Bartimaeus

The plan while we were on our two day mooring at Great Haywood, was to take in the National Trust Property a short walk away. Once I had returned from the shop and met our new neighbour, who had plenty to tell us, we set off.

The little walk included an attractive footbridge with plenty of passing places and they were needed today. I waited at the side while a family group walking a dog and a group of walkers passed.

As we walked in the grounds I saw a red sign describing one of the Chinese zodiac signs. It's Bryn's sign and also his birthday in the next week.  As I was reading it another woman rushed over, took a photo and headed off saying her husband would love it. 

I know red is a lucky colour in Chinese, but it isn't Chinese New Year. However it seemed September is East and South East Asia Heritage month, so the the trust had the zodiac trail and possibly some children's activities. We headed on to the house.

When we got to the hall we were waved through with no request for entry and it looked pretty crowded. It was a sunny Saturday but I suspected it might be an open day, and it was later confirmed. Nonetheless it was a big enough place with large grounds that people could spread out and only occasionally did we have to wait to gain access to a place or read an information board.

There were many impressive friezes and ceilings and mirrors provided to look at them without cricking one's neck.

One of the previous inhabitants, Thomas had been an eager traveller in Europe and beyond, while his brother, George, was in the navy and circumnavigated the globe, one of the few survivors of the journey with all the other ships and many crew lost. He had traded in China en route, but I think the red lanterns were just for the ESEA heritage month and unrelated to the journey.

It all seemed pretty grim, as a journey but he had seized Spanish gold, and became very rich. Having no children his riches were passed to his brother  Thomas who extended the house and had it lavishly decorated.

Another inhabitant considerably later was famous photographer Lord Patrick Lichfield. There was a section of the house dedicated to him and his works, but it was not allowed to take photographs of the photographer's rooms as some of his photographs are copyrighted. I wondered if I was allowed to take photos of the paintings of prize bulls, red longhorns, with their price in guineas on the gold frames. Or the pink Wilton carpet with a family crest, made especially to fit the room.

We headed out for lunch and to the gardens. There had been mention of a Chinese house inside and we saw signs to it now. There were non Chinese distractions on the way, and then I saw my sign.

 We hopped on optimistically. When we saw a red bridge, we felt that we must be near. 

The Chinese House was a square building which was open, and with lots of visitors we were able to overhear a volunteer explaining aspects of it to others without asking any question, but the main thing I needed to know was how to change my camera back to a different frame to get more of the high decorative panel.  

I had particularly wanted to see the Servants Quarters. The opulence is all very attractive but I have always found social history interesting. The rich and famous have much more written about them but are a tiny segment of those people who spent their days living in that house. In the very first room they had plates with the names, jobs and wages of about a dozen of the staff in one particular year. The head housekeeper, one of the two most important, highest earning jobs, earned £52 a year, while the highest earning male servant earned £100. The roles were strictly defined as male or female and the female jobs earning considerably less. In the laundry only one male member of staff was allowed. He brought in and operated, by means of a winding handle, a machine I have never seen before that flattened large linens on rollers, as long as the laundry maids had rolled them skilfully enough. 

I have been to so many museums and old houses that I hadn't  really expected to see a machine in the laundry here that I had not seen before, but as well as the huge press there was an iron stove, especially designed for heating the irons. There was a serious amount of ironing going on there.

There was also the largest drying pulley I have ever seen, including a safety mechanism. It must be very heavy when loaded with wet clothes. It no doubt made excellent use of the heat from the iron stove. 

This large room was dedicated to drying and the storage of linen. I liked the handwritten labels on the shelves including a recipe for how to keep linen smell sweet. 

There was a whole other room dedicated to the washing. There wasn't any new machinery there. It was much more familiar territory. The only new information was that the laundry girl had to rise at 5 am to get the fire lit for the boiler. There was no suggestion she got to go back to bed afterwards. I bet she got a pittance for it.

In the kitchen they were prepared for grand guests with several shelves of jelly moulds, a strainer to extract the colour and flavour from the garden fruits, before adding gelatine to make jelly and an ice-cream maker. It was all mod cons here. Of course the servants weren't allowed the ice cream. I am sure these would have been far better jellies and ice-cream than I had at parties as a child.

The Orangery outside was the most planted out of the garden, or rather it was the reinstatement of the plants that had been in an original orangery that was no longer there. Nye's Chinese Zodiac sign was on display nearby.

On the way back we found the stone pedestrian bridge had a nerve wracking display of teenage bravado as one lad in the water encouraged the others to jump in. It was clear that the water was not deep where he was standing in gravel in the middle of the stream. A dive was not recommended. They did all splash in and didn't seem to have hurt themselves but there were red scratches on their backs.

That evening we had a lucky red sight of a lovely sunset. The owners of the spotted sheep will be pleased.

We moved off from our two day mooring the next day after lunch and travelled slowly towards Stone. We have several days to get there.

We reached a lock and I went to do it. It was one with arms overhanging where you could fall and clambering over the lock gates was required to cross the bridge.

At the next it was a similar arrangement except it was a rusty metal arm. You can push the middle of the arm from on the bridge to close it but it is a lot more effort than using the full length of the arm and that involves climbing over it and pulling on the lower level.

While a bit awkward it is an attractive bit of history and the approach shows the bridge to have withstood a lot of damage to the stone by ropes and the other side by scraping boats on the bricks.

We moored just beyond the lock bollards and again were the lucky viewers of another sunset. I walked to a gap in the hedge for my view and Shane stood on the roof to look over the hedge.