandah was added and another hut was built with room for two camp beds. Some of the family slept in the huts, others in tents.
There was no electricity at the hut so lighting was provided by candles and Tilley lamps; primus stoves were used for cooking. The family would walk up to Broadley Farm to collect milk. Supplies came from the local store and post office or from New Milton.
Allen Seaby with his friend Charles Guttridge beside the hut at Wootton Roughs.
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From Wootton the family set out on foot or bicycle to explore the Forest, Wilfred recalling that “many are the walks we have taken together on the commons, along the streams and through the enclosures, father often stopping to draw groups of ponies or a particular feature of the forest itself”.
The gallery below gives more information about Allen Seaby’s time in the New Forest and examples of the work he created there. Click on the images to view them at a larger scale.
Ada Seaby with her grandson Peter beside the hut with its new verandah.
LMGLM:2015.60.6 Allen Seaby with Wolfgang Kiel and Kathleen Maryon (daughter of the sculptor Herbert Maryon).
LMGLM:2015.60.3 Allen Seaby at his workbench carving wooden animals in 1940. The windows are criss-crossed with tape in case of bomb blast.
LMGLM:2015.60.8 Allen Seaby in his painting smock in 1957.
LMGLM:2015.60.9 A series of sketches of a camping holiday in the New Forest in 1920.
Clockwise from top left:
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LMGLM:2019.48.23 A series of sketches of people made during a camping holiday to the New Forest in 1920.
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LMGLM2019.48.14 A series of sketches of Seaby’s family engaged in various activities such as chopping wood, peeling apples, cooking breakfast and peeling potatoes during a camping trip to the New Forest in 1920.
Clockwise from top left:
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LMGLM:2019.48.11 A series of sketches of Seaby’s family engaged in various activities such reading and doing the washing up during a camping trip to the New Forest in 1920.
Clockwise from top left:
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LMGLM2019.48.23 A series of sketches of camping scenes such as wood chopped and ready to make a fire, pots and pans and the kitchen, made during a camping trip to the New Forest in 1920.
Clockwise from top left:
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LMGLM2019.48.15 Pencil drawing of the Seaby family camping in the New Forest showing their tent, a child by a cooking pot and clothing or rugs airing on the bushes.
LMGLM:2015.59.21 Watercolour entitled ‘Camping in the New Forest. Bedding’, showing two tents with rugs draped over the tents and bushes and a woman on the right with a handkerchief over her head.
LMGLM:2015.59.22 Watercolour of a camping scene with colourful washing hanging on a line and the guy ropes.
LMGLM:2019.48.36 Watercolour entitled ‘Camping by Decoy
Pond Farm’
LMGLM:2019.48.31 Pencil and chalk sketch of the New Forest in springtime.
LMGLM:2019.48.33 Pencil and chalk sketch of gorse bushes in the forest.
LMGLM:2019.48.34 Watercolour of a view of the forest with the sun just breaking through the clouds.
LMGLM:2019.48.38 Watercolour labelled ‘Where Phillip and I first camped at the Evemys. Very wet’.
LMGLM:2019.48.37 Watercolour of a view of Brockenhurst Woods, near Queens Bower.
LMGLM:2015.59.5 Pencil sketch and watercolour of trees at ‘New Forest Denny Enclosure’.
LMGLM:2015.59.7 and 6 Pen and ink drawing entitled ‘Spring on the Lyndhurst Road’.
LMGLM:2015.59.20 Study sketch (left) for watercolour and gouache painting (right) of an open view of the forest with a tree stump in the foreground and ponies in the distance.
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LMGLM:2015.59.8 Gouache, on buff paper entitled ‘Marsh Plants from Lymington’. Left to right: cotton grass, ragged robin, marsh marigold and a salt marsh plant.
LMGLM:2015.59.19 Sketches of cows and horses made during a camping holiday to the New Forest in 1920.
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LMGLM:2019.48.14 A series of sketches of dogs, ducks, a farmyard and deer.
Clockwise from top left:
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LMGLM2019.48.55 Sketches of pigs and a dog.
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LMGLM:2019.49.63 Pencil and chalk sketch of a red shrike. Now extinct, the New Forest was one of the last haunts of this bird. The paper has been cut up and reused, so part of the bird is missing and the sketches no longer join.
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Sketches of mares and foals.
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LMGLM:2019.48.58 A series of sketches of New Forest ponies, including fighting foals (top left).
Clockwise from top left:
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LMGLM2015.59.13 Pencil drawing of a long line of ponies going uphill; the two nearest ponies in a rectangular frame. The caption reads “See our ponies Moving Quarters. At Pondhead. The Stallion takes the lead”.
LMGLM2019.48.26 A series of sketches of New Forest ponies saddled and bridled, possibly at the Burley Pony Show, horseriders and a ‘white old stallion’ surrounded by ponies.
Clockwise from top left:
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LMGLM2019.48.15 Two sketches, on the front and back of the same piece of paper, of ‘nibbling foals’.
LMGLM2015.59.16 Pencil and chalk sketches of skewbald ponies in the New Forest. These, and the other sketches of horses shown previously, were used as the basis for illustrations in his book Skewbald: The New Forest Pony.
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LMGLM2015.59.17 Pencil drawing of ponies and a foal under a tree.
LMGLM2019.48.57 Study sketch (left) for watercolour and gouache painting (right) of ponies by a stream in the New Forest.
LMGLM2015.59.10 and 11 Sketch of children playing at a bridge over a stream, 1920.
LMGLM:2019.48.4 Pencil and chalk drawing of the view over the forest towards Sway.
LMGLM:2019.48.27 View of the cob cottages at Sway from the railway. The top of the page has been cut off and stuck on further down to make the drawing wider.
LMGLM:2019.48.44 Pencil sketch of the inside of the salt boiling barn by Creek Cottage. There is a note in the corner about how one of the posts is impregnated with salt and becomes slimy in damp weather.
LMGLM:2019.48.56 Rough pencil sketch of the Lymington River.
LMGLM:2019.48.35 Rough sketch of a woman and two children at Milford beach – possibly Seaby’s wife and children.
LMGLM:2019.48.49 Pencil drawing of the Isle of Wight and the Needles, with notes about colour. Above is a more detailed enlargement of the end of the island and the Needles.
LMGLM:2019.48.46 View looking over the water and marshes to the Isle of Wight. There are swans on the marsh, and a steam boat with a red funnel in the distance. This has been squared up in pencil for enlargement. Seaby has written notes about what colours to use below, along with tiny colour sketches of sailing boats and a primrose.
LMGLM:2019.48.46 Watercolour of the Isle of Wight and the Needles as viewed from Barton Cliff.
LMGLM:2019.48.39 Watercolour of the view over the marsh towards the Isle of Wight and the Needles.
LMGLM:2019.48.40 Watercolour of a cow grazing on the salt marsh with the Isle of Wight and the Needles in the background.
LMGLM:2019.48.43 Watercolour of the Isle of Wight and the Needles from Barton Cliff.
LMGLM:2019.48.42 Watercolour of the Isle of Wight and the Needles as viewed from Highcliffe.
LMGLM:2019.48.41 Watercolour of the Isle of Wight and the Needles from Barton beach, with seagulls in the foreground adding interest to the view.
LMGLM:2015.59.1 Watercolour and gouache drawing of the Isle of Wight, probably from Barton Cliff.
LMGLM:2019.48.45 Watercolour of Hengistbury Head from Barton beach.
LMGLM:2015.59.2 Watercolour of the Isle of Wight and the Needles from Barton beach.
LMGLM:2015.59.3 Watercolour of the Isle of Wight with Becton Bunny in the foreground.
LMGLM:2015.59.4 Watercolour of the Isle of Wight from Becton Bunny, painted on the reverse of the previous work.
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