Prospect Cottage: Derek Jarman’s seaside home – in pictures
Prospect Cottage on the beach at Dungeness, Kent was a home and sanctuary for the artist and film-maker Derek Jarman. The gardens are world famous, but the interior, shielded from public view by net curtains hung by his partner, Keith Collins, after his death, has been largely unseen. This haven has been photographed by Gilbert McCarragher, and Prospect Cottage: Derek Jarman’s House is published by Thames & Hudson
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The door of the cottage, with elder planted directly opposite the entrance, said to keep witches from the house, and garlands of holey stones that likewise play a protective role
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Jarman’s studio, with cabinets full of books, props and souvenirs
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In the living room, black foil is pasted on top of the thick oil paintings that read ‘Ego et in Arcadia’ and ‘Horror’
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The garden room, where the cacti and succulents echo the shapes of the garden outside
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The cottage stands on the beach against a moody sky
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He-Man clutches a classical plaster cast, c. 1988
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A painting by Maggi Hambling, Portrait of Derek Jarman 1998, hangs in the house. Editions of the picture were sold to raise funds for the Terence Higgins Trust
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In his studio, there’s a memento from his film career, a clapperboard from The Tempest, released in 1979
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The spring room at the cottage features a tarred book by Jarman, with a grassy volume made by Daniel Harvey for War Requiem, released in 1989, which sits above tide tables, and books about atomic warfare
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Jarman’s desk, looking out across the shingle to the sea
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In the loft, pictures and posters are stacked high, stored with the tools for maintaining Prospect
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In the living room there’s a charcoal drawing of Keith Collins, Jarman’s companion who inherited the cottage after his death, by Robert Medley, from 1989
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Derek Jarman’s bedroom, where the chair in the corner was made as a prop for Caravaggio, 1986, by Andy the Furniture Maker
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Also in the bedroom is One Day’s Medication, 1993, which collates the daily dose of pills and injections required to treat the effects of the HIV virus described in Blue, 1993
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With the net curtains down, the presence of visitors to the garden throughout the day is more keenly felt, glimpsed through the gauze
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The sun sets behind Prospect Cottage, towards Lydd
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