The Tapestry Drawing Room at Castle Howard

I was glad we opted for the House and Gardens ticket at Castle Howard, even though we’d been debating whether to or not, but it meant we could see the newly refurbished Tapestry Drawing Room. Entry to Castle Howard is expensive - and I’m sure that the upkeep and day to day running of the estate is also expensive so it’s great that they do offer a price reduction for buying your tickets in advance online, so that’s well worth doing.

The room is breathtakingly beautiful now, but until recently it remained a shell of its former self destroyed by fire in 1940. The work to rebuild the room began in 2024 and as the blurb says is a ‘sensitive re-imagining’ of the space rather than a ‘slavish recreation’ of it.

It’s hard to believe that such a short time ago it looked like this, isn’t it?

The Four Seasons tapestries

Given that ‘tapestries’ features heavily in the name of the room, you’d expect to see them there, and they were - though luckily at the time of the fire they were hung in another part of the house, which saved them. They’d only been in this room for around 50 years, so they have come full circle with the recent project, bringing them back to the space for which they were originally created.

They were commissioned in 1706 from the London tapestry maker John Vanderbank and show rustic scenes which broadly represent the four seasons.

I’m pretty sure that the first one is Spring, the second is Winter - the river is frozen, the third Autumn - there’s harvesting in the background, and therefore the fourth could be Summer - but I could be convinced either way for the first and the last of these. When you’re passing through the room it’s hard to take all the history in and experience the room too, but the more I look at the tapestries, the more details I see.

SPRING?

WINTER

AUTUMN

SUMMER?

It’s a stunning room, and an amazing transformation and definitely worth a look first hand if you’re that way, and wondering if the ticket price is worth it.

Now if only I could work out which is Spring and which is Summer!

A Jubilee tea party at Wallington

The weather for our Northumberland trip was mixed to say the least, but it seems the weather at home was similar so that’s something at least! We arrived at Wallington just outside of Morpeth in torrential rain - and quite frankly we were surprised that the National Trust volunteer came out of their hut to give us the welcome talk, it was that bad. But he did and with our membership cards scanned and each of us a little bit soggier than before we made our way to the car park, parked up and waited for the rain to subside.

We weren’t the only ones, as when the rain turned to sunshine, tentatively at first and then gloriously, we weren’t the only ones opening our car doors and donning our waterproofs and walking boots, just in case the weather were to return. Spoiler - it didn’t, but as we weren’t sure instead of starting in the house we headed towards the Walled Garden which was a fantastic spot. By the time we got there the sun had decided to shine gloriously and it was drying up nicely, so much so that the garden benches were being used.

I’ll share more of the garden in another post, today I want to share more from inside the house. One that I liked a lot, and could quite happily move into, though I’m not sure the National Trust would be quite so keen on that!

The rooms are arranged around a central hallway, but in a way that you can also walk between rooms without accessing the corridor. Our visit started in the Dining Room which had been dressed for a Jubilee tea party, which made me smile - I mean, who doesn’t like a bit of bunting?

There was a cake too (cardboard I suspect) which was also doubling up as a screen for the projector showing excerpts from the Queen’s Coronation, the Union Flag and other film clips, and this was a really nice and unusual way to pay a tribute.

The dining room was forty paces along the corridor from the kitchen, and the servants would carry the food here using the far end of the room where the columns are as a serving area. The room also shows some of Wallington’s ceramic collection, which is one of the most important in the National Trust, including some fine examples of Chinese porcelain.

I’ve no idea if the photo below is that fine Chinese porcelain or not, but the detail and the design on the cups especially caught my eye.

Moving on we found ourselves in the Drawing Room, which was one of those rooms where I found myself taking a sharp in breath. It really was beautiful. It wasn’t always the principal reception room though, originally it was the Great Hall and the entrance of the 1680s house. The Central Hall took its place for entertaining, and this room became a family space used for less formal gatherings and for music making.

The library is the third grand room on the south front of the house, and contains over 3000 books making it one of the most important 19th century libraries in the National Trust. The books are fragile, and not just because of age but also reassuringly through use having been read many times by the family.

Next we found ourselves in the study, which would originally have house a three storey staircase which was removed when the South Staircase was installed in the 1740s. It was on this desk that the first history bestseller The History of England by Thomas Babington Macaulay was written. That’s what I love about these visits, history everywhere you look.

The Parlour was a much more feminine room, decorated in the Arts and Crafts style, and was used by the ladies of Wallington for ‘socialising and personal affairs.’ You might recognise the Morris & Co design. It looks like a room that it’d be easy to spend some time in.

The Central Hall is quite a statement, but an unfinished one. Pauline, Lady Trevelyan commissioned local artist William Bell Scott to create a series of ‘wall paintings to illuminate the history and worthies of Northumbria.’ The canvases were completed by 1861 and span history from the building of Hadrian’s wall to mid-19th century industry on Tyneside, but it was the paintings of the flowers and plants on the ground floor pillars that really appealed to me. They were absolutely stunning and I’m hoping to share more on these in a separate post.

The plan was for these upper pillars also to be decorated, and for the ceiling to be blue with gold starts - but as you can see this work never took place. It’s stunning without this, but I imagine with it it would be even more so. Light floods into the central space through those twelve sky-lights, which are something that we see more in our modern day homes.

Wallington really is a stunning house, and here I’ve shared just a selection of my photos from our visit - I’ve many more to share of the garden too. But that’s for a future post.

A She Shed - yes please!

She Sheds, garden pods, home offices, or whatever you want to call them - they’ve become a big thing haven’t they? It’s easy to see why, the idea of having somewhere dedicated for a specific activity, work or fun, definitely appeals. Having that outside the house appeals too, unless it’s the worst (or best) kind of snow day which means being cut off from your crafting, I guess.

They’ve come so far, that at the Ideal Home Show last year, this quadrant pod, was alongside the infamous ‘houses’ - and I think it’s definitely a She Shed in the making.

As its name suggests, it’s quadrant shaped so cue curved walls which almost cocoon you from the elements, but yet provides a window on it too.

Yes, those lights - aren’t they great? In fact the whole space is full of great lights and fantastically furnished. It’s definitely the type of space you’d be happy to work in and which should provide just the inspiration you need.

I’d love my own space like this, but know it’s not practical for us. The thought of getting it into our garden, where it might go and even just getting electricity to it and the disruption and redecorating this will most likely bring with it, rules it out. But never say never, it’s something that in the right space could really work all round.

And everyone needs an escape space, right?