On Sunday we took another three students with us to visit Calke Abbey (the pronunciation is a bit more like "coke" in the local dialect), a manor house in Derbyshire, about 40 minutes drive from home, which is now maintained by the National Trust.
 |
| Mary and our students walk toward Calke Abbey |
This house is unique, first of all because generations of its owners were collectors -- mostly of stuffed birds and animals, but lots of other things, too. Second, the family were hoarders -- they almost never threw anything away. They were a bit excentric, and in some rooms things are piled high.
 |
This small room was one of the last to be occupied,
and has been left as it was found. |
Finally, as the family money ran out, and each successive generation was less able to maintain the house, they simply closed off portions of it and left everything as it was, until the final owner lived in only a few rooms. The trust has worked to keep everything just as they found it, peeling paint, piles of collections, and all. It's fascinating!
 |
| Display cases still covered with sheets, as they were found. |
The house, built 1701-1704, had several interesting features in its day, including grand rooms, huge wine cellars, and a long tunnel connecting the house to the brewery and stables out back. They raised pigs, and images of swine are sort of a family symbol around the house.
 |
| A bedroom piled with "stuff" before being abandoned. |
Calke Abbey is not so much a museum as a time capsule, stuffed haphazardly by some rather odd people.
 |
Even the Victorian bathroom (note the shower at left) became
a storage space before being closed off. |
On the way home, we stopped at the Attenborough Nature Centre, along the River Trent in southwest Nottingham. This is a collection of old gravel pits now established as a bird sanctuary, and very popular with hikers, dog-walkers, bird watchers, and photographers.
 |
| Attenborough Nature Centre |
Our students were amazed to find such a place just a short distance from the hustle of the city and the huge university where they study.
No comments:
Post a Comment