Blickling Hall

I don't know whether anyone rates the National Trust's properties--how could you? they are all so interestingly different--but if there were such a rating, Blickling surely would get 5 stars. The drive-up appeal alone would count for much. The property belonged to the Boleyns in the 15th and 16th centuries. Anne allegedly was born there in the early 1500s. James I's chief justice Lord Herbert built the quintessential Jacobean hall in the early 1600s. Later generations added Georgian structures and touches, but always melding with the Jacobean. In later years, the estate came to the Lothian clan and was last owned by Lord Lothian. If you've seen Darkest Hour, you know who he was--one of the great appeasers (he met personally with Hitler), but later Churchill's ambassador to the United States--and perhaps more to the point, the author and progenitor of the National Trust Act of 1937, which enabled the gifting of great estates in lieu of the so-called "death taxes." When Lord Lothian died in 1940, in Washington, DC, he had already willed Blickling to the Trust and thus to the nation. The long hall is one of the most renowned among these structures, housing what is said to be the Trust's largest and finest library. The park lands encompass hundreds of acres, and I don't think I will be able to do the gardens in just one post: they're varied and beautiful and photogenic. Oh yes, Blickling also has the largest 2nd-hand bookstore and garden store we have seen on Trust properties; and two restaurant/cafes. And then there is the WWII RAF/Oulton museum....

Drive-up appeal: first there is the ancient/giant flanking hedge, a couple hundred
meters long

Then the matching/flanking service buildings

And then the great Jacobean Hall itself

Inside the great hedge (in case you've ever wondered...)

The (former) moat is all that remains of the Boleyn house

In the great Jacobean entry hall; note the carved newel posts

Comfy room; different rooms are done in different periods, reflecting the hall's
great age

Lord Lothian, ambassador to the USA

Formal dining

Family portrait

The long hall; note exquisite plaster ceiling

Library

Gainsborough portrait of the Countess of Buckinghamshire

State bedroom (just in case the king or queen decide to pop in)

Lord Herbert, of the court of King James, who bought the
lands in 1616 and built the great house

Among the things that most interested us, this guest room, decorated with wall
paper onto which had been affixed large prints from the Grand Tour...

Apparently, in the 18th and early 19th, you could purchase books of these
prints, sort of like today's posters or post cards, souvenirs of the Tour

Another bedroom

Back in a drawing room or somesuch: the sad news is that Blickling has been
infested by the Death Watch Beetle; the scaffolding is there to permit an
examination of how far the beetle has gotten into the structural timbers, the
books, and more...

Felbrigg Gardens

Most National Trust properties are old, and there are complicated decisions to be made about what to restore them to: Medieval, Tudor, Jacobean, Georgian, Regency, Victorian, Edwardian, whatever. It's complicated. Very. The gardens are similar: Renaissance, Italianate, Dutch, Georgian, Victorian...? Often, a garden design, paintings, or even photographs will have survived to guide decisions about how the gardens should be "restored." At Felbrigg no such designs or such exist, just the forest and the large walled garden itself, and the dovecote; and so the head gardener has had free rein to do whatever (s)he thinks appropriate. The end result, we thought, was glorious, the best walled garden we have seen. Olive trees? Flax? In England? we asked. Why? Because we can, was the answer.

The garden tour began with the orangerie, which housed a collection of huge
old camellias; not an orange in sight

But it did contain this beautiful old model of the house, as it once was

 

In the forest area, what we thought was a "fairy ring" of sequoias, similar to
what we've seen in northern CA

Our guide beside an ancient twisted sweet chestnut; sweet chestnuts do the twist
when they get really old; anyhow, the guide was superb, knowledgeable not only
about the plants but where they came from and when and why; a retired geographer

The giant sweet chestnut

Now in the large walled garden, which must be a gardeners' paradise

For reasons lost on me, they let the pigeons and doves and chickens roam free
in the gardens

Lonely new monkey puzzle

Felbrigg's dovecote, with accommodations for nearly 1000 birds

More walled garden

In a greenhouse

Fowl in the walled garden; reminded me of Kauai

Bottle brush

Fuchsias everywhere

And flax...stupendous garden!

Felbrigg House

The lands on which Felbrigg Hall stands had been in the Wyndham family for centuries, although the present house is part Jacobean and part Georgian. I think we're beginning to get Georgian'ed-out; we enjoyed the gardens rather more than the house, partly because of an excellent guide, and partly because of the free rein the gardener has enjoyed at Felbrigg. More of that in the next post.

Felbrigg, the Jacobean bit, early 17th

The Georgian bit; as you can see, the Jacobean bit must have been terribly
confining, just one room deep

In the old house, nice furnishings, etc., all over...this the home of country squires,
not lords and ladies

One of two partner desks; although it was unclear who the partner might have
been

The most interesting rooms were the library and book room, crammed with
volumes of Gibbon, Smith, Johnson, Boswell, the whole 18th century; it turns
out one of the later squires wrote the definitive biography of Walpole; I was
impressed, until I discovered it was Horace Walpole, not Robert Walpole, widely
regarded at the first Prime Minister; oh well; anyhow, here, in the library, is the
"reading machine," an adjustable reclining chair with attached book stand, etc.;
1850 

Dining

In the Chinese room

Kitchen

No more "You rang, sir?"

Victorian curiosities cabinets

Ditto

The little parish church on the grounds

Some nice, very old carvings