July 19-20, 2018 - Lyme Hall / Heidi Comes to Visit / Calke Abbey II
On July 19th, Heather's sister, Heidi, came to visit us for 10 days. She flew into Manchester Airport (a 1.5 to 2 hour drive from where we live) about mid-day, so we decided to get an early start and make a visit to Lyme Hall/Park on the way. We didn't have time to tour the inside of the house, so we spent our time exploring the grounds (We were able to tour the mansion with Mark's parents when they came to visit a week later. Look for an upcoming post on that!). Lyme is a majestic mansion house that is probably most famous as the location for Pemberley in the 1995 British TV series version of Pride and Prejudice. Colin Firth memorably dives into the "lake" below before finding Elizabeth Bennett at the house. Mark was willing to pose for the picture, but diving into this shallow (probably no more than two feet deep) pond was out of the question.
This stone table was rather remarkable.
We loved the rose garden!
The orangery was impressive too! Nearly every large house/hall we tour has an orangery, which is basically a fancy greenhouse in which to plant exotic and tropical plants. This one was very fancy!
Check out the size of this magnolia blossom!
Hannah gets tired of her parents dragging her around to see more mansions and gardens, but she is a good sport. If only she had a friend or sibling to balance out the adult hegemony in our household!
How about this knot garden?!!! Wow!
They even had some games out on the lawn for people to play. Mark assures us that this picture captures him getting a total ringer!
After we picked Heidi up at the airport, we took her around the places we have lived to show her some of the beautiful places we have found. We stopped in a cute, little town near where we lived in Turnditch, called Kirk Ireton. It was fun to walk around and take a few pics of the English cuteness.
Calke Abbey
The next day we took Heidi to see Calke Abbey (See our July 1st post to learn about our first visit). It was fun to see it again and to explore more of the gardens this time.
We got to tour the stables again, but this time we got to join a guided tour that was very interesting!
Hannah didn't want to tour the house again, so she camped out under a tree and read a book. Not a bad spot to hang out!
We got to look at the church that is on the Calke grounds that we missed last time we came.
This is the orangery. There was a bride and groom having their pictures done inside. This estate, and many others, are popular for weddings and receptions.
As with just about everything at Calke, this little sitting area in the gardens was fairly run down. In older days, this is where the lady of the house would often come to "take tea" and watch what was going on in the estate garden.
We were told on our last visit that the blue paint in this potting shed was used here and in the kitchens to prevent bugs and vermin. The problem with that is that the reason it was effective for that purpose is because it is made with arsenic!
All the notes pinned to the board are flower show awards (most of them were 1st place!).
The boiler below was used to heat the greenhouses.
The picture below shows the trail to the ice house and the lake from which they likely collected the ice during the winter.
The entrance to the ice house.
The gardens are kept up beautifully, mostly by volunteers, although they are on a much smaller scale today than they would have been back when it was all a fully functioning estate.
On our way out Heidi was so grateful that we brought her to Calke that she prostrated herself before Heather to thank her...or maybe she was just trying to take a picture of the building from the ground perspective?...you make the call!
This thatched roof house is right at the exit, going out of Calke.
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