Summer holidays….so far
Thu. August 13, 2015
We have recently returned from another successful holiday with The Landmark Trust, this time in Calverley Old Hall, West Yorkshire. Part of the house dates back to 1400 and has an interesting history. This quote greeted us from the log book,written by a lady from USA staying with her family a few weeks before our visit, “I am currently writing a doctorial discitation on literary representations of domestic violence in early modern England, ….imagine my delight at learning we could actually stay in the house where the 1605 Calverley murders occured! Actually it wasn’t in the least bit spooky, but we didn’t mention that part of the history to the children, needless to say.
We decided not to venture far from our base and found plenty to keep us busy for a week. East Riddlesdon Hall (NT) was a delight and full of lovely oak furniture, sadly non original to the house but nevertheless wonderful. The Royal Armouries, Leeds took up most of a wet Sunday and high on the list of places Tomi wanted to see. We went to Ilckley on a whim because Morwenna, who had decided, having done a bit of cross stitch at East Riddlesdon Hall, to try some for herself so we found Duttons for Buttons which sold everything. Naturally we visited Betty’s tea rooms – their Yorkshire curd tart is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. Bronte parsonage in the afternoon – Morwenna and Tomi fascinated by the tiny books Charlotte and her siblings produced. There were some very good museums run by the local council which despite having an air of sad neglect, had some fine exhibits and were well worth the visit – Bolling Hall had some wonderful furniture. The room devoted to allowing children to dress up as soldiers and sit in a Bell tent, went down well with us all.
Temple Newsam has long been on Mr B’s list and it was good to see the Chippendale and Adams furniture, but the highlight for us was the furniture donated by Roger Warner including, dolls house and delightful Windsor chair and also a particularly fine painted bed.
There was a good farm and adventure playground there too. We used this as a bribe to keep the children in order whilst we took a good look around the house first. The world heritage site of Saltaire wasn’t high on our list of priorities, but not only was it interesting, but offered a great place to buy books – oh dear, I was lead into temptation. If you are a fan of David Hockney you probably already know about it. A very good vintage shop provided me with the perfect man’s dress shirt which I’ve been looking for ages to wear myself (although I neglected to see that it needed dress studs to keep it closed – bother!) and another vintage ladybird book to add to Morwenna’s growing collection, and we managed to sniff out another adventure playground across the river
Abbey House Museum in Leeds was great for the kids and full of old toy exhibits – oh and a snake. On our way home, we had a flying visit to Erddig – we know what we want to see and headed for the nursery and then the servants quarters basement. A very enjoyable holiday all round, my only regret was that we didn’t find the time for a curry and I didn’t manage to persuade Tim to stop the van for us girls to look at the fabulous Sari shops on the edge of Bolton….something for our next visit maybe.