Attingham House

Our second big stop of the day was Attingham, another Herefordshire home and garden now maintained by the National Trust. By my lights, it was a nice Georgian place, undone by the dissipating habits of a late 19th century lord, then restored by his younger brother, who had done well despite the lack of title (merely ambassador to Italy). The latter had the remarkably good sense--well ahead of his time--to rid the place of its Victorian decor and to return it to its Georgian heritage. Bravo! Let decor match the architecture. If you can afford it.

The house

Music room

Room with tables and chairs

Nice ceiling

Dead bird collection

Library

Table without a view

Probably not the servants' stairs

Pseudo-Caravaggio soon to be sent to the Prado, we were told

Another nice ceiling

Headless receptionist (was rude to callers)

Art Nouveau portion of house

You rang sir? Episode 22,572; a feeble attempt to do a 360 pano
of the bells

Butler's sitting room

Kitchen

Order of the day

Junior servants' dining

Each place setting describing a real person, a real role; the
women were paid about half what the men were paid...

Vicki says this must be wrong, since it is not how it was done in
Downtown Arby's; ;-)

Some of the silver brought back from Italy by
the successful non-dissipating younger brother

How elections were won in the 1800s; a jug and
a mug on election day; nowadays it is more
efficient to buy entire legislatures and thus
gerrymander entire states' votes