Sunday 19th August – National Trust day at Lyme Park

Already knew what I wanted to do today as it’s the reason I booked a campsite near here. Lyme Park is one of the National Trust houses I’ve wanted to visit but never been near enough to, so this is the perfect time. Mum is also a member of the Trust, so an ideal ‘free’ day out for us.

Sat nav got us lost again, so we resorted to the website directions and a paper map (I think I need to give up on the iPhone maps thing) and sadly we arrived in more drizzle. So, being British, we donned our waterproofs and made our way to the house with our hoods up. (No photo this time, one is enough!)

Lovely imposing building as you walk up and unusually, the main entrance to the house is inside an internal courtyard instead of somewhere you could drive up to in a horse and carriage. Meant that well-dressed Ladies and Gents would have had to have walked themselves into the courtyard and up the stairs themselves – shock and horror!

You get to walk through most of the main rooms in the house as no one is living there now as it was sold to the National Trust in 1946. Many of its owners throughout the years have added their own mark to the house, but in the early 19th century the estate was owned by Thomas Legh, who commissioned Lewis Wyatt to restore the house between 1816 and 1822 and ‘made sense’ of all of the rooms. You can now walk from room to room and get a lovely feeling of how the last family lived in the house.

One of my favourite bits of the house was in the Library where there was a area specifically for relaxing and reading your book. I’d love to have a house big enough to fit one of these – that’s where you’d find me with a G&T, any time of the day!

There were a couple of good stories/quirky areas to the house that we found out about from the guides or the write ups in each room. One of these was ‘The Squint’. A huge picture that could be seen from the front entrance room (formerly the main hall of the original house) could be pushed forwards from the room above/behind and squinted out from! You can see what I mean in the photo below. The family used to stand up there in New Year’s Eve to wish their servants a Happy New Year. I bet they also spied on their guests here too!

There was a story about a skeleton that had been found under the floor in one of the old bedrooms in the oldest part of the house. The guide told us that they thought that it was probably a Priest who had been hidden there during the time where Catholic priests weren’t allowed to publically show their faith and had either died in there and they couldn’t bury him in consecrated grounds (would have been illegal) so they left him there or the family forget he was there and he snuffed it whilst they were perhaps away on holiday, as he couldn’t get out! Nice!

The guide telling the story was asked how the people living or working on the house didn’t smell a rotting body and her reply was that she has been told everything smelt back then, so it was unlikely to have stood out as a bad odour!

There were also a few ghost stories told, including one about a white female form that follows a funeral procession through the grounds – spooky!

Looking up at the ceilings, I would every now and then notice a severed arm holding a flag in the decoration. This symbol is the ‘Augmentation of Honour’ of the Legh family. The honour was given by Queen Elizabeth I in 1575, recognising the bravery of Thomas Danyers, a Legh ancestor, who rescued the Black Prince’s standard at the battle of Crecy in 1346. In order to retrieve the flag, Danvers had to chop off the arm of the French soldier holding it to being it back too!

Mum and I thought about this after we’d left and couldn’t quite understand why the arm had to be severed. Did the soldier refuse to give it up and then let Danyers cut his arm off willingly? Otherwise, if it was cut off after the soldier carrying it had already died, surely the hold on the flag pole would have loosened in death or even when his arm was cut off as the muscles were severed? Grisly I know, but these are the things that play on our minds!

Only disappointing bit was that the servant’s quarters are all being used as the shop and café/restaurants, so there are only a few wall signs giving you a small insight into their lives. I always find this sad as they were 50% of the story! That said, I did enjoy the cheese and chutney pastry turnover with salad I had in the old Ale room for lunch!

All in all, a good place to look around and we learnt a fair bit as well as enjoyed a nice walk around the gardens as it had finally stopped raining. Hurrah! Also saw some of its Red Deer’s as we were leaving with ‘The Cage’ in the background, the old banqueting hall and hunting lodge on the estate.

We decided to go over the Peak District National Park to get back to the campsite and to not bother with sat nav. Following a map we planned our journey, set off, only to find the road closed – I swear someone is playing tricks on me!

Found another way around and enjoyed driving along (with a few stops for photo opportunities) and took in some of the spectacular views.

I decided to take the awning down early when we got back to the site as it had stopped raining and was dry and I didn’t want a repeat of the wet awning in the shower episode so soon after the last one. Mum helped as I would have been blown away otherwise, and suggested I use it as a parachute to get me to Wales (my next stop) to save on Diesel and map confusion!

We had been recommended a pub by the campsite that was nearby, so took a trip to The Church Inn in Chelmorton. The Landlord was incredibly friendly, the food was great pub grub and we both enjoyed the atmosphere while we looked over a map book and planned my journey tomorrow.

After dinner we quickly headed into Buxton to do short trial run of the first part of my journey tomorrow as it’s through a town centre with lots of turns and we figured it might make me feel better to do this once, before I have the van attached. We will see if it helps tomorrow as I am dropping mum off at the bus stop in the morning (sad to see her go), going back to camp to pack everything down and then I am off to North Wales. More on that tomorrow…..

A question Mum and I pondered as we crossed over the very dark Peak District National Park and saw lots of cows in fields – Can cows see in the dark?

The answer – Cows can see better than humans can because they have a light reflecting surface called ‘Tapetum Lucidum’ in their eyes which helps animals see better (though not completely) in the dark.