Thursday 19 June 2014

Salisbury and Cotswolds Holiday Day 7–Charlecote Park

Fortunately I was feeling slightly better today, even after another really bad night, and sleeping a lot in the car helped me keep going. We went to a National Trust property today, Charlecote Park, a magnificent Tudor manor house in Warwickshire. I took loads of photos but won’t include them all here!

01 Stable Block

02 Rooftop

The place houses a fine collection of carriages. Here are a couple of them.

04 Carriage Collection - Victoria

10 Carriage Collection - Barouche

Some of the names were very familiar from literature (Sherlock Holmes etc.!) – Barouches and Broughams. It was nice to see the difference between them, and for what purpose they were used. This was a very wealthy family who could afford different carriages for different occasions – rather like having a garage full of Porsches and Mercedes today!

I loved these black iron hay racks on the white wall.

08 Hay Racks

In the stable block area, there was a number of very attractive signs with simple graphics. I particularly liked the Kitchen sign with the servants’ bell.

16 Attractive Signs

Beautiful iron gates.

18 Iron Gates

A large mangle in the laundry. You could put a lot of embossing folders through this!

21 Mangle

A view of the main house.

25 Main House

The gardens were beautiful, with a mixture of formal and landscaped.

28 Garden Steps

32 Formal Garden

34 Stone Urn

The Great Hall ceiling.

36 Great Hall Ceiling

In the centre of the Great Hall was a large and magnificent Italian marble topped table. The workmanship was truly extraordinary.

38 Italian Marble Table Top

A bust of Queen Elizabeth I, who had associations with the house.

40 Bust of Queen Elizabeth I

Some stunning ebony chairs in the library, inlaid with ivory.

42 Ebony and Ivory Furniture in Library

Also in the library was this exquisitely inlaid cabinet.

43 Inlaid Cabinet

At the other end of the library was this beautiful pair of globes, one a terrestrial globe and the other a celestial. Both were mounted on delicate Chippendale bases. The guide explained that they were made of papier mache, and the printed map was known as a “gore,” being a strangely shaped piece of paper with curved gussets cut out, so that the pieces would fit around the sphere. I had not come across this name before, but it tied in with my dressmaking knowledge – a “gored” skirt is made up of narrow tapering strips sewn together to form the three-dimensional shape.

44 Globes in Library

A bust of William Shakespeare, who also had connections with the house.

46 Bust of William Shakespeare

Doing the rounds of the house, we met a group of men from a photographic club in the West Midlands and I got into conversation with one of them. He said he’d found a staircase upstairs, and someone had asked why on earth he’d want to photograph it as it was so uninteresting – but he said he could manipulate it and make it interesting, with monochrome and the addition of some grain. He was a man after my own heart, photographing unlikely things like rust and manky old rope, and we shared the experience of our families thinking we were completely mad! I made a point of looking out for this staircase, which presumably once led to the servants’ bedrooms, and photographed it, determined to see if I could follow his lead and make my own grungey version of it. Unfortunately I was unable to capture the single, unshaded light bulb at the head of the stairs which would have added atmosphere. Here is the original:

48 Dark Staircase

I wanted to share my “grungeyfied” version but for some obscure reason I am unable to export the picture as a jpg or png from Serif PhotoPlus without losing the noise that I added. If anyone has a solution to this problem, I’d love to hear it! (I’ll edit this post if I discover a way of doing this.)

A beautiful gilded ceiling.

52 Gilded Ceiling

A lovers’ couch made of Burmese teak. I have a screen made of this, deeply and elaborately carved, and it weighs an absolute ton!

53 Burmese Lovers' Couch in Music Room

The kitchen fireplace.

58 Kitchen Fireplace

In the kitchen region there was a large, impressive cast iron boiler.

57 Large Boiler

I decided to give this the grunge treatment too, but again, the gorgeous grainy “noise” was lost on export. Very mysterious… It looks nice and steampunk in the photo editor.

Just as we were leaving, I came across this elderly gentleman resting his feet in the sun, together with the resident cat, and he kindly allowed me to photograph him!

60 Relaxing in the Sun

A great day out, greatly enhanced by my feeling well enough to enjoy it! I went deeply asleep in the car on the way back and don’t feel too bad now. We are returning home tomorrow, and I just wish I had felt well all through the holiday as I feel I wasted several precious days, and also spoilt my hubby’s enjoyment, too, although he denies this, bless him!

1 comment:

  1. Dear Shoshi,

    thank you to show this great pictures from your Holiday.

    It's a little bit, as if you have been there myself.

    Some pictures, are like the middle Ages. They were great. When I saw them for the first time, i thougt of the series The Tudors.

    The rural images also like it very much.

    I'm a bit envious of the great holiday. But if you enjoy it, i'm Happy.

    So many Greetings from Germany, a nice Weekend and all the Best.

    ReplyDelete

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