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vampyresheep) wrote2018-09-03 05:48 pm
vampyresheep) wrote2018-09-03 05:48 pm
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Infest - the journey home
As the sun was promising to come out for the Bank Holiday Monday (it lied, incidentally!), and we weren't too frazzled from the night before, we decided to take a leisurely journey home, stopping off at places on the way.
After checking out from our hotel and loading the car, we had breakfast at the lovely cafe downstairs from Waterstones. I'm not sure if post-festival munchies meant I was craving cheese but the ham and mushroom croque, covered in lovely cheese sauce, was the nicest thing I had ever tasted!
Escaping Bradford for another year, our first stop was Brodsworth Hall. I thought we'd visited everything off the A1 over the many years of travelling it but found this by chance when scrolling the map for a stopping point at the way up. As it was covered by our Art Fund, we figured it would be a nice little stop.
First impression was of the usual Georgian/Victorian stately home, with pretty ornamental gardens and lots of elderly people sitting on benches (and bizarrely sitting in rows on camping chairs on the lawn ......)
We found a spot in the ornamental garden to have a cup of coffee and the cakes we'd purchased at breakfast, then went to explore further, heading to the temple we could view at the top of the garden.
It was quite a surprise to find a hidden victorian rock garden /grotto as we turned the corner! Really lovely to explore and apparently the biggest collection of ferns in northern England.
and a pet cemetery round the back
As we returned to the lawns, the rows of elderly in camping chairs had multiplied - it was like that scene in The Birds, only elderly people in camping chairs instead of birds. ;-)
The reason was soon revealed, as a brass band started to play in the shadow of the house.
The next surprise was inside the house. Although it looked Georgian on the outside, it was completely remodelled in the Victorian era and then left to slowly decline as later ancestors didn't have the money for its upkeep, until the final owner bequeathed it to English Heritage in the 1980's and they took the decision to leave it in its current condition. A fascinating place to visit, felt like something used in one of those "victorian" ghost stories filmed in the 60's and 70's.
a fantastic old wall of books
things started to get more dilapidated
the numbers outside have increased!
doggles :-)
upstairs, rooms were even more dilapidated and just a little creepy
There was a considerable servants area too, all well preserved. Amazing to realise just how much of the house was purpose built servants quarters, no narrow corridors or pokey little rooms here. (but I didn't get any photos of the big rooms and corridors, just of the paraphenalia left over!)
Our next stop was to find somewhere for dinner and instead of our usual stop in Newark, on the boat (charming as it is, we prefer being there on a sunny day to sit outside rather than inside the boat's rather dark interior), we stopped at North Muskham, for a riverside pub called the Muskham Ferry (partly out of intrigue to see if it would be a suitable swimming spot for future trips).
We were a little early for food service so sat out by the river bank with a drink, heading inside when it started to get chilly. It was soon apparent that we weren't the only ones waiting for 5pm to order food, as there was suddenly a queue! Despite this, the food arrived fairly promptly and was blooming gorgeous - I had a homemade pie, with potatoes, veg and proper gravy, soooo good!
We considered stopping elsewhere en-route for dessert but were making good time, so decided to continue straight home, rather exhausted after a full-on but fantastic weekend.
Full gallery of Infest and Brodsworth Hall pics here
After checking out from our hotel and loading the car, we had breakfast at the lovely cafe downstairs from Waterstones. I'm not sure if post-festival munchies meant I was craving cheese but the ham and mushroom croque, covered in lovely cheese sauce, was the nicest thing I had ever tasted!
Escaping Bradford for another year, our first stop was Brodsworth Hall. I thought we'd visited everything off the A1 over the many years of travelling it but found this by chance when scrolling the map for a stopping point at the way up. As it was covered by our Art Fund, we figured it would be a nice little stop.
First impression was of the usual Georgian/Victorian stately home, with pretty ornamental gardens and lots of elderly people sitting on benches (and bizarrely sitting in rows on camping chairs on the lawn ......)
We found a spot in the ornamental garden to have a cup of coffee and the cakes we'd purchased at breakfast, then went to explore further, heading to the temple we could view at the top of the garden.
It was quite a surprise to find a hidden victorian rock garden /grotto as we turned the corner! Really lovely to explore and apparently the biggest collection of ferns in northern England.
and a pet cemetery round the back
As we returned to the lawns, the rows of elderly in camping chairs had multiplied - it was like that scene in The Birds, only elderly people in camping chairs instead of birds. ;-)
The reason was soon revealed, as a brass band started to play in the shadow of the house.
The next surprise was inside the house. Although it looked Georgian on the outside, it was completely remodelled in the Victorian era and then left to slowly decline as later ancestors didn't have the money for its upkeep, until the final owner bequeathed it to English Heritage in the 1980's and they took the decision to leave it in its current condition. A fascinating place to visit, felt like something used in one of those "victorian" ghost stories filmed in the 60's and 70's.
a fantastic old wall of books
things started to get more dilapidated
the numbers outside have increased!
doggles :-)
upstairs, rooms were even more dilapidated and just a little creepy
There was a considerable servants area too, all well preserved. Amazing to realise just how much of the house was purpose built servants quarters, no narrow corridors or pokey little rooms here. (but I didn't get any photos of the big rooms and corridors, just of the paraphenalia left over!)
Our next stop was to find somewhere for dinner and instead of our usual stop in Newark, on the boat (charming as it is, we prefer being there on a sunny day to sit outside rather than inside the boat's rather dark interior), we stopped at North Muskham, for a riverside pub called the Muskham Ferry (partly out of intrigue to see if it would be a suitable swimming spot for future trips).
We were a little early for food service so sat out by the river bank with a drink, heading inside when it started to get chilly. It was soon apparent that we weren't the only ones waiting for 5pm to order food, as there was suddenly a queue! Despite this, the food arrived fairly promptly and was blooming gorgeous - I had a homemade pie, with potatoes, veg and proper gravy, soooo good!
We considered stopping elsewhere en-route for dessert but were making good time, so decided to continue straight home, rather exhausted after a full-on but fantastic weekend.
Full gallery of Infest and Brodsworth Hall pics here