The 1620s House

I'm returning to mid August this year and the last of the buildings I promised to write about in my post of 2nd September. I think I've taken you here before on one or two occasions but I thought I would write another post as one of our favourite places Donington le Heath Manor House has undergone refurbishment and many changes and has re-branded itself as The 1620s House and Garden.

Built as early as 1290 it is one of the oldest houses in Leicestershire and has a long history as a family home.  It is now cared for by Leicestershire County Council.

From the 15th Century onwards it was owned by the Digby family and they were the family that started the modernisation of the house around 1618 which turned the building into the structure we see today.

The first thing I noticed as we arrived was that there is now a reception kiosk near the gate of the car park and what was originally the reception area and shop has been turned back into the scullery.  This is where food coming into the house would have been cleaned and prepared ready for the kitchen.

Food would have been cooked on the open fire in the kitchen, on the spit and in the little ovens you can see in the wall behind the fire.  The fire would be constantly lit and this would have been the warmest room of the house.  Both family and servants would have taken meals in here on a daily basis unless there were visitors or guests who would be fed and entertained in the upper chamber.

Above one of the windows in the kitchen.  I loved all the natural flower displays in replica salt glaze ware jugs.

Across the well yard and up the stairs are the bedrooms and upper chamber.  The room above is a re-creation of Mr Digby's study, this room was also secretly used as a place of worship as the Digbys were still of the Catholic faith at a time when it was dangerous to be so.

The bed above is in the corridor bedroom.  This meant that the servants, family members and guests could pass through at any time so there was a lack of privacy here unless the bed hangings were drawn.  The appearance of the bed was another change I noted as the last time I saw it it had, as far as I remember, darker and plainer hangings.  The legend around this bed which is known as 'King Dick's Bed' is that it came originally from The Blue Boar Inn in Leicester and was supposedly the bed Richard III slept in before he left the city to fight at the Battle of Bosworth.  It seems though that most of the bed dates from the late 17th century.  The hangings are newly made.

A new wall has been built between the lobby and the Great Chamber as I seem to remember that this was one long room the last time we visited.  There would have been access by stairs from the garden up to the lobby and the great chamber which would have been used by the family for games and pastimes, dancing and entertaining.  

It was also used by the ladies of the house for spinning and sewing. You can see a spinning wheel at the end of the room top left in the photo.

 Out in the gardens and through the rose garden is a working plant garden

A formal herb garden

and a dye plant bed.  Above you can see flax growing.  The plant stem was used to make linen and the seed to make linseed oil which was used to treat diseases of the lungs.

You can see the door up in the wall of the house which would have had a staircase leading up to the lobby and Great Chamber.

Above a  view of the rear of the house.  To the right is the ornamental maze and vegetable garden.

Some of the modern replicas of  objects dotted about the house that you can touch and look at more closely.

Above a few more views around the house.

The Red Brick Castle

I mentioned Kirby Muxloe to someone the other day and he said 'Oh, yes, the red brick castle'.  I always used to think of Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire with those words but Kirby Muxloe is most definitely a red brick castle too.

I had visited the castle many years ago in the 1980s and remembered it being surrounded by water but had forgotten it was built of brick and also that it was never completed as a building.

You can walk around the outside of the castle first taking in its structure and on the day we visited there were some lovely reflections in the water of the moat.

Above you can see the remains of the west tower and the gatehouse.  It was intended for a tower to be built in each corner of the construction, with domestic buildings in the centre of the outer walls which is where the old manor house used to stand.

The owner William, Lord Hastings (1430 -1483) began to rebuild a new and sumptuous residence on the site of the old manor house around 1480.  He was in favour and had power and influence at the court of  King Edward IV but his luck changed and he was executed in June 1483 by the new king Richard III.   In July of that year Richard III  issued a special grant to Hastings's widow Katherine and restored the family to its inheritance.  Katherine did continue for about a year with the building project but it gradually came to a close.  Had the building been completed Kirby Muxloe would have been one of the most advanced and fashionable fortified manor houses of its day.

The gatehouse is accessed by the bridge over the moat, it is modern but constructed in the style of the old one.

The entrance to the gatehouse is impressive, only the ground floor remains although you can access the next floor up it is open to the elements (see the photos below) but you can cross above the ceiling from one side to the other via spiral staircases.

One of the guard rooms in the base of the gatehouse, the other is used as the reception and shop by the custodians English Heritage.

You can see the door to one of the staircases on the left of the gatehouse. We went up via the stairs on the right and came down those on the left.

The ceiling of one of the spiral staircases,  I love the swirling brick patterns.

The remains of the room which would have been above the entrance to the gatehouse

 

  and across the two guard rooms below.

Back down the stairs on the opposite side.

There were lovely views across the centre of the castle area towards the moat and to the countryside beyond.  You can see the stone foundations of the earlier manor house in the grass below.

 

Looking upwards in the west tower

Nature was taking over.

 The opening hours for Kirby Muxloe are weekends only from May to September so it is very hard to catch it open we were lucky to be close by en route to Stoneywell (see my post of 8th September) so spent a pleasant hour here wandering around.

More information - here

At Stoneywell Cottage

We'd wanted to visit Stoneywell Cottage for a while now but as you have to book a parking slot we had to be sure of going on a specific day.  This day turned out to be on my birthday which happened to fall on a Bank Holiday Sunday, the last in August and I thought, as I don't really like busy weekend and bank holiday crowds very much, this would be a perfect place to visit.  The car park is easy to find and all the staff were so cheerful and hospitable, we even had e-mails before and after our visit welcoming us and hoping that we had had a wonderful time.  Which we did.

There is a little shuttle bus service which takes you from the car park to the property and people on hand to tell you which way to go once you have booked in for a guided tour.  Our guide was called Eric and he was so interesting with his descriptions of the family who lived in the hall as well as the descriptions of how it was built and the way it was lived in.

Stoneywell Cottage is an Arts and Crafts house which was built c. 1898 as a summer residence for Leicester industrialist Sydney Gimson. It was designed by his brother Ernest who was an architect influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement.  Sydney wanted to position his cottage on the hill but Ernest insisted it would be better further down so that it appeared to rise organically from the earth, made of natural materials and stone gathered from the land nearby. 

The roof was originally thatched but after a fire in 1939 it was rebuilt with local Swithland slate. Inside the cottage is built on six levels rising from the entrance floor which you see above and moves in a zig zag way across the building until you reach the last room known as Olympus because it was the highest point in the house.

Most of the furniture in the house was made specifically for Sydney Gimson's  family by his brother Ernest Gimson or by both of Ernest's  Arts and Crafts workshop collaborators, the Barnsley brothers, also called Sidney and Ernest.

Above and below are photos taken in the dining room which had, when the cottage was first built, been the kitchen.  One of the later Gimson ladies had decided when she moved in that a more up to date kitchen was needed and this was made through the latched door you can see above to the left of the dresser in what had been the outhouse and earth closet.

The table in the photo above was made by Sidney Barnsley the top made from a single plank of wood.  It was used for dining by the family but is also marked out for table tennis for which it was also used.

We were a happy little group of ten being guided round by Eric but because I was struggling a little with my back and leg I was waiting to be last in the queue for the steps so I didn't hold anyone up.  This also meant that I could take some photos of the empty rooms before the next group entered them.

One end of the sitting room where there is a lovely window seat overlooking the garden.  The chair in the foreground was made by Lawrence Neal who uses some of Ernest Gimson's tools.

The group were fascinated by the train set which was in the well room, so called because you have to drop down a level to get into it.

The train set apparently used to be set out across the whole floor of the bedroom and belonged to Sydney Gimson's great grandson Roger.

 

It was Roger's father and mother Donald and Ann Gimson who, on inheriting Stoneywell Cottage, decided to live there permanently and not just in the Summer and at Christmas as the earlier Gimsons had done.

After our tour we had a stroll around the gardens and then it was time for coffee and scones in the little cafe in the barn.

The cheese scones were very tasty.

 Above a few more photos taken in the sitting room

 

I loved all the little chalk board messages around the gardens and I loved Stoneywell,  it had such a feeling of warmth with echoes of a well loved family home.  I would like to visit again one day.

Ashby de la Zouch Castle

When we arrived in the town we parked near the Museum and Library and set out on foot down one of the ancient alleyways which lead onto the wide main street.  There is a car park a little closer to the castle but it was full and as we wanted to pop into the museum later in the day we parked close by.

 

 We crossed the busy main street and cut through the brightly festooned covered market

The castle ruins looked wonderful in the sunshine.  We had visited before but many years ago so it was time for a re-visit.

In the photos above and below you can see both the kitchen tower and the main tower.

We seemed to have the place to ourselves although once we got in amongst the walls of the ruins one or two people could be seen gazing upwards or heard as their voices echoed around the dusty, shadowed corners.

The property began as a manor house in the 12th century and reached castle status in the 15th century.

In the 14th century the manor was in the hands of the le Zouch family who were of Breton descent. In 1399 with the death of the last remaining direct heir of this family there began a protracted dispute over Ashby.  In 1461 it came into the hands of James Butler, Earl of Ormond and Earl of Wiltshire.   He was executed after the Battle of Towton, one of the bloodiest battles of the Wars of the Roses. Ashby Castle was then given, along with many other tracts of land, to William, Lord Hastings, son of Sir Leonard Hastings of nearby Kirby Muxloe, who was in favour with King Edward IV and rose to high status in his court.  In 1472 he received licence to fortify four of his manors. Ashby being one of them.

Above is the arched passage between the great hall and the kitchens.  We decided to climb up the steps of the great tower first.  My knees made it to the top.

Halfway up the ninety odd steps into main tower you can stop to catch your breath and look at the stone shields on the wall and the graffiti too.

There is also a seat on which to rest awhile.

There were wonderful views across the town in all directions.

The Parish church of St Helen's

Looking down on the kitchen tower which was our next destination

There were lots of fireplaces, wells and ovens in this part of the ruins and it was easy to imagine the sounds, the heat and the smells emanating from what would have been a hive of industry.

Above you can see a cauldron stand in one of the surviving hearths and a bread oven at the side.

We couldn't go any further up the tower but we could go down into the undercroft

and through the tunnel which lead us back to the foot of the great tower.

It is thought that the tunnel was put in place during the English Civil War.  During this war Ashby was an important Royalist base under the control of Henry Hastings, Lord Loughborough. There is an interesting display in the Museum about Ashby in the years of the Civil War where I found a reference to the tunnel in a letter written by a Parliamentarian in Leicester. 

'Sir, our forces are gone with Derby horse towards Ashby, but the enemy are very strong and their works good, they have vaults under the ground through which they can go from one fort to another at their pleasure'

   The castle finally surrendered in 1646 and the fortifications were removed.  Some of the remaining buildings were incorporated into a house called Ashby Place which was itself demolished in 1830.  In the 19th century the town and castle ruins became a visitor attraction after Sir Walter Scott set a scene of his novel Ivanhoe there.

The Chapel

 Earthworks and garden

The castle has been maintained and cared for by English Heritage since 1983.

Here is a - link - to more information