Wentworth Woodhouse, located near Rotherham, Yorkshire, England, is yet another huge stately home that is only a short drive from my home. Yay! Although it is massive, only a small number of its 300 rooms are open to the public. Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1641, lived here. Although only… Read on
Located near Moreton-in-Marsh, Oxfordshire, Chastleton House was built in the early years of the seventeenth century. It is an amazing (and slightly spooky) Jacobean building, and a perfect place for a Stuart fan to visit. My family and I are members of The National Trust, which looks after this property, and we’ve certainly made good use of our… Read on
This week marks the end of my family’s two-year stay in Clungunford, Shropshire, England. This weekend, we’ll be back in London, having moved out of Balham back in 2011. After a somewhat nail-bitingly stressful removal over the weekend, I have a bit of time to reflect on what was a momentous couple of years, with the launch of… Read on
After our stay at the Stonehenge campsite last Autumn, Gavin and I made our way to Marlborough, which is a lovely town in Wiltshire, England. This amazing house was built for and lived in by a wealthy seventeenth-century silk merchant named Thomas Bayly. The construction is believed to date from between 1653 and 1700, and the interiors have… Read on
The National Maritime Museum’s latest exhibition Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution is the largest-ever exhibition about Samuel Pepys and has over 200 objects on display (some of which come from private collections!). Early last month, I attended a private viewing of this exhibition, and I finally have time to write my thoughts about it. With such a packed title, you… Read on
This week’s camping has taken us into the Berkshire countryside, where we stayed at a lovely campground a pleasantly long walk from the village of Hurley. This idyllic village is precisely the sort of place foreigners like me imagine an English village to be. There are beautiful old buildings, some of which date back to the 12th century!… Read on
Two Sundays ago (my how time flies!), I attended the 8am Easter Sunday service at the iconic Basilica di San Marco by the Piazza San Marco, Venezia, Italy. In this, the first of a series of articles from my recent trip to Venice, I would like to briefly cover a fraction of the history of this building and… Read on
Yesterday on Hoydens and Firebrands, I submitted a short post about He Who Commissioned Castle Howard – Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle. Following on from that post, which gives an overview about the life of the Charles Howard, I would like to share what I learned there this weekend and some photos from my visit, if I… Read on