Town and country

As usual, my first week back at the office was a manic one of catching up and creating some kind of order out of the chaos left behind in the wake of my holiday. In addition, it seems to be taking me longer than ever to adjust to getting up early and joining the race against the clock again. After only a week back on the hamster wheel, the memories of those blissful couple of weeks in Shropshire are already starting to fade ever so slightly, so I'm thankful for the the pleasurable task of writing the second episode of my travelogue.

The forecast for Tuesday 13 June was for all-day sunshine and  highs of 26°C.

Although we still had lots of National Trust properties to tick off our wish list, we decide to pay a visit to Oswestry, about an hour's drive away, for some shopping. 

Oswestry is an ancient market town located in the North of Shropshire, close by the English - Welsh Border. Its strategic position as a border town has given it a turbulent history. Today the town still has a vital function as a market and shopping centre serving both North-West Shropshire and Mid Wales, while retaining the intimacy of a rural town.

After having parked our car on the large edge-of-town car park on English Walls, we plonked ourselves down on the terrace of a gift and coffee shop called Pickles in Church Street to get our bearings. 

We were quite charmed by the town when we first visited it in 2019 so it seemed the perfect choice for a leisurely stroll and a rummage at the charity shops. 

I won't beat about the bush, though: in the four years which have passed since our previous, the town seemed to have lost some of its appeal. We were dismayed at the number of empty or boarded up shops in its shopping streets, and there was a general down-at-heel atmosphere I couldn't quite put my finger on. The noisy and disrupting roadworks on one of the main crossroads didn't succeed in making things better either.

The main reason we'd picked Oswestry as a shopping destination - apart from its numerous charity shops where finds were plentiful in 2019 - was the fact that there was a Clarks shop as Jos, whose feet are only happy in Clarks shoes - was in sore need of a new pair.

We were in luck, as we found him the above pair at half price in the sales! He left the shop wearing them and they were comfortable from the word go. In fact, they haven't been off his feet for the rest of the holiday, drawing the limit at wearing them to bed, obviously :-)

Pickings were slim at the charity shops, though. There wasn't anything that even remotely tickled my fancy, so I only came away with a couple of books. Jos, however, must have been in the charity shop goddesses' good books, as he found a hat by Marks & Spencer, to replace the slightly too big one he bought in a National Trust shop last year, and which he duly donated in return.

Lunch was had at the local Wetherspoons, located in the former post office, and named after the World War I poet Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), who was born in Oswestry. Not the most attractive building, admittedly, but quite pleasant inside, and the food was delicious. No jacket potatoes in sight this time. While Jos opted for lemon chicken, mash and peas, my hunger pangs were stilled with a small fish and chips. 

Back at the cowshed, it was time to show you my outfit of the day. 

My grey and white striped seersucker skirt, a charity shop find back in April 2022, accompanied me on last year's holiday as well. As it's the perfect, lightweight Summer skirt, I crammed it into my already full to bursting suitcase at the very last moment. This time, it found its perfect partner in a recently charity shopped frilly butterfly sleeved Summer top. 

The black stretchy belt is an old retail buy, as are the Clarks sandals, which were a sales bargain during our 2018 UK holiday. The orange plastic ring was a flea market find, while I picked up the orange beaded necklace from a Welsh antiques shop many years ago.

Wednesday's weather was almost a carbon copy of Tuesday's, with the sun shining brightly in a cloudless blue sky from early morning onwards.

We exchanged town for country, driving down to our second National Trust property, Dudmaston Hall. The estate nestles in the Severn Valley near the village of Quatt, a couple of miles south of the market town of Bridgnorth. It wasn't our first visit to Dudmaston. In fact, we were here twice during our 2019 holiday, once on a whirlwind visit with Vix and Jon, and again one week later for a more extensive one, just the two of us.

Parched after the drive of just over one hour, we found a shady picnic bench in the orchard for a round of cappuccinos and deliciously buttery shortbread. 

We then had a nosy in the second hand bookshop before entering the garden from the courtyard through the stunning sculptural gate on the bottom right. The Pelargonium plant theatre on the bottom left harks back to the Georgians area when there was a passion for Primula auricula, not unlike the earlier Tulip mania. The prized plants were displayed in a so-called "Auricala Theatre", here filled with Pelargoniums rather than Auriculas, which would have finished flowering by now anyway.

Before we continue our garden explorations, let's have a look at what I was wearing that day. My holy grail chambray skirt, picked up from Think Twice in May, had its second outing of the holiday, this time combined with a charity shopped orange and pink patterned cotton top by Belgian label Mer du Nord.

Except for the stretchy belt, which was another old retail buy, my accessories were either charity shop or flea market finds. And as we were planning to do some walking, I wore my beloved Clarks Cloudsteppers. These too were bought in the sales during one of our UK holidays and are now going into their seventh year!

The Dudmaston Estate has been in the same family for over 850 years. The current house, built in the late 17th Century, was passed to the National Trust by its last owner Rachel, Lady Labouchere (1908-1996) during her lifetime, with the aim to prevent the estate from ever being sold or broken up. It is still the family home of her descendants and, just as she wished, will continue to be so in perpetuity.

Lady Labouchere's husband, Sir George, was a British Ambassador, and after years of travel abroad, they returned to Dudmaston, which she had inherited from her uncle. From 1966, they lived in and restored the property as their home.

They also redesigned the planting in the garden, creating a contemporary plant scheme including a wide variety of perennials.

Near the house, there's a  mixture of old roses such as gallicas and damasks as well as shrub roses, with a white, pink and red colour scheme. This border is named after Lady Labouchere who created it but, sadly, she never saw the rewards as she passed away only a few months later.

Sir George and Lady Labouchere started collecting Modern Art in the 1950s while Sir George was working for the British Embassy in Brussels. When the couple came to live at Dudmaston they installed galleries to display their personal art collections, as well as temporary exhibitions.

Some of the Laboucheres' collection of Modern Art sculptures can be seen throughout the garden, including Space Frame (1985, above, bottom right), a wood sculpture raised on two stone plinths, by local artist Anthony Twentyman (1906-1988). The sculpture was recently featured in the BBC 2 series Hidden Treasures of the National Trust, which might explain the minor crowd circling it and studying it in some detail.

We also needed the patience of a saint to access the recently restored blue and red painted Summer house, which was occupied by a bothersome woman and child, the latter needlessly opening and closing the sliding side windows, one of which seemed to have got stuck in the process. 

The terraced gardens, meanwhile, offered stunning views over the sweeping lawns towards the lake known as Big Pool, which was tranquil on this cloudless and breezeless day, a mirror in which the blue Summer sky was preening itself.

We climbed back up to the house and made our way to the orchard tea room for lunch, where we found the sandwiches we'd gone for disappointingly dry. Oh well, we should have brought a picnic instead. Or perhaps we should have ordered jacket potatoes :-)

Afterwards, we visited the house and its art galleries, which feature artwork by renowned artists such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Henri Matisse, as well as Lady Labouchere’s Botanical Gallery. I was particularly taken by the brand new Fanology exhibition, displaying a delectable collection of fans, collected by Lady Labouchere from across the globe. No photography allowed, sadly.

After leaving the house, we went back to our car and picked up our walking sticks, as we were planning to conclude our day with a walk in the woods.

We wanted to re-do the Dingle walk which we did back in 2019. Notorious for getting lost, we remembered having trouble finding the start of the walk back then. Therefore, we took no chances and asked for directions at the ticket office, where we were told we needed to do a slight detour as a fallen tree was blocking part of the path. 

And no, we did not play Pooh sticks - not enough water under the bridge - but we did meet one of the sheep grazing in the Dingle, who looked almost exactly like the sign at the start of our walk, but fled into the undergrowth when it set sight on us. 

The three-mile Dingle walk takes you deep into the heart of the woodland on the edge of estate and is typical of the Picturesque movement in garden design that first became fashionable in the late 18th century. The idea was to create an artificial landcape that looked natural, with paths, seats and bridges, to encourage walkers to pause and take in the views.

After a stiff climb the path lead downhill again until we reached Big Pool Dam, from which the above photo of mirror-like Big Pool was taken.  

In contrast to our previous walk here, which was on a Sunday rather than a weekday, there weren't too many other walkers about and it was eerily quiet, with only the odd bird call and the buzzing of various insects providing the soundtrack. 

Dudmaston's river and pools are home to a variety of species. Dippers, grass snakes and dragonflies are regular visitors and there are signs of otter activity. Indeed, there were dragonflies aplenty, but I'm rather relieved not to have come across any grass snakes!

Shortly after crossing the dam, the path continued alongside Big Pool, offering tantalizing glances of the latter through the trees, before passing a picturesque boathouse. Made from local Broseley bricks, it dates from around 1865 and has two gothic-arched entrances to the water.

The last stretch of the walk took us back to the starting point through open parkland at the edge of the gardens. 

From here, there's a magnificent view of the house across the garden's sweeping lawns.

Before returning to our car, we picked up a couple of books we'd earmarked at the second hand book shop that morning and, after a final round of cappuccinos, we drove back to the cowshed. 

We had something really excited planned for the next day, which some of you might know about already.

I'll be back with the third installment in a couple of days. See you soon!