Visiting a National Trust property on a showery day can make sense, in that you can look around the house (or shop and tea room) when it is raining, and tour the gardens and parkland between the showers. Well that was our idea when we visited Hanbury Hall in Worcestershire on a wet weekday in […]
The National Trust promotes Calke Abbey as the ‘un-stately’ stately home, and indeed many of the rooms in the house are in a bad state of decoration and are overflowing with masses of bric-a brac. I found it interesting up to a point to check out what appealed to aristocratic hoarders and it made me […]
Northumberland is very well endowed with fine National Trust and English Heritage sites, including Cragside House, Belsay Hall and several castles, but my favourite property is Wallington. Situated just twenty miles NW of Newcastle in the first foothills of the Pennines, Wallington has everything to satisfy the discerning senior traveller in pursuit of interesting heritage […]
Cheshire is well endowed with National Trust properties which include fascinating houses, large well-tended gardens and extensive parklands. This article focuses on my three favourite properties – Lyme, Dunham Massey and Little Moreton Hall – but includes mention of other National Trust and English Heritage sites in the county. Lyme My most recent visit to Lyme […]
Written by Julia Thorley (One of two winning entries in the Heritage Writing Competition.) The Black Lion in Consall, North Staffordshire, isn’t the sort of pub you simply happen upon. To get there by road you need to deviate from the A52 and head for Kingsley Moor and Cellar Head towards Wetley Rocks – such […]
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Heritage in Derbyshire: Hardwick Old and New Halls
The Halls at Hardwick on the eastern fringes of Derbyshire are lasting memorials to two formidable ladies, Bess of Hardwick (1527-1608) and Evelyn Cavendish (1870-1960). Bess, or to give her her full title, Elizabeth Cavendish (later Talbot), Countess of Shrewsbury, managed, with the help of four marriages, to become the second most powerful woman in […]