Hanbury Hall

Lordy - I'm annoyed I'm just now blogging about Saturday, but that's just the way it goes sometimes.  Guess what? We actually went somewhere! Hanbury Hall - one of the National Trust's many properties. The National Trust is a large charity, independent of the government, that restores and protects the coastline, countryside, and historic buildings of the UK. A lot of these places are practically in our backyard so it is about time we started checking them out. We decided to become members so we have unlimited access to all the properties throughout the UK. And we got stickers for our cars. I was excited about that.

So, Saturday. We set out for Hanbury Hall in Droitwich, Worcestershire. It took us a little over 30 min of blindly following the sat nav. The last ten minutes or so were on some ridiculously narrow and windy roads. We were lucky the couple times we met head on with other cars we were relatively close to turnouts - otherwise one of us would have had to back up for a loooooong time. Of course, I loved the cute little roads, but Jeff spent most of that part of the drive swearing at the sat nav for taking us on such a foolish route. Word to the wise, not the time to say things like "It's an adventure!!" "Sheep!!" "This is so fun!" "Please slow down." "More sheep!!"

The sun came out a little bit, which was a pleasant surprise. The place was reasonably crowded and staffed by an army of old people. Apart from a few "senior moments" (their words, not mine!), they really knew their stuff. It amazes me that people become so immersed in the history of a family that, to be honest, never really did anything remarkable. I can't remember a lot of the details, but I do know there was a fair amount of remodeling that happened at one point, which I can appreciate. The house was completed in 1706 by Thomas Vernon, a lawyer. A local historian of the time wrote "“Here is a large handsome house built by Counsellor Vernon about the year 1710 when a bad style of architecture prevailed; many windows and doors, rooms small, many closets, few arched cellars, large stables and offices in full view, are marks of that time". Hmph - what's wrong with a lot of windows and closets??  The rooms were quite small though so it's no wonder Emma Vernon wanted to change things when she married and took over the house in 1776.

The house continued to pass through the hands of Vernons until Sir George Vernon inherited it. His marriage was an unhappy one and his wife lived at another property, while Sir George lived at Hanbury Hall with his secretary and companion, Ruth Horton. Ruth was actually a farmer's daughter whose education had been paid for by Sir George. The guides described her as an "adopted daughter" but methinks it might have been slightly more than that, considering Sir George's estranged wife. Anyway, by 1940 he had become quite ill with cancer and a host of other things and shot himself in The Blue Bedroom. Quel drame! His wife, Lady Doris, took the opportunity to move back in to Hanbury Hall. Unfortunately, the house had fallen into some disrepair and was a nightmare to heat (not to mention almost completely empty since Sir George had left Lady Doris the house, while leaving Ruth its contents, which she promptly carted off) so Lady Doris spent most of her remaining days in a small sitting room off the main entrance hall. At one point she had as many as 22 cats living with her. In accordance with Sir George's will, the house became the property of the National Trust when Doris died in 1962.

In the living room: a copy of Beethoven's piano made at the same time. The painting of the two little girls is actually of two young male Vernons - in those days people were afraid of having their heirs kidnapped so they dressed them like girls! The carpet is a rare Axminster and is one of four in the world.

I love this color combination.

Lady Doris's sitting room. One of the windows in this room had a hinged pane so her cats could go in and out. The original cat door!

The Blue Bedroom.

Jeff remarked that the British penchant for ugly wallpaper (he encountered his fair share while house-hunting) is not a new one!

The walls of the main hall, up the stairs, and the ceiling of the hall are painted by James Thornhill, who also painted scenes of the life of St. Paul in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. At Hanbury Hall, the paintings depict the life of Achilles. Apparently, at one point Achilles's mom learned that if he went to fight in some war he would surely be killed so she dressed him up as a girl to keep him from having to fight. Jeff had to take issue with Thornhill's skill as "that so does not look like a guy dressed as a girl. It looks like a girl." In fact, Thornhill seems to have gone a little overboard and made Achilles look like a pregnant lady. Or maybe his mom went a little overboard. Maybe Achilles liked it. Who knows.

That's Achilles in the center of the panel on the left. Work-ing-it.

I loved the trompe l'oeil woodwork.

The house was incredibly dark, even in the middle of the afternoon, so the pictures aren't so great. The National Trust is lucky I never inherited this house because I totally would have gone all white-paint crazy on it. Seriously, one small room is painted a shade of white and I practically gasped with delight when I walked in. I wanted to be like "BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE WHITE PAINT" to everyone standing in the room. It was about ten times brighter than the rest of the house. Besides the white room, I think my favorite part of the house may have been the floorboards. They were fabulous. You cannot get floors like this without ripping them out of a house like Hanbury Hall. At least 8 inches wide, super dark, creaky, and with all the dings caused by 300 years of feet.

Right now, the National Trust is very busy restoring the 20 acres of formal gardens to their 18th century glory (a project slated to continue for the next 10 years). In fact, they are using one of the paintings from inside the house to help them recreate the design. So cool! Jeff and I will definitely be back in the summer to check it out.

After touring the house and being filled in on all the Vernon family gossip, Jeff and I stopped at the tea-room for scones with clotted cream and jam and tea before hitting the road.

And on Sunday we did absolutely nothing to make up for our exertions on Saturday.

It's alive!

Most of the garden is dead looking right now (I hope to god it isn't actually dead), but it is snowdrop season in the UK and a few have managed to pop up around our humble abode. Snowdrops flower between January and April and there are many "snowdrop gardens" located on the grounds of historic houses. Can you imagine how beautiful a sea of these flowers would be?! Hopefully, I'll be able to visit one soon and report back.

Plato is like "What the heck is so interesting over here???"

"Flowers - I own you."

While Plato and I were inspecting the flowers, Sascha kept watch as usual.

I know, it seems like I have way more pictures of her than Plato. That's because Play is a total mama's boy and follows me around like a shadow. Good thing Sascha is around or we would be completely (blissfully?) unaware of the occasional passerby/bird flying overhead.

Stairwell wall decor

This is kind of embarrassing.

I loooove Robert Dutesco's series of photographs of the Sable Island horses. Sable Island is off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada and home to around 300 feral horses. The first horses were brought to the island in the late 1700s when the Acadians were deported to the American colonies from Nova Scotia by the British authorities. Apparently, they were forced to abandon their livestock so they left around 60 domesticated horses on Sable Island. The abandoned horses adapted to the harsh climate of the island and became wild. Throughout the 1800s and into the 20th century, Sable Island horses were regularly rounded up and sold at auction in Halifax. The prices were cheap and many of them ended up working in the coal mines of Cape Breton Island or as dog food. Since 1960, however, they have been protected by the Canadian government and it is now illegal to remove or interfere with the horses.  Dutesco has permission to photograph the horses and the resulting work is stunning. I mean, there is horse photography and Horse Photography, and this is definitely the latter. Unfortunately, his work comes with a price tag to match. You should have heard me when I called to enquire about buying one of his pieces... hahaha oooh boy, did I feel silly. Thousands of dollars, people. If you want to check them out, go here.

So, I happened to stumble across a relatively high resolution image of one of his photographs. And I printed it out. And I framed it. And I hung it. I know... it's probably illegal or something and as an art-enthusiast I'm pretty embarrassed. Consider it a pledge to actually own a real one someday.

Phew, I'm glad I got that out of the way.

To frame it, I did my usual Ikea/custom mash-up. The print is a custom size and I had the surrounding mat custom cut to fit the print and an Ikea frame. I steered away from precious and went for dramatic by using a large frame and an unusual mat.

At the top of those two stairs, to the right, is our bedroom. Down the two stairs is the bathroom (to the left) and the spare room (to the right). A previous owner did a really good thing when they installed a skylight over the stairs. Keeps them from from being too dreary. You know what else will do that? WHITE PAINT.

It might not be your cup of tea, but you have to admit: if something makes you smile every time you look at it - you should probably hang it on your wall.

Tongue alert

That's what Jeff and I say to each other when we notice Sascha sleeping with her tongue sticking out, which she has been doing all the time lately. She does it when she is really relaxed so even when she is awake you can touch it and she won't pull it back in. Basically, it is the cutest thing ever.

Mantle Stylin'

Proof that not everything we own is from Ikea.

Our fireplace is huge and weird. I can't really even get a picture of the whole thing while I'm standing in the room. I've gotten used to it now, but it does kind of loom over you while you're watching TV. I realized putting a few things on the mantle cozies it up a little bit, while not seeming too clutter-y.

And now I give you not one, but five pictures of pretty much the same thing.

I brought the vintage zebra print from Seattle. As if I had room for superfluous, random decorative bits in my bags.

Jeff's NPR internet radio (a Christmas present) that I also packed in my bags. I couldn't bear the thought of paying 20% VAT plus shipping costs to send it here. Turned out to be a rather anti-climactic gift giving ceremony since I took it out of the box/packaging before I packed it. "No, no, no... the clothes aren't the present, they're the wrapping..."

The guy who did our hardwood floors very meticulously piled all the wood scraps in the fireplace, thinking we would actually burn them. He was a fool. A fool of a Took, if you know what I mean.

I'm still not convinced that I like having stuff on the mantle. Then again, my dream house is one where you walk in and think "someone lives here?" You can see why moving here with only a couple suitcases appealed to me. We only have one tiny junk drawer. That's amazing!

February Garden Tour

Absolute worst time of year to show you the garden since pretty much everything looks dead and dreary, but here goes.

Looking at the house straight on. It is one of those "semi-detached" houses that you see all over the UK, but ours is pretty unusual in that our house-partner's front door is on the opposite side of the house - so we never see them and we kind of forget that we actually do share walls with them. Most semi-detached houses have front doors that are right next to each other.

Facing the front door, looking to the right. There's the garage and Jeff's car in the driveway. The pavement outside our house isn't the road we live on (Mill Lane) but an offshoot of Mill Lane with two houses on it (us and our neighbors on the other side of the garage). The offshoot turns into a path in front of our house. Between the offshoot and Mill Lane is a pretty triangle of green space, which makes our house feel quite private. We have a lot of pedestrian traffic to and from school and the local pub which is a couple blocks away from us, but it is much preferable to car traffic. The green area has several trees including this huge one right outside our gate.

This is looking from the gate to the left, towards the garage and Mill Lane.

Looking to the right, along the path.

A small path leads from the front door to our front yard. The living room window and bedroom window above it look out onto this part of the garden.

The sun was so bright I couldn't get a decent picture, but this is looking from the front garden back towards the front door. We get beautiful morning sun in the kitchen and afternoon sun in the living room. I love it!

Looking from the front door towards the back patio and the garage.

Looking from the corner of the patio towards the front door.

The rest of the patio. A door opens from the kitchen onto the patio and the window over the sink looks out over it. Someone has spent a lot of time growing a wisteria up that wall and training it across the kitchen window. It will be beautiful with leaves and flowers! The little window above the kitchen is in the spare bedroom. You can see what a strange concept the "semi-detached" houses are... even our windows are different.

The back patio is definitely where we spend most of our time outside now and definitely will in the summer. It is very private and reasonably quiet (our house partner's side of the house is on a fairly busy street). On cold, sunny days I like to bundle up, bring my lunch outside, and sit on the bench while the dogs play.

You won't be surprised to hear I have some gardening plans in mind so stay tuned!

Guest pillow appropriation

Sascha may be a princess, but there is no doubt that Plato is the first-born.