LDF Founder Caroline Hamilton : 1939 – 2026

We were so sad to hear the news of Caroline’s death earlier this year.  Our founder & supporter was such a big character at our shows. Even after she retired in 2004, Caroline would attend every Festival and encourage our makers, new and old, to improve their work & their displays.  She was a very vocal judge for the Perfection in Miniature Awards, where her incredible knowledge was so needed.  Here are some memories from a few people who’s life she impacted in one way or another.

Keri’s story

Back in 2011 I went on a trip organised by Charlotte that included a visit to see Caroline’s collection.  Some memories stay with you forever. I could barely contain my excitement, there were dolls houses and miniatures every where you looked. Every dolls house, shop or room box had a story with characters that seem to come alive. I can only imagine the hilarity Caroline and Jane had coming up with all these ideas, modern, vintage, antique, artisan, home made and ingenious found objects all collided together to create a beautiful miniature world.

A few years later, I was asked to do the valuation of Caroline’s collection before it was moved to Newby Hall in Yorkshire. I was shredded with anxiety; the thought of spending a week with Caroline was exciting and terrifying, she was such a force of nature and a commanding presence in our hobby but once Caroline realised I had the knowledge to do the job properly we had a wonderful week. Some were 15 hour days, photographing miniatures, counting every single item, comparing original price to current market value and then collating all the information and I could at last pick up, look at, admire and enjoy every single miniature.

Caroline had kept every book, photograph, show guide, catalogue and correspondence over many years and Pat Rochester has done a fantastic job sorting the archive to preserve all this knowledge for future generations. (The archive is currently under the watchful eye of The Pig Style & we hope it will be accessible for everyone to use soon)

Caroline’s knowledge of all things miniature far exceeded mine. Her passion for the hobby. Her love, support, encouragement and sometimes mentorship of our incredible artisans. Her funny stories made me laugh ’til I cried. Her wonderful hospitality, who wouldn’t love to eat grapes for breakfast using silver grape scissors in a tented dining room surrounded by miniatures and shell pictures?

All Caroline’s houses together with Jane Fiddick’s collection can now be seen at Newby Hall. If you have read their book ‘Our Dolls Houses’, the back page reveals the house that got away. Versailles, made by Mulvany & Rogers. This house is now on its way to Newby to join the rest of the collection. But the very last piece of Caroline’s collection belongs to me. Caroline gave me her garden, we spent a while working on the revamp in collaboration with Sandi Sadri and hunting down new miniatures to add over the years. I feel so incredibly lucky to own such treasure.

Caroline was incredibly proud of LDF. She was pleased to pass it on to Charlotte after retiring and it’s still, 40 years later, one of the best shows in the world. 

Zoe’s inspiration

Caroline Hamilton was a huge presence in the dolls’ house world for so long. Though I never met her personally, she and her work have been an inspiration for decades. Caroline’s influence was far-reaching. In the 1990s, Caroline’s book, Decorative Dolls’ Houses, had a particular impact on me. Her style was lively, inventive, and full of practical tips and humour.

Arguably her biggest achievement in the dolls’ house world was founding the London Dollshouse Festival in 1985, creating an event that brought together makers, collectors, and enthusiasts from around the world.

The festival instantly became an internationally respected event and continues to be so to this day. The standard of work being exhibited was exceptional and beautifully presented. The care and thought put into every detail of the fair were evident. Despite my different collecting tastes, I spent a small fortune.

Jane’s memories

Caroline & I met at University in 1959. We were not close then, she was already established as a glamorous and sophisticated personality in Oxford society. She was widely travelled, spoke German French and Spanish and had a fur coat!.  She was also an accomplished actress appearing as Mistress Overdone, the flamboyant brothel keeper in Measure for Measure, produced by Ken Loach, who was also an undergraduate.

We both ended up married, with young children in Kew and in 1972, outside a play school where she and I were collecting our daughters and expecting their little brothers, she told me that she was going to woodwork classes at the adult education college, to enable her to refurbish the childhood dolls house made by her mother. I had lost two much loved dolls houses myself so this is how our shared obsession started, visiting shows at Birmingham, Lyndhurst and Dorking – even flying to New York for the day, gradually collecting and making as we went along.

So why not a show for London? The Festival was set up by Caroline and Sue Atkinson of Sunday Dolls, at Kensington Town Hall. Caroline decreed there should be a display of houses to show what could be made of a well designed plywood model and a bit of imagination. So our first efforts were carted off to Kensington, where Pam Cornish and I talked ourselves hoarse with answering questions.

The Festival flourished at a time when there was a growing interest in miniatures and dolls houses, so our collections formed the basis of Caroline’s much acclaimed book Decorative Dolls houses, published in 1990 and achieving 50;000 sales. Very many people still blame this book for an incurable addiction. 

We continued to work hard to have new projects to show at successive Festivals and were never short of ideas, so the number of houses, large and small, grew and grew We were lucky to live round the corner from each other, so that not only ideas, but also resources in the way of tools, mouldings, fabrics and wallpapers (otherwise known as gift wrap) could be exchanged even at dead of night. if one of us achieved some successful item it was always understood that we operated on a one for me one for her basis. Which is why if you look closely at some of the houses, you might see identical pieces of furniture or accessories.

Eventually, we decided that the space occupied by the houses, etc, together with question marks over their future, meant that a new home had to be found for the collection. 

I had a house near the lovely Newby Hall. We wrote to them asking if the would consider the donation of ” a wet weather attraction”. They agreed, so in 2015, the houses were packed into a van and travelled north. Not only were we delighted with the way the exhibition was organised (with the help of a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund) in what were the potting sheds, – but also with the fact that the houses continue to be shared as they were at the London Shows. 

The comments in the visitors’ book are generous and vastly entertaining. Caroline’s favourite was “The wife was speechless and that takes some doing”.

Find more details on Newby Hall HERE