The tourist entrance is at the back, but this used to be the front of the castle, with terraces leading down to a lake.
The castle itself has rooms from different eras of building, from a medieval-ish banqueting hall, with spiral stone staircase in the thickness of the wall, through Stuart oak panelled rooms, and a beautiful inlaid panelled room, to a Victorian type drawing room with flock wallpaper in a depressing dark turquoisey colour. As usual, the visitor only sees a small fraction of the building, and is left fascinated by the doors that are marked "Private".
Lots of my favourite 17th century tables, chests, and cupboards. Plus some huge pewter plates that needed some TLC and a good scrub with horsetail. And, as usual, no details about the embroidery.
The large gardens are lovely, and there are lots of places with sheltered seats. This one has a wonderful view across to mountains, which were too misty for a picture yesterday.
And this one has a view down an avenue of cherry trees (note the inclusion of a cherry twig for reference!).
The obligatory tour of the shop yielded a bar of wool fat soap, which I discovered on Saturday to be marvellous for felt-making; and a couple of plants (a helenium and a double white Japanese anemone), which now have to be found spaces in the garden.
3 comments:
Doors marked private ... are just asking to be opened and peeked through. Looks like a very mysterious castle from your picture. I do like it.
'a bar of wool fat soap' - well there's the answer to all my Christmas present problems!
Oh and dare I ask - why would you want to make felt?
Sorry to be so ignorant.
Spinning, dyeing, weaving, knitting, sewing, rug-making, felt-making - playing with these keeps me happy. There's a joke about a long felt want, too, that I'm not going to do...
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