Birds given own tree mansion

Artists have built a mansion for birds at the National Trust’s Clumber Park to try to recapture the property’s glory days.

Clumber was regarded as one of the finest non-Royal houses in England, an architectural jewel, beautifully set in 3,800 acres of parkland.

Built around 1765 for the 2nd Duke of Newcastle it was from an age of huge, lavish house parties and vast wealth, but due to its sheer scale the house became unsustainable and in August 1938 Clumber was demolished.

Internationally acclaimed artists, London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson) took the theme of the lost house of Clumber and re-imagined it as a series of mansions for birds in a tree borne sculpture entitled Spontaneous City In The Cedar Of Lebanon.

They built a spectacular cluster of bird boxes housed in one of the park’s vast cedar trees. The sculpture makes reference to the many elegant rooms of the Dukes of Newcastle’s former country seat, now lifted from the ground and redesigned to accommodate the park’s avian residents.

They have also created a fine Regency chaise longue called The Leopard, lazing contentedly on a tree branch — making referencing to the time when the 4th Duke of Newcastle had one imported to Clumber from India.

It can be viewed by visitors from a specially-designed observation platform.