This blog has a slight danger of becoming a stately home review blog, but I’m not going to apologise. I love being surrounded by beautiful things and drinking tea, and a house visit generally involves both of these in spades. It’s like Grand Designs without the hard hats.
Holkham Hall is interesting to visit because it’s [...]
Entries Tagged as 'architecture'
Holkham Hall
September 6th, 2009 5 Comments
Tags: holkham · north norfolk · stately home
The original Boston
August 14th, 2009 No Comments
The north of East Anglia bleeds imperceptibly into the East Midlands and the sea, somewhere in Lincolnshire.
The Lincolnshire fens are, if it’s possible, even flatter and more fertile than the Cambridgeshire ones. Driving through at this time of year forcibly brings to our attention how much food is harvested here. It’s not just wheat, there [...]
Tags: boston stump · fens · Lincolnshire
What to do in East Anglia when it’s wet
August 7th, 2009 No Comments
Call me cynical and depressed about the weather, but I thought a round up of some good places to spend wet afternoons might be a timely and useful thing for a British August. I personally like knocking around big museums when the weather is bad. Coming across beautiful and interesting things is always an antidote [...]
Christchurch Mansion
June 24th, 2009 No Comments
The children of Ipswich are lucky indeed. Not only do they have an estimable town museum, they also have Christchurch Mansion, where they can go and develop their taste by looking at beautiful domestic objects from centuries past, in a beautiful old house surrounded by parkland for running around in afterwards.
The interiors are from every [...]
Tags: christchurch mansion · furniture · ipswich · museum
Audley End
June 15th, 2009 4 Comments
The house at Audley End is the cut down relic of a much large Jacobean palace, and is surrounded by acres of lavish parkland mostly used these days for picnicing, sunbathing and concerts. Arriving is almost the best part – you stop at the gatehouse and then sweep along the enormous curved drive across the [...]
Tags: audley end · decoration · espalier fruit trees · gardening · greenhouses · historical gardens · historical re-enactment · nineteenth century life · organic garden · organic growing · servants quarters · stately home · victorian
Ipswich Museum
June 8th, 2009 4 Comments
Inching into Ipswich through an endless traffic jam on a wet Wednesday, I never expected to fall in love with it. Too many ugly 1980s buildings, depressing 1970s bungalows and grey drizzle turning everything it touched sticky and sad.
And yet… that’s just the face it shows to casual visitors. As soon as I parked the [...]
Tags: animal bones · ethnography · fish skull · fossils · giant stuffed woolly mammoth · ipswich museum · stuffed animals · victorian curiosities
For small boys of all ages
May 10th, 2009 3 Comments
If there is no one in your household with the mindset of a small boy (any age or gender) you might want to skip over this post – maybe glance over the pretty pictures, but basically nothing to see here, move right along to gardens or theatre.
Sunday 17th May is the Duxford Spring Air Show, [...]
Tags: aircraft · cambridgeshire · duxford · east anglia · spring air show · visiting with kids
Pleasure Gardens
April 27th, 2009 1 Comment
Anglesey Abbey was actually never an abbey in the religious sense, and hasn’t had any connection with religious orders since the Augustinian Priory on this site was dissolved during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535.
In its current form, as looked after by the National Trust, it is an elegant party house surrounded by a [...]
Tags: anglesey abbey · cambridgeshire · eighteenth century style · espalier apple tree · formal · gardens · lode mill · national trust · plants · sculpture · statues · traditional materials
Glandford Shell Museum
April 19th, 2009 No Comments
Small but perfectly formed, this one-room museum is a classic Victorian cabinet of scientific curiosities.
Glandford is a tiny Norfolk village not far from Holt that is filled with dutch gabled brick and flint houses, and the museum follows suit. It was built by local landowner Sir Alfred Jodrell and laid out inside by his sisters [...]
Tags: charm · glandford · local history · norfolk · shell museum · shells
life.com
April 12th, 2009 No Comments
Under the that wonderfully evocative URL, Life magazine has put its photo archive online. There are photos of everything both great and ordinary, from the early years of the twentieth century onwards.
It’s a great resource for anyone interested in local history, twentieth century fashion, architecture, design, and just how life was lived. There are also [...]
Tags: 1920s · 1930s · art · culture · design · east anglia · history · life · life magazine · photography · photos · pictures · social history