Little Moreton Hall

I love the National Trust more than is probably advisable, but they do have a tendency to remind you on a regular basis that you are a bit of a thicko. I mean that in an affectionate way. They're like a clever uncle that always knows more than you, even when you've tried really hard to swot up on something in advance of his visit. 

Take Little Moreton Hall near Stoke-on-Trent. I have been a National Trust member for over two years now. I have been to 98 (NINETY-EIGHT) properties. I have a GCSE in History (I got a B). And yet the Little Moreton Hall guidebook contains at least two terms that I have NEVER, EVER heard or seen in my life before; 'chamfered pilaster' anyone? 'Bloomery'? 

What made it worse was that they also used the word 'minstrel' at one point and helpfully put '(musician)' after it. I cannot be the only person who knows what a minstrel is but wouldn't know a chamfered pilaster if it hit her in the face? Anyway. Don't play Scrabble with anyone who writes National Trust guidebooks is my advice.  

Let's move on, because I am doing Little Moreton Hall a massive disservice by not focusing on the charming wonkiness of their beautiful Tudor house, chamfered pilasters and all. 

Here's a bit of background: 

• The house was built and owned by one family throughout its history
• William Moreton I built the Great Hall in 1504-1508
• His son William Moreton II continued the work, as did his son John
• The Civil War was the undoing of the Moreton clan - William Moreton III was arrested for supporting the Monarchy and the family fell on hard times
• For 200 years the house was owned by Moretons but rented out to farmers and other tenants
• Nobody was really taking care of the building and it became neglected
• The Dale family were tenants from 1880 until 1955, by which time they were caretakers for the National Trust, who had taken ownership in 1938 

The hall itself is built around a lovely courtyard, leading to the various rooms. The Long Gallery was my favourite room. It sits on top of the house and it caused all sorts of structural problems - these already needed fixing in 1658, and serious remedial work was also carried out in the 1890s. More work was done in 1979 and again in 1990. It's frankly a miracle that the house is still standing.   

The Little Moreton scone
I said that the Long Gallery was my favourite room but of course that's not quite true. The tea room at Little Moreton Hall is situated in the old Tudor kitchens - I do love a tea room located in the historic building itself, although I do also love the big modern stand-alone tea rooms that you find at other properties, so the National Trust really can't lose where I am concerned.

Anyway, the tea room was very cosy on a nippy October day and they had a good supply of scones. I split mine as usual and bit into the bottom half, which seemed a bit dry. Then I ate the top half and it was lovely. So go figure - I'm starting to wonder if I will ever truly understand scones. 

I hate to finish by going on about the blooming guidebook AGAIN but I need to tell you that today I went all thoroughly modern scone blogger by buying the guide online before I set off on my trip. 

I basically wanted to see if pre-reading about the place improved my visit. And I can report that in some ways it didn't help - I actually felt a bit stupid swiping through pages on my iPad trying to work out which room I was in. 

But it really did make a difference in other ways. This stained glass window, for example, has a barrel (known as a tun) and a wolf with its mouth open (a mouth being known as a maw), thus making it a depiction of 'More-ton':

I would never have noticed this in a thousand years if I hadn't read the book beforehand. None of the other visitors seemed to have noticed it either, which made me feel like the cleverest person in the place. So there we have it; the National Trust might make you feel like a thicko compared to them, but read the guidebook and they make you feel very intelligent compared to everyone else.

I still don't know what a chamfered pilaster is though. 

Little Moreton Hall: 5 out of 5

Scones: 4 out of 5

Likelihood of me ever knowing every word in a National Trust guidebook: 0 out of 5

Dunham Massey

If this blog ever wins the Pulitzer Prize - you may have to humour me here a bit - I would have to devote a good chunk of my tearful acceptance speech to thanking my long-suffering Scone Sidekick. He puts up with a lot in supporting this National Trust Scone Odyssey. He is the wind beneath my scones.

Today's trip to Dunham Massey was a treat for him, as he is very interested in warry things. Dunham has a colourful history dating back centuries, but in 1917 the owners agreed to turn it into an auxiliary hospital for injured troops. To mark the centenary of World War I, the National Trust has recreated the Stamford Military Hospital, as it was known, and for a short time you can see how it would have looked back then. 

Dunham Massey - the history of the estate
The original Dunham Massey house was built by Old Sir George Booth in 1600. The Booths were very involved in politics during the Civil War, just about staying on the right side of things as the tides turned. 

George's great-grandson, Henry Booth, was made 1st Earl of Warrington by William III but it all turned sour and Henry ended up deeply in debt. His son George married a wealthy heiress - although the marriage was unhappy, he saved Dunham Massey. 

George unusually passed Dunham to his daughter, Lady Mary Booth, who married the Earl of Stamford. Their son, George Grey, became 5th Earl of Stamford and Warrington.

The 7th Earl was quite a character - he first married a bedmaker's daughter called Bessy and then a circus performer called Catherine Cocks. She was rejected by local society, so the Greys left Dunham and did not return for 50 years.

The 9th Earl, William Grey, started to restore the place in 1906, but died suddenly in 1910 when his son Roger was just 13. Roger eventually continued the restoration of Dunham but never married and gave the 3000 acre estate to the National Trust in 1976.

Stamford Military Hospital
Dunham wasn't the only National Trust property to be used as a hospital during wartime - Clandon Park created an operating theatre in one room last year in commemoration of their involvement.

But the Trust has really gone one further at Dunham Massey. The Saloon, which usually looks like an Edwardian sitting room full of swagged curtains and polished tables, has been transformed into a 14-bed hospital ward. It smells of antiseptic and there are audio recordings of gassed soldiers struggling to breathe - it's grim but it brings the whole thing to life in a very real way.

There were 3,300 auxiliary hospitals in Britain during the War. Dunham Massey was chosen because it was near Manchester and only three people lived there at the time (Lady Stamford, her son Roger the 10th Earl of Stamford, and her daughter, Lady Jane). Lady Stamford became the Commandant of the hospital, while Lady Jane worked as a nurse.

The very excellent guidebook explains how an injured solider would have made it from no-man's-land to a place like Dunham. He'd have started off being carried by a stretcher bearer to a regional aid post, then he'd have been moved to an advanced dressing station, then a main dressing station, followed by a casualty clearing station, followed by a general hospital and then back to the UK to an auxiliary hospital. How anyone survived that is beyond me. 

And that's actually where the National Trust has done a particularly fine job. It's clear that Lady Jane and the other nurses devoted every single bit of their energy to looking after the men sent to Dunham. And yet you're quietly reminded of the utter futility of the whole thing, thanks to poignant stories of the soldiers that DID survive the journey - one lad went to war when he was 15, got injured and was sent to Dunham to be patched up, only to be shipped back out to the trenches and killed a month before the Armistice. It's a very sobering experience.

The operating theatre at the time was located at the bottom of the staircase and they've recreated that too. The photo below might give you some idea of how incongruous the whole set-up was - the historic grandeur of the house providing a bizarre backdrop to a primitive, yet life-saving medical facility. There's an excellent audio recording of Lady Jane talking about how she assisted with operations, including a gruesome description of trepanning into some poor solider's head. 

The Dunham Massey scone
And on that totally inappropriate note, I am going to move on to the matter of the scones. It is exactly two years since I started this National Trust Scone Odyssey and I really wanted the anniversary scone to be a good one. 

The Dunham scones were formidable to behold - generously proportioned, very fresh, with a crunchy exterior and fluffy inside. 

In fact, the only thing that stopped the Dunham scone from getting a 5 out of 5 was the cream. It was a bit odd. The other 80+ NT scones that I've encountered on this odyssey have all come with clotted cream, whereas the Dunham cream looked and tasted like that squirty stuff, ie it tasted of nothing at all. The scone would definitely have benefitted from a bit of a boost but it was a good scone and I was DELIGHTED to see it on this very auspicious occasion.

So I highly recommend that you visit Dunham while the Stamford Military Hospital is still on view - it's only going to be there until October this year I believe, so get along if you can. The National Trust has done an impressive job and it's well worth a visit. 

Dunham Massey: 5 out of 5
Scone: 4.5 out of 5
Lady Jane's description of trepanning: 0 out of 5 if you're very squeamish

Tatton Park

What would happen if the National Trust handed one of its properties over to be run by the local council? If you had asked me that question yesterday, I'd have said; "It would be neglected until it was utterly ruined. Either that or it would be over-commercialised until it was utterly ruined. I am hedging my bets here, but I am fairly confident on the utterly ruined thing."

But, not for the first time, I would have been WRONG. Today I went to Tatton Park, which was left to the National Trust in 1958 but is run and financed by Cheshire East Council and neither of those things has happened.

Don't get me wrong; Tatton Park feels more commercial than most other NT properties. A bit of pre-visit research showed that it hosts over 100 events every year. I got very excited when I read about "Fergie at the Farm" as I thought Sir Alex Ferguson had found himself a new career, but Fergie turned out to be a cartoon tractor. Other events range from the Moscow State Circus to "Pigs Galore". How can anyone resist an event called "Pigs Galore"? 

But after a few hours there, I can report that overall it felt very similar to other National Trust places (and NT members get in free of course).

Here are my highlights:

1. The Gardens

Something strange is happening. Either I am developing a very unlikely love of gardens, or I have coincidentally managed to visit the two loveliest gardens in Britain in the past seven days (last week I went to West Green House Gardens). 

Tatton Park Gardens are stunning. There's a really good map that directs you round the various elements - there's a beautiful Italian garden right outside the house, a kitchen garden, a rose garden, a Japanese garden, a pinetum...you name it and Tatton has it. 
 

2. The Mansion

Tatton Park was owned by the Egerton family from 1598 to 1958. It became their main residence in the 18th century when John Egerton decided to build a new house, which was finished in 1716.

The house was then extended by various Egertons over the years. A lot of other estates have an up-and-down history, where one earl does loads of renovation work and then the next owner prefers to live somewhere else and leases it out to a farmer who lets his cows live there. But the Egertons all did something positive to the place - they seem to have remained financially solvent, which probably helped.

3. The Park
The park around the mansion covers 2000 acres. It has been a deer park since 1290 and there are still red and fallow deer wandering about (probably not the same ones). Humphry Repton was involved in the landscaping of the park - he prepared a plan of recommendations in 1791, which included improving the water features. Today there are two nice lakes, which help make it a pleasant park to walk through. It was very busy with joggers, walkers, dogs, cyclists, people having picnics; it's clearly a big part of the local community.

4. The Tatton Park Scones

If Tatton Park is run by the council then Tatton Park scones are probably baked by the council, which means I probably shouldn't include them in this study. 

But it's interesting to compare and contrast the all-important approach to scones:
1. The scones were sign-posted as 'Margaret's Scones' 
2. There was a big variety; fruit, cherry, raspberry, and blueberry 

Margaret is undoubtedly very good at baking scones - mine was enormous and very tasty indeed. I am also happy to report that as I joined the queue, the woman in front of me looked at my tray and shouted across at her husband; "Dave, get me a scone?" My work never stops.

National Trust or not, I absolutely loved Tatton Park and I highly recommend it.

Tatton Park: 5 out of 5
Scones: 4.5 out of 5
Ghost sighting: 0 out of 5

Quarry Bank Mill

I generally try to avoid misery in my life, although that can be a tall order when you work in Slough. But it explains why I didn't watch The Mill on Channel 4 last year - I read it was a bit grim, so I stuck with Call The Midwife instead.  

I wish I had watched it though, because it is based on Quarry Bank Mill near Wilmslow. If you've never been, I strongly urge you to go. Quarry Bank is a behemoth of a National Trust property. You could easily spend an entire day there, and you come away with your head spinning (a pun! I spoil you, I really do.)

So what did I learn about Quarry Bank Mill?

1. It's a working mill. I was walking down a path at one point on my visit and thought to myself 'God, it sounds like there's an elephant giving birth in that building' before I realised it was the mill machinery. And that was probably just one machine. The noise back in the 1860s must have been literally deafening. Thanks to the National Trust, the mill has been restored so you can see the various bits of cotton-making machinery at work and you can actually buy cloth that is produced in the mill. It's amazing.

2. It was built in 1784. Samuel Greg was a cotton manufacturer who was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the Industrial Revolution. He built Quarry Bank Mill in a little village called Styal, which had the River Bollin to power his water wheels while also being close to Manchester. He had to bring in many workers to supplement those that were available locally - he wasn't short of volunteers by all accounts, because although a worker's wages out in Styal were lower than in the city, the families that worked for him had a cottage with their own toilet and garden, plus plenty of fresh air away from the dirt and grim of the town. The Greg family built a house right next-door to the Mill. 

3. The Gregs were interesting people. I read A Lady of a Cotton: Hannah Greg, Mistress of Quarry Bank Mill by David Sekers before I went. It covers the life and times of Samuel's wife, Hannah, a pious and studious person who fervently believed that the world could be a better place, while simultaneously living off the proceeds of the slave trade and making children work 12 hour days in a mill. I'm being facetious, because the Gregs were very enlightened mill owners; Hannah spent time and money on educating the apprentices, and the family doctor was kept on a retainer to look after the child workers' health. Everything is relative though and what's acceptable changes over time - one of the more poignant passages in the book details how their son Samuel went to great lengths to provide enviable facilities for his workers but they still turned on him in a dispute about money, which left him a broken man.

4. The Mill doctor was the uncle of Elizabeth Gaskell. The novel North and South by Mrs Gaskell (which costs £0.00 if you click that link and send it to your Kindle) provides a great overview of what life in Manchester was like in 1854. Or you could just buy the DVD of the TV series starring the divine Richard Armitage. Anyway, Elizabeth Gaskell's uncle was the Greg family doctor who also tended to the apprentices. 

5. However bad things get, you aren't a 10 year-old in a workhouse in 1840. A large proportion of Greg's employees were children from the workhouse. They came from all over the place and were indentured to Greg, working for him until they were 18 or 21 without pay - they received food, a bed, and some education in return for very long hours doing dangerous work that often resulted in them losing a limb, or worse. The Apprentice House at Quarry Bank is well worth seeing and there's a fascinating tour guide who explains everything from leeches to runaways.

6. The Mill on TV is part fact, part fiction. There are loads of fascinating exhibits at Quarry Bank Mill - you could be reading for hours without getting bored - and one exhibit is dedicated to the TV series. It explains what's fact and what's fiction - Samuel, Hannah, and their son Robert are all featured so I'll have to watch it.

The Quarry Bank scones
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SCONES? National Trust scones sometimes really suit their locations and this was one of those occasions; the scone was big and bold and although I feared it might be a bit dry it was magnificent. It was perfectly chewy and didn't fall apart at all. Delicious. 

Quarry Bank Mill: 5/5

Scones: 5/5
Lovely taxi driver that told me almost as much about Quarry Bank Mill as the tour guide did: 5/5

Lyme Park

I went to Lyme Park in the Peak District on a solo mission today. My usual partner in cream decided watching the rugby was a more attractive proposition than eating scones (I know, I should sack him).

It has to be said that I usually make a point of not mentioning if the National Trust properties that I visit have appeared in any films or TV programmes. It just seems wrong; history, history, Tudors, Stuarts, history, history, owned by 85 generations of Boggingtons, history, history...oh and they filmed Bargain Hunt there once. It just feels wrong, so I don't mention it (and I know that sounds rich coming from someone who is basically going around judging places by their scones).

So I set off this morning promising myself that I wouldn't mention Jane Austen, Mr Darcy, or the fact that Lyme House stood in for Pemberley in the BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, aka where Colin Firth walked out of a lake in a soggy shirt, causing a tidal swoon across the country.

And then I got there and saw this:

Yes, it's a giant Colin Firth standing in the lake. To give you an idea of the scale of it, here's another view:

I can see why some people might not like it because it is, well, unavoidable. If you want to walk out a la Elizabeth Bennet and survey the gardens in all their natural wonder then you're scuppered. But it's a temporary fixture and it's MASSIVELY popular - it had a gaggle of people photographing it at all times when I was there (at one point I thought the man walking along in front of me was about to go down on one knee to his girlfriend and I developed a sudden desire to stare at the Dutch garden for 20 minutes so I wasn't there for any negative fall-out). I've read a few things recently about the 'Disneyfication' of the National Trust and it annoys me. In the parlance du jour, everybody's National Trust 'journey' has to start somewhere and if it's a woman dragging her other half to Lyme because she saw it on TV and fancies Colin Firth, what's wrong with that?  

The Lyme Park scone
But onto more pressing matters, namely the scones. Readers, please be kind to this scone. It's not the prettiest I've reviewed but usually I pick my own scone - the restaurant at Lyme is table service and so this was chosen for me:

And I'm not knocking Tiptree jam (which is what usually appears in those little jars) but the jam at Lyme was different and absolutely DELICIOUS. I looked like a demented woman, scraping at every little last pip - it was just amazing. The scone itself was a tiny bit on the dry side for me but it was so big that one mouthful was a little dry, the next was chewy and lovely.

The staff at Lyme House itself should win awards for their friendliness. They really care about the property and if people are enjoying the experience. And I have to say that I struggled a bit with Lyme House. It's an incredible place - it was owned by the Legh family from 1398 to 1946 when it was handed over to the National Trust. I also love that, like kings and queens or the Pope, they all had the name Piers or Peter and would call themselves Sir Piers Legh IX etc. And like kings or the Pope, there were nice Piers and nasty Piers and they seemed to always be right there next to royalty, from the Battle of Agincourt right through to being the Queen Mum's equerry.

You get a map of the house and in every room there are books listing the artefacts and describing the portraits of Nell Gwyn or the tapestries but it just didn't come alive for me like at Ham House or Petworth. 

And then, in the very last room, something genuinely magical happened. There was a short film being projected onto the wall that showed the final Legh boys to be brought up at Lyme making a home movie in the 1930s. They'd written a Sherlock Holmes story and had filmed it in various rooms in the house, getting family members involved. It was lovely. Even though I watched it thinking of my own family living in massive poverty in 1930s, it didn't matter - they were young boys, born during or after the Great War and about to go through WWII and into a world where the house they'd owned for 550 years had to be given up. It was incredibly poignant and brought the whole thing to life in a way that the tapestries and galleries had not.

So well done to the National Trust. If a massive statue of Mr Darcy plonked in a lake attracts more members that pay for the upkeep of beautiful buildings and allow people to think of lovely ideas like the video I saw today, then it's all good.  

Scones: 4 out of 5 (0.5 for the scrumptious jam)
Lyme Park: 4 out of 5 (lovely staff and a beautiful video)