What We Did Last Saturday

[poliphilo]

This is Sudbury Hall. We stopped here on the way home last Saturday. The house is 17th century and grand and cold and echoey. The servant's wing houses a charming Museum of Childhood- where we sat for fifteen minutes in a mock-up of a late Victorian schoolroom and got to write on slates and practice our seven times table.



The church- just off to the side of the house- is mostly 19th century restoration, but I managed to find this charming (15th century?) angel on the north wall.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Lovely photo of the house and the angel is charming.

One of the most eccentric stately homes I've ever visited is Erddig near Wrexham. If you haven't already been, you might find it interesting. The family were only very minor aristocracy and though parts were built for show, like the state bedroom that never got slept in by the monarch, it's all very human and there are more pictures of the servants than of the family.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

A lot of these big stately homes are horribly impersonal. They're about power and display and contain nothing that betrays the individual taste of the owners- perhaps because they didn't have any.

Erddig sounds lovely. My personal favourite- out of recent visits- is Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire, which was designed to the eccentric specifications of a mid 17th century Duke and Duchess of Newcastle- both of them near-geniuses.