A story of love and neglect

After our long journey to Shropshire on Saturday, followed by the whirlwind of a day spent with Vix and Jon on Sunday, we didn't feel like venturing too far on Monday.

Sleeping in just that little bit longer was bliss, and the thought of having the whole of our holiday still stretched out in front of us was heavenly. So much so that even the cloudy sky we glimpsed when we drew our curtains couldn't put a damper on it.

We lingered over the first of Jos's famous English breakfasts, then decided to exchange the cowshed for the stables.

Not just any old stables, obviously. These Georgian ones, built around a cobbled courtyard, belong to the nearest National Trust property to our cowshed, Attingham Park!

If the name sounds familiar, it might be because both Vix and I have blogged extensively about the property last year, as it was the location of our previous meet-up.

However, the 18th century mansion and its estate are well worth a repeat visit, especially as last year most of our time was taken up with chatting to and enjoying the company of our fellow visitors.

All visits to Attingham Park start at the stable courtyard where a plant sale, a café with inside and outside seating and a shop are located. There's even a reasonabley priced second hand bookshop tucked away into one corner, which is well worth browsing.

A 10-minute walk takes you to the walled garden and orchard, strolling through part of what is known as the "pleasure grounds". This includes the so-called Mile Walk and was originally planted and landscaped for the Lord Berwicks and their society guests to enjoy a stroll amongst nature.

Passing this delightful cottage, we mused about moving into it. On second thought though, it might be a bit busy with all those passers-by, as the number of annual visitors to the estate soared to half a million last year!

Once in the sheltered walled gardens, planted abundantly with both colourful flower borders and fruit and vegetables, we strolled and explored, taking in the soul-soothing sights and scents.

Deckchairs had been put out on the lawns for all - including the local magpies - to enjoy! We made a beeline for the only ones not occupied by a visiting party of school children, who fortunately didn't hang around for long.

At one point, Jos tried his hand at using one of the vintage gardening contraptions.

The day, which had made a cloudy start, remained mercifully dry, and with temperatures in the low twenties, it eventually turned warm enough to shed my light-weight flower embroidered denim jacket.

And here's a rare sight of me wearing trousers! I loved wearing this pair of wide-legged ones so much that I picked up another pair in a charity shop a couple of days later. But don't worry, frocks and skirts are bound to remain my favourite items of clothing!

You can catch a glimpse of the vintage blouse I'm wearing underneath the jacket in the opening photo of this post. 

Attingham's kitchen garden is an excellent example of a late 18th century Georgian kitchen garden which, unusually, wasn't "modernised" during Victorian times, nor demolished during the 1950s and 1960s when many historic gardens were deemed economically unviable. 

A restoration programme is returning the garden to its original function, producing food and flowers for the people at Attingham and its many visitors.

After lunch at the Carriage House Café in the stable courtyard, we made our way towards the house for the second part of our visit.

The Berwicks have left a fine Georgian mansion with intricate decoration, Regency furniture and art, all set in 4000-acre estate in a fertile valley of the River Severn. 

Both the mansion and the estate were shaped by a story of love and neglect. The same could be said about Dove Cottage, albeit on a much smaller scale. No wonder we did feel quite at home!

Built for the first Lord Berwick in 1785, Attingham Hall and its beautiful parkland were owned by five generations of the same family for more than 160 years, their accumulated fortune dwindled by overspending, ultimately leading to financial ruin. This, obviously, is where the comparison with Dove Cottage ends!

The creators of Attingham were Noel and Anne Hill, 1st Lord and Lady Berwick, and the design of the house adopted the French fashion of a masculine and a feminine side in terms of decoration.

The drawing room (above, top left) and the boudoir (above, top and bottom right) with its exquisite guilding and beautifully painted flowers, birds and Cupid's arrows, are part of the feminine side.

The masculine side, with its strong colours, family portraits and other manly objects, include the library and the dining room.

In the dining room, the table was laid out for a Regency banquet, atmospherically lighted by candelabra as it would have been back in the day.

The friendly and knowledgeable volunteer in this room told us that wine wasn't poured at the dinner table. Instead, glasses would have been brought to the guests by a footman every time a drink was required. I'm rather hoping that the footman in question would have had a good head on his shoulders, unlike the dummy displaying the footman's uniform on the bottom left.

Meanwhile, in the picture gallery, there was an exhibition of portraits on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. Called Faces of Change: Nature's Champions, the exhibition includes portraits of environmental activists, poets, artists, politicians, campaigners, gardeners, broadcasters and scientists.

Beatrix Potter is on the left, while the chap on the right is the one and only Willian Morris!

The picture gallery was added in 1807-10 by the important Regency architect John Nash for the 2nd Lord Berwick, and includes a magnificent top-lit staircase, which I'd rather taken a fancy to last year. It certainly lived up to its expectations this time around.

Our visit ended in the servants' quarters in the basement, where we admired the collection of copper pans in the kitchen and did our very best not to eat cook's food!

Nor did we run off with the well-thumbed and dog-eared set of Mrs. Beeton's books on household management displayed on the housekeeper's desk!

Tired of all that trudging around the house and garden, I gratefully made use of a conveniently placed chair. I'm just guarding the family silver, honestly. 

At the end of this well-spent day, we drove back to the cowshed, half an hour away on quiet country roads, at the end of which we found our view of the Long Mynd veiled in a light layer of fog. 

It definitely looked and smelled like rain and faint rumblings of thunder could be heard in the distance.

Did the weather gods send us any more rain? You will find out in the next installment of my travelogue.