vampyresheep

On Saturday a little outing was planned for a steampunk picnic at the newly reopened Strawberry Hill. Suggested by Herr Doktor on Brass Goggles, it soon snowballed and about 40 of us had booked for the first few tours of the day.
Was a bit worried that plans would be hampered due to rugby traffic and the threat of thundery storms but Rob and I manage to avoid the traffic, arriving an hour early and the weather soon cleared up.

Soon there was a good little crowd of us at the entrance, whilst we waited for those who were not so fortunate with the traffic

couldn't resist a brief camera tart moment, before everyone else spotted the "bench of awesomeness"

headed in for the tour, where the blue overshoes were a source of much amusement - just you wait, next year you'll all be wearing them, trend setters that we are! :-)

I have to confess, having visited Strawberry Hill before the renovation, that what's been done came as a bit of a shock. We have been advised that works are still not complete, hence the lack of furniture however not so sure about the decision to strip all the beautiful decor created by Lady Waldegrave to take it back to Walpole's decor. I dug out some of my 2008 photos to compare (these were during the refurb, unfortunately can't find my pre-refurb pics, must have been before digital cameras)

Firstly we entered the so-named "Beauty Room" which has intentionally been left stripped down to its bare structure, leaving some remnants of the successive eras of decoration

Then we entered the hallway, where my heart sank to see that the beautiful wallpaper and starry ceiling (which inspired the decor of our own bedroom, following the first visit), now stripped down to Walpole's "gloomth" which to me just looked like primer grey. Added to this the fact that the stairwell was being used to store visitors' prams and wheelchairs.

whilst I can appreciate why they've done it - and it does make you appreciate the way the stairwell lightens as you ascend, I cannot help but think that Walpole would have been horrified at the idea of visitors when the house is in this state of repair.

Next was the Great Parlour - furniture apparently on its way, so currently left as a grey room with a beautiful fireplace

Another beautiful fireplace - can't find info on the website but I'm pretty certain this was the one which had beautiful velvet arabian style drapes - was advised on our last visit that they'd reluctantly decided to remove them, partially because of restoration cost

The brighter (and very grey!) stairwell from the top floor

and a comparision of how it looked in 2008 (with a bad photo!)

Then up to the library - very empty indeed! But we were advised that they're trying to source books to fill the shelves. The ceiling art has been restored though and is rather stunning.

carried on down a rather cool corridor towards the Holbein Chamber.

And now to the rooms where the bulk of the restoration has been done. Firstly the Gallery.

In 2008, it looked like this:

Now it is a mass of gold bling :-) Can't understand why they chose to remove the paintings in the alcoves (apparently not authentic) but other than that, wow!

Next was the Round Room - or as we liked to call it, the "swingy chair room" (as that's the only furniture we could visualise for this room, a big revolving chair in the middle!)

a perfect location for more camera tart moments!

Then we all ooh'd and aaah'd over the Tribune, visualising what ornaments we could bring into this room. Figured it would look rather fab if filled with taxidermy. :-)

and finally was the "small room". Not sure what use one could make of such a tiny space (apart from the obvious!) but it was another rather prettily decorated room and for a while it seemed as though we were going to break the record for "How many Steampunks can you fit in a Small Room"

Cultural visit over, we headed out to the lawns for a steampunk picnic. Some people considerably more organised than others! Here several hours were spent eating, drinking and crashing small planes into the building (fortunately they forgave us for this incident, so we are still welcome back!)

We started to pack up around 5ish, then Rob and I headed towards Kingston with Pandora and Andy to a pub now run by an old Vampyre Society member, Thomas - someone we'd not seen for years! It was a lovely pub too - the Queens Head, Kingston - shame it was not busier but unfortunately suffers from being close to the river but not close enough. In this weather, that's where everyone wants to be!

Oh and the biggest shock from comparing my 2008 photos - how much younger I looked: