Hatfield House (near Hertford)
You may have guessed by now that Barb is pretty keen on stately homes and gardens (along with castles, viaducts, windmills .... this list is quite long!)
Today we went to Hertford to see Hatfield House, famous for being the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth 1. But first, on the way there we stopped off in Thaxted to see a very cute church and windmill. Why this diversion? Well, Barb was chief navigator and had the map on her lap. In her excitement she misread Hatfield House for Hatfield Forest .... they're a long way apart (
miles and miles!) and we were headed in the opposite direction to where we wanted to go. Oops!
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The church at Thaxted. Barb mislaid John for a quite while
(I was reading a display) and wondered if he'd been abducted by aliens |
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| One of the lanes up to the church |
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| Barb in the graveyard |
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The windmill was meant to be open today - perhaps we
were too early yet again |
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| Looking from the church over Thaxted |
Never mind. It was a very nice diversion, and Hatfield House didn't open until 11am anyway. We arrived just on opening time and bought tickets before the queues got too long. Today has been a Bank Holiday Monday so all the kids and their parents were out and about.
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| One of the earlier bits of Hatfield House (the building, not John) |
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The main shop - café area at Hatfield House
Presumably this was the stable yard |
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The multitude of large hats was initially lost on John
Hats - Hatfield - ok? |
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| Barb on the steps to her new home |
The house and gardens really had the wow factor, right from the moment you approach the house via a long avenue of oak trees. The fountain in front of the newer section of house is quite new. It has moving arms and a ball that lifts up and sprays water and it also cascades down the side arms.
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| The strangely mobile fountain I |
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| The strangely mobile fountain II |
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| The strangely mobile fountain III |
Then when you enter the house it's just magnificent. Very tall ceilings ornately decorated and works of art in gilt frames (mainly old family portraits) cover every bit of wall space. The buildings are of medieval brick and the walls inside are completely timbered, often with ornate carving.
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| Elizabeth I |
It had the regulation library with 10000 books (funny ... that's the same as Wimpole Hall had yesterday) which looked out over the parterre gardens.
The family still live in residence in the East Wing (not open to the public). I hope they have good heating in there as it must be very difficult to keep warm in the winter in these great houses with their massive high ceilings. Also I hope the bathrooms are a little more user friendly. The bath house that we saw had a massively big bath like a small swimming pool accessed by lethal looking curved stairs (with no railing!).
The gardens were sublime! They were divided off into different sections with hedge mazes, sculptures, fountains and vine covered arbours. I didn't see a folly, but the must've been one somewhere....I mean who DOESN'T have one? It's not surprising that Hatfield House is used for filming a lot of period TV and movies and even documentaries. What a great setting!
We enjoyed our day very much. We drove back along major roads instead of meandering through villages. It was much quicker but a whole lot less scenic. On our way home we stopped off in Cambridge to buy a few things to take back for the kids at home. John is the proud owner of a new rolling pin (he says we need one for the caravan). We also sampled an American style burger joint which I imagine goes down very well with the students of Cambridge University. Their hot dogs were yummo.
