There are thirteen National Trust properties in Norfolk including five spectacular coastal sites. However my favourite properties are the estates at Blickling and Felbrigg, situated fourteen and twenty-one miles respectively north of Norwich. Both Blickling Estate and Felbrigg Hall, Gardens and Estate – to give them their full National Trust titles – are well endowed […]
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 […]
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 […]
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National Trust Worcestershire: Croome Court and Park
As you arrive at Croome, a National Trust property 10 miles south of Worcester, you are greeted with a sign stating: Expect the Unexpected. Intriguing, but indeed it proved to be quite true when my wife and I visited Croome Court and Park on a cold but sunny weekday in January. The first unexpected was maybe […]