Here and there

Hasn't it been wonderful weather for the last few days?  A golden September and an extra bonus to still feel the warmth of late summer during the day.  We've been gardening like mad during the last week.  Creating paths and laying gravel, planting spring bulbs and clearing areas of the garden we'd let get dreadfully out of hand.  

 We also managed a day out earlier in the week and visited two National Trust properties, not too far away from us, just over the county border in Cheshire.

Our first visit was to Dunham Massey a house we've visited a couple of times before and I'm sure I've written a post or two about it - especially about the winter garden. This time though was different because for the centenary of the start of WWI parts of the house have been transported back to the time when, from April 1917 until February 1919, it became the Stamford Military Hospital.

 The exhibition itself is called 'Sancturary from the Trenches' and with its peaceful gardens, sumptuous rooms and extensive grounds Dunham Massey must indeed have seemed like a haven from the relentless horror of life on the battlefields and in the trenches.

We looked around the new visitor centre and shop where we booked a timed ticket for the hospital.

We had just over an hour so we walked towards the gardens taking in the wartime propaganda posters dotted around - there were some very interesting ones to discover.

The gardens were looking wonderful with their late summer flowers and I was struck by the contrast between the joy of the peaceful and colourful garden and the horrors the soldiers in the hospital must have endured.  I thought of their bravery and also that of the nurses and doctors who worked day and night to cope with so many dreadful injuries.

Below is a sculpture in the gardens which consists of 282 individually cast concrete cubes one for each soldier who was admitted to the hospital, each cube carved with the admission number of the solider it represents.

Even more moving for me was to be found on the mound against the lake.

It was a sculpture of words, each poem written by soldiers who had been treated at the hospital in the autograph books belonging to Lady Stamford, who in 1917 offered the hall to the British Red Cross for use as a hospital, and her daughter Lady Jane Grey who was just 15 when war broke out.  Lady Stamford administered the hospital from her summer parlour and Lady Jane Grey trained as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse and worked at the hospital.

Below a poem written by Private G A Bownes of the 2/4 York and Lancaster Regiment.

We spent ages reading the poems marvelling at the positive, peaceful and thoughtful words and sitting and taking in the tranquillity of the place we found them in.

It was time to make our way to the front door of the hall where we were greeted and told what to expect.  We may be lucky and see some of the characters as we moved through the house.  The actors would perhaps enact a scenario for us but they would not communicate with us or even make eye contact as they kept in character all day.  The first display boards dealt with the kind of injuries and diseases that the soldiers suffered with in the trenches things like trench foot and trench fever.  Also shrapnel wounds and shell shock.

We then entered the corridor leading to the hospital ward. I won't show you inside the rest of the house as this post is already getting too long but we may return later to look at the grandeur of it all.  

The ward is bright and cheerful but in some cases the men are very sick with injuries both physical and mental.  The whole atmosphere is very moving with quotes from the men who had been treated there and also from the  doctors and nurses dotted around for us to read.  

On pillows

and on walls.
So simply displayed and yet so powerful too.

The nurse was trying to pacify the young soldier who had somehow got himself into his day clothes with the intention of leaving the hospital and returning to the trenches because he felt that by being in the hospital he was letting down  his comrades who were still at the front.  

He eventually calmed down and fell asleep as the nurse sang 'Keep the home fires burning' in a soft, gentle voice.

There was of course, lots more to see in the house including the state rooms and kitchens.  I'll write about those another time.