Thursday 13 August 2015

Some National Trust properties and a revisit to Mary Arden

Last year we went to Stratford Upon Avon for a Rotary Meeting and took the opportunity to visit all of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust sites. The ticket we purchased gave free return entry for the next 12 months and so we decided that we would return to visit Mary Arden’s Farm again if that became possible.

This year we joined the National Trust because we were going to the Isle of Man and knew that we would be able to visit free of charge all Manx National Heritage sites throughout the island because they had reciprocal entry arrangements with the National Trust (we managed to go to nine). A gap in the diary led us to plan a visit two National Trust houses in Warwickshire (Charlecote Park and Baddesley Clinton) and to revisit Mary Arden's Farm.

Charlecote Park

The National Trust website for Charlecote is one of their better ones and worth visiting here.

This is marketed as "A Victorian home set in landscaped deer park” and whilst it is Victorian, it is also a Tudor building in remarkable condition,

Approach Gate Lodge along drive

but as you walk dow the drive, it is its Tudor appearance which you notice first.

The best way of explaining the extraordinarily long history of this place is to copy a paragraph direct from the National Trust website:

"Ancestors of the Lucy family have lived at Charlecote since at least 1189, when Sir Walter de Cherlecote inherited the estate, but the story really begins with the first Sir Thomas Lucy who was born around 1532. He married 12-year-old heiress Joyce Acton in 1546 and using her money he rebuilt Charlecote as one of the first great Elizabethan houses.
Today, you see Charlecote with its splendid Victorian interiors created by George Hammond and his wife Mary Elizabeth Lucy. The present baronet, Sir Edmund Fairfax-Lucy and his family still live in one wing of the house."

It is said that in his youth, Shakespeare was caught poaching deer in the grounds of the house.

Gatehouse rear

The Gate House was used as a place to eat dessert whilst overlooking the grounds and once also as an isolation ward for a child with Scarlet Fever.

Charlecote House

The main house can first been fully seen once you have gone through the Gate House. 

Side of House

Unlike some buildings where “show and wealth” was restricted to the front and the sides were built to a lesser standard, here the sides are just as good as the front. 

Carving 001

Labour was of course cheap when the house was built and wealth would be shown by possessions such as this carved corner stone

Carving

or the carved stone trellis around the garden

Parterre Garden

with a very neat Parterre within.

Over the front entrance of the house is the coat of arms of Elizabeth I put there in honour of her visit to the house.

Elizabeth Coat of Arms

Elizabeth was queen of England and Wales and hence there are only the symbols of these countries. That of Scotland did not arrive until James.

Within the main hall is an astonishingly intricate pietra dura stone table. I could not get into a position where a photograph

Table Inlay

would do it justice so you have to be satisfied with a picture of a bit of the pattern. There is information about it here together with a link to a website showing how they are made. It is beautiful (if you like that sort of thing), very heavy and in its day, very expensive at £3400 (perhaps around £250,000 today).

There are numerous rooms within the house which you can walk through. Nearly all give an impression of a

Drawing Room

Victorian House rather than an Elizabethan one because the inside of the house moved with the times. The room above was said to have been slept in by Elizabeth I when she visited the estate.

Drawing Room Ceiling

The ceiling is Victorian in design and similar to that which we saw at the Gaiety Theatre in the Isle of Man a week or so earlier.

Painting of Gate

On one wall hangs a rather nice painting of a lady in Victorian costume standing against a gate. It was in fact painted in the

Painting Gate

1970’s and the gate is just outside the window.

Staircase 001

The Staircase manages to give an impression of Tudor age

Staircase

and Victorian presence through the family portraits hanging on the wall.

Library

National Trust say that the Library is the most important one in any of their houses 

Library Ceiling

and has the usual ornate Victorian ceiling.

Dining Hall

the adjacent Dining Room is small

Dining Hall 001

but nicely laid out 

Water Pump

Outside and close to the kitchens is an old hand pump which looks much older than the nearby kitchens.

Kitchen 001

These retain their Victorian look

Ice Box

with an ice chest (before they were able to make ice, it would be collected during the winter and stored underground for use during the year)

Kitchen

a large kitchen dresser

Kitchen Range

and a working range

Kitchen Maid

and a kitchen maid cooking lunch.

We were impressed with Charlecote Park because the staff there were enthusiastically explaining everything to anyone who would listen and because it was a very good mix of Tudor and Victorian.

Punch and Judy

And to complete the Victorian feel of the place, in the grounds was a live Punch and Judy show taking place - the first I have seen for many many years.

Punch

Listening, it was obvious that children still know what to do when Punch appears.

Baddesley Clinton

A few miles away is another property dating from approximately the same period. And again, the National Trust website best sums up the house:

"Baddesley Clinton was the home of the Ferrers family for 500 years. Much of the house you see today was built by Henry Ferrers, a lawyer, diarist and antiquarian, in the late 1500s.

The house was a sanctuary not only for the Ferrers family, but also for persecuted Catholics who were hidden from priest hunters in its secret hiding places during the 1590s."

Baddersley Clinton and Moat

The house is one of those rare moated houses

Baddesley Clinton from the side

and is absolutely picturesque.

Baddesley Clinton from the rear

 This is the rear of the house and is made from brick, presumably because brick was cheaper than stone (here).

BC Front

From the front, it looks very a very solid house

Door Bell

and the Front Door Bell pull perhaps reflects its Christian role in earlier years.

BC Door

The front door looks like it dates from the 1500s and once inside,

BC Courtyard

you are in a central three sided courtyard,

BC Courtyard 001

it looks absolutely beautifully maintained.

Dining Room

There is a lot of history inside and there is a clear explanation of its lineage in the entrance. Of interest to us was that the Vaux Sisters lived in the house in the 1590s and some of my ancestors (albeit 100 years later) had the name Vaux.

Like the previous house we visited, this one dates from the Tudor Period but has been lived in fairly continuously and thus reflects Victorian life more than any other.

Above is the dining room and adjacent to that is a sitting room with portraits of “The Quartet”. When we went round, the room guide had a very interesting story to tell about the life style of the four members of “The Quartet” and how the relationships between them came about and developed. I will say no more and let you ask if ever you visit the house.

BC Great Hall Fireplace

The Great Hall is home to a very ornate early 17th century fireplace and upstairs in Henry Ferrers’s Bedroom is an equally historic one which would not lend itself to a good photograph.

Chapel

The house has its own chapel (as was common with houses of the Elizabethan period).

18th Century Glass Panel

Hanging in one window was a lovely piece of painted glass. Painted in the 1700s, it shows a Dutch church interior.

Art Room

Some members of the quartet were painters and a room has been recreated as a studio.

In the adjacent library is a “blood stain” on the floor which supposedly relates to a colourful period in the past. Again, you will have to ask for a detailed explanation and the story. Then, as now, if you had money, you could buy influence and/or forgiveness.

 Priest Holes were common in houses of the period.

Priest s Hole access

Baddesley contains three and the stairs in this picture enable the visitor to look into one which is hidden behind a wall and above a fire place.

Priest s Hole inside

Another is accessed through a trap door in a room next to the chapel

Priest s Hole Upstairs

and was accessed (if I have understood it correctly) by going down a "garderobe shaft" into the drains below the house.

Ladder down to Priest Hole

They were very successful as Priest Holes in that none were ever discovered.

There is a readable account of the house here. There is a lot more to see and learn than we have covered here. We really enjoyed visiting this house and would like to come again sometime.

Mary Arden’s Farm

Mary Arden’s Farm just outside of Stratford Upon Avon is part of a large site comprising houses, barns, outbuildings, fields and more.

MA House Main Picture

For many years this building (here the rear) was thought to be Mary Arden’s Farm but research suddenly revealed that

MA Palmers Farmhouse from Front

it was Adam Palmer’s Farm (their next door neighbour).

MA Farm yard

This is the rear of Mary Arden’s Farm - the building next door. 

MA Pigs

The farm tries to recreate farming life in the 1600s with a few friendly Tamworth Pigs

Herding the Geese

and Geese who you are invited to herd (the technique is one in front blocking the way you do not want them to go using a long stick, and one behind encouraging them to walk and no sudden movements !). There are also Owls and other birds of prey. 

MA Garden

The Kitchen Garden is tended in the style of the period and a major event every day is Lunch.

MA Lighting Fire

First however the fire in the kitchen has to be lit (and it was in a very traditional way - no fire lighters or matches)

MA Fire

MA Kitchen

and over a few hours, lunch was cooked

MA Lunch

which the Master of the House and the farm workers sat down to eat in full view of all of the visitors. They remained in period for much of the time but also explained how the table worked, what they ate and why etc.

2nd Best Bed

Upstairs are a number of beds (maybe one is the second best feather bed)

Bed in attic

Beds in Attic

and at the end of the loft is where the servants would have slept.

It was pouring with rain for most of the time when we visited and hence what we saw and did was somewhat limited. We did however have the site much to ourselves.

 

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