Well so much for my attempt to keep up to date! At any rate here's what I've been up to.
Within 4 days I walked through 3 old houses (ancient in American terms) and their gardens beginning on the small end with Beatrix Potter's home and ending with Chatsworth house. The one thing they all have in common are the dark interior rooms. It's no wonder people said country air would do you good! Given the fact though that a great deal of time was spent outside, and that you wanted to keep as much heat on the inside of your single pained glass windows as possible it does make a bit of sense.
Beatrix Potter's house that tourists visit is not the one she actually considered her main home. It was not appropriate for a single Victorian woman to live on her own in a village house, so she called it her "summer house" and spent as much time as she could in it mostly during the summer. When she eventually married later in life she apparently said it was not fit for married life. What many people think is that she wanted to preserve it as her special space. With creaky floors, and small cozy rooms it feels very welcoming. Beatrix said that it was not to be turned into a museum, but always to be left like a home, so there are no labels pinned on things.
One special collection in a small room upstairs is a complete set of china (?) figures from the molds made in Germany just before WW1 of all her characters. There were only three sets made before the beginning of the war at which point they were stored away. I forget if they came out between wars, or were lost then. At any rate they were discovered sometime after WW2 and they are now being used once more, though each individual figure will cost somewhere around $100.
From Beatrix's small vegetable and flower gardens I went to Levens Gardens, the oldest topiary gardens in the world. The head gardeners are entrusted with cutting them into fascinating shapes each year, which I believe can take up to 6 weeks. You should be able to see some of them in the photos. The same person who designed the royal gardens at Hampton Court Palace was commissioned to design these gardens in 1694. At first they seemed to stretch on forever, but after I had two wanders around they seemed much more manageable and familiar. My favorite place was actually not the topiary, roses, or willow maze, but a small circular part of the gardens overflowing with flowers where you felt hidden away from everything else.
Levens Hall was also quite spectacular, not in the sense of overwhelming grander, but just enough to be impressive without feeling completely out of reach. It's first renovation occurred during the rein of Queen Elizabeth the 1st and her coat of arms can be seen carved into the wood above all of the mantel pieces. One unique feature of this house is its leather wall paper, enameled to look like carved wood, or to me sometimes like metal. As my host put it "This is a place I could actually see living in" though admittedly quite extravagantly. If you can manage to get an invite you might actually have the pleasure of sleeping in one of the old bedrooms, which are still used for guests. Unfortunately I don't think I'll ever be on that list.
Lastly there was Chatsworth: 105 acres of just gardens, plus 30,000 acres of land around it and the house its self. Those of you who pay more attention than I do, will know that this is where Pride and Prejudice was filmed. With so many acres it's needless to say that part of one day is not enough to see everything. I did see the best known parts of the garden including the waterfall which is a set of 24 stone steps each slightly different to change the melody of the water as it flows down. All of the major water features, including the fountain, which can reach up to something like 230 ft. into the air, are powered solely by gravity from the ponds created above to feed them. Pretty darn impressive!
I also toured the house, and was quite surprised to learn that photography was allowed inside. So for the first time I can share some photos of the inside of one of these grand estates. I have to say that though there were 40 rooms open to the public, more I think than any I've been in before, it did not impress me as much as Levens, or Windsor Castle. There's no question that it is grand, but there is something different that is not as catching. The part that I enjoyed the most I think were the chambers built in the late 1600s specifically for a visit from the King and Queen, who never actually came, although later royalty, including Queen Victoria, did visit. I quite enjoyed looking into the dark, cozy library, but was not actually allowed into that room. It looked like the perfect place to disappear into another world.
The Duke credited with much of the landscaping in the gardens, and major house extension (of which only the dinning room is pictured) is the 6th Duke of Devonshire, who lived in the early 19th century. The reason I knew of Chatsworth was actually due to the story of his mother Georgiana. On her 17th birthday Georgiana was married to the 5th Duke, who of course was much older than she. She bore 2 daughters, and finally a son. Shortly after this she had a son by her lover, but was forced to give up the child, and her true love. In the meantime her husband was having an affair with Georgiana's friend, who had moved in with them. However the two women seem to have remained friends, and spent the rest of Georgiana's life living in this weird threesome. My thoughts are that Georgiana so disliked her husband that she was perfectly happy not to share his bed. At any rate I don't believe it was a very happy place for the 6th Duke to grow up in, and he never married. Instead he poured all of his energy (and money) into a complete transformation of Chatsworth.
So of the three I think I enjoyed Levens the most. I guess that would make my mama bear in Goldilocks eyes.
