At Home with the Tudors - part 1

Yesterday saw our long awaited bloggy meeting with  Diane  and Rowan at the wonderful Haddon Hall which is close to Bakewell in Derbyshire.  In spite of the rain we managed to picnic close to the river on the edge of the car park at Cauldwell's Mill at Rowsley before setting off  for the Hall in time for its opening at midday.   We were looking forward to experiencing a Tudor re-enactment within the hall, of the cooking and preparation of a family dinner,  from - The Tudor Group

 I think Haddon is my favourite of all the famous Derbyshire Houses - and there are many!    It stands so majestically on its hill and is approached by an arched bridge over the river Wye. 

 There is then a flight of steps to the entrance - if you are lucky you may pass some little Tudor people on the way!

Through the entrance you are greeted by the loveliest courtyard - in here you feel protected and sheltered from the world outside.

At the top of the courtyard some of the servants were collecting herbs for the kitchen

 

The courtyard must seem such a huge expanse of stone to such a little one!

Inside the great hall where the food was to be served the male servants, often from high status families themselves, go through the moves of service which includes lots of  deferential bowing towards the head table, thought to be the manners of the day.  The higher status, pristine clothing and more graceful deference of the servants indicated the greater wealth and status of the owner of the house.

Female servants were quite rare at this period;  only nursemaids, wet nurses and outside laundry and dairy staff were female.  All the kitchen staff would have been male.  Of course, this wasn't possible to re-enact as there were many female members of the group, as TV Historian Ruth Goodman pointed out that the role she was playing would have most definitely been held by a man within that household.  'I'm sorry I'm a girl' she said with a twinkle in her eyes.  She really is a most charismatic woman holding the crowd fascinated as we waited for His Lordship and all his ladies  to come down from the Long Gallery to the dinner table.

I'm getting slightly ahead of myself  here as there was much to see elsewhere as the servants prepared for the feast and before we looked at the rest of the rooms in the hall and the gardens we hot-footed it straight to the kitchens to get in on the action.

I just loved this man's costume and hat.

Bread, salt and pickled onions!

The young man behind the basket of herbs had the thankless task of peeling the shell from quails eggs!

Lovely greens from the garden!

This lady was very interesting as she described to us the making of the different kinds of soap that were made for jobs like laundry, pot washing and the washing of metal pots and pans.  She also told us how to make a calendula lotion which was used mainly on the hands as a barrier against the washing up water.  As you can see, Diane, Rowan and I are fascinated.

I'll be back with more photos of the Hall and  gardens in my next post.

Baslow

Yesterday, on the way back from visiting my sister in Chesterfield, we stopped for a while in Baslow.  We were actually looking for a post office which we didn't find but on our quest to find one we parked behind the church.  This was an area of Baslow I'd never been in before and as it was such a lovely late afternoon we took a stroll through the churchyard so I could try out my new camera.

St Anne's Church in Baslow is in a lovely position right next to the River Derwent.  The tower, spire and nave are either 13th century or 14th century, depending on which information you read, but much of the church was restored in the 1850s by the then Duke of Devonshire with the help of his head gardener and great friend Joseph Paxton.

The churchyard was full of old memorial stones some standing quite close to the river.

Inside,  the nave and chancel were neat and well kept,  the stained glass in  the windows shining in the sunshine.

The Priest's stairway with reflections of the trees on the stone wall

Opposite the church was a rather spectacular shop called Avant Garde full of lovely household things.

This area of Baslow is know as Bridge End and this is the Bridge End toll bridge a 17th century, 3 arched  construction with, as you can see below,  a little stone shelter built for the toll collector which has an entrance of only 1 metre in height.

The views from the bridge down to the river were lovely - you can just make out the water fall in the photo below.

We didn't have long to linger here but it was a spot I could have spent ages in just wandering around.  

Cameras and Kindness

For a  while now I've been struggling with my formerly trusty Kodak Easyshare C330 digital camera which I must have had for about five years now.  For some reason known only to itself it defaults to flash, sometimes even in what I would consider to be be light enough conditions and it certainly can't be trusted not to flash in places where flash isn't allowed.  So over the last few weeks I have been looking at new digital cameras - just small compact ones that I can slip in a bag or pocket - but could I find one at a reasonable price that had a view finder?  No!  

My Old Kodak Camera

I've been  reading several on-line reports and forums where people are bemoaning the fact that manufacturers no longer include a view finder in their smaller compact cameras and all of them, like me, find it difficult to see the LCD screen image in bright sunlight. There were a few cameras with viewfinders over £300 but I didn't want to spend that much.  Over the weekend I saw a little camera with a view finder in Jessops but wasn't sure about it, however  on Tuesday,  I decided that as they were selling it for half price that I really ought to buy it as it might be the last chance to get one with a view finder.  I'm now the proud owner of  - this - Cannon Powershot camera and I gave it a test run yesterday.  I'll show you the results in my next post; so far I'm  thrilled with it

I'm  always humbled and amazed by the kindness of fellow bloggers and this week I received a lovely parcel from Liz at Love those Cupcakes who, concerned about my fall in the garden, sent me a super book to read and some chocolate to indulge in whilst reading it.  Thanks Liz! Aren't people so kind and isn't blogland wonderful?

Talking of the wonders of blogland I'm off this weekend to meet with two super bloggers whose blogs I have read and followed for quite a long time.  I'm really looking forward to the meeting and I expect you will read more of this in a later post.

A Visit to Shugborough - part 2

As promised in my last post here is a peek inside the Mansion House at Shugborough including some of the recently opened rooms that are in the appartments used by Lord Lichfield until his death in November 2005.  We hadn't expected to be allowed to take photos but we were told without asking that we could as long as we didn't use flash.  Thinking about it as Lord Lichfield was such a renowned photographer I expect he would have encouraged the taking of photographs so it shouldn't have been such a great surprise.

As I said in my previous post I let Paul take the internal photographs as his camera could cope with the lighting conditions.  Here are just a few of the many we took...

 I can't remember the exact name of this room so let's call it the red room.  In here was the most beautiful, twinkling chandelier - you can just glimpse it through the mirror over the fireplace.  The guide in this room told us how lovely it looks  lit with candles when the hall is open each December for candlelit Christmas evenings.  The chandelier is reflected in a mirror at the opposite end of a corridor making it look as if there is another one at that end of the ground floor.

 The Library - full of architectural illusions created with mirrors and secret doorways.

 The Royal Appartments

  This is the bedroom slept in by royal visitors there is also a sitting room and dressing room.  Princess Victoria slept here before she became Queen but not in this bed which was placed here in 1847.  The carpet on the floor is an exact copy of the original two small pieces of which can be seen on the steps used to get into the bed.

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 Equipment from Lord Lichfield's studio.  In this area were some of the photographs he took during the 1960s and 1970s of   famous and beautiful people  like  Jean Shrimpton, Joanna Lumley, Mick Jagger, Antonia Frazer  and Lulu.

 A charming corner of one of the rooms.   Lord Lichfield's private appartments were off a long corridor on which was an area for drinks and music.  Guest bedrooms and bathrooms were along here with views to the back of the house.  The Earl's private rooms were overlooking the front of the property.  Some of these rooms were open although the bedroom is expected to open next year.

 The lilac bedroom

 and the lilac bathroom

The breakfast room.  This was my favourite room it was completely circular and so light and airy with views over the front and side of the property to the windows.

Directly below the breakfast room is another lovely, circular room which was yet to be refurbished. The Boudoir was open for public view to show how this would be done.  The wallpaper is the original from 1794 and contains silver leaf.

The ceiling is the only hand painted ceiling in the  house and the room also has lots of ornate gilt work.

 

Back outside - I also promised photos of the statues and bluebells along the Lady Walk.  The scent and colour of the bluebells was wonderful I'm afraid my photo doesn't do them justice.

Heron

Otter

Newt

Dragon Fly

There will be more sculptures to see as part of the Sculpture Trail which is to be launched on 22nd May this year so we hope to go back again soon and discover those, walk around the island arboretum and visit 'downstairs' in the servant's quarters - photo below.  If you look closely you can see the washing on the line through the gate.

A Visit to Shugborough - part 1

On Thursday I made my first trip away from home (apart from food shopping which I don't count) for a couple of weeks and as it was our wedding anniversary we decided to visit a local National Trust property and have lunch out too.  I've been wanting to visit the Earl of Lichfield's appartments at Shugborough since they opened for the first time to the public earlier this year and I also wanted to photograph the Essex Bridge from the estate side - you'll remember that I posted about it - here - a few weeks ago.

The first thing we discovered was that things had changed so much since we last visited!  Visitors used to drive quite close to the house to park,  now you have to park quite a distance away beyond the park farm and enter through a proper reception area.  This takes you straight into the walled garden where gardeners were working on the vegetable beds, scarecrows danced in the slight breeze and the blacksmith's shop was working.

Below is the head gardener's house at the top of the walled garden.  It looks as if it used to have a green house or some such fixture on the front at one time.  It was built for his head gardener by Thomas Anson who, according to the information panel, hoped that 'he will move into this house before we enter the year 1806.  It is  much grander than most of my servant's lodgings, and thus shows his importance to the estate.'

From here the signs take you through the workshops were old rural crafts like hurdle making, candle making,  leather working and wood turning are practiced.  There were several groups of people learning how to make hurdles and willow baskets as we passed by.

The next place on the trail is the Park Farm;  we hadn't bought tickets to go inside as we had been before and wanted this visit to see the Mansion House and grounds.  From outside the farm you can catch the train up to the old car park near the house and gardens  but we decided to walk up there across the parkland and catch the train back.

By this time we were ready for lunch so went into the Lady Walk tea room for a tasty meal of Broccoli, Mushroom and Red Pepper Bake in very pleasant surroundings.  We didn't have a pudding as we thought we would have an ice cream later after we'd visited the house and gardens.

Our next stop was the interior of the house.  We thought that we wouldn't be able to take photos inside but we found that photography was allowed without flash.  As my camera isn't able to take decent interior photos without flash I let Paul take all the photographs inside and I'll borrow some from him for part two of this visit.

The gardens were lovely and we followed the sculpture trail by the river at the back of the house.  Across the river was the newly opened island arboretum but we didn't get that far on this visit and intend to return later this year when the rest of the sculptures are in place.  Below are some of the features to be found around the riverside gardens.

 A deer sculpture under the trees - for a moment in the sunshine it looked real!

The Chinese house, completed in 1747, and red bridge which leads to the Cat's monument

There are two theories about the monument, built c.1749.  One is that it commemorates the life of the cat which travelled around the world on board the 'Centurion' with Admiral George Anson.  The other is that it was a memorial to Kouli-Khan a Persian cat kept by the Admiral's older brother, Thomas Anson.

A little way along the river from the red bridge we caught our first sight of the Essex Bridge.  Before we left the gardens we walked along the Lady Walk amongst the blue bells and looked at some of the other sculptures - as this post is getting quite long I'll include those photos with the ones of the interior of the Mansion House in my next post.

We passed the Tower of the Winds on the little train as we headed back to the Park Farm.  It was built c. 1765.  The downstairs was used as a dairy and at some point the upper floor was used as a gambling den.

Just one word of caution here - we decided that we would have a cup of afternoon tea in the Granary tea rooms at the Park Farm but because we didn't have tickets to the farm we couldn't go in and we'd caught the train back there especially not realising, as there was nothing on the advertising banner or notice board outside to say that it was within the farm complex.  We decided that it was a step too far to catch the train back up to the Lady Walk tea room so we wandered back to the car park and stopped for refreshment on the way home.   I'll be back with more of the visit soon.