Antiques and Art

A Springtime Odyssey - Exploring historic English properties

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In the forty years we've been together, we’ve had the good fortune to have made nearly five dozen trips “across the pond,” during which, in addition to forming new friendships, we’ve learned a great deal about the English and their history, architecture, and furniture. Our side trips to Italy, Holland, Belgium, and France have complemented those interests and given us many days of enjoyment.

One of our greatest joys in England has been visiting early homes that have been preserved by organizations like The National Trust and English Heritage. Early buildings like Hadden Hall, Hever Castle, Knole, Hardwick Hall, and Little Moreton Hall, which are open to the public, have given us the opportunity to visit the past amid early furniture and furnishings, an extraordinary privilege.

So, this year we decided to make a select group of these early houses/museums the focus of our travels around the country. To keep costs our low and at the same time support an important institution, we purchased a dual membership in The Royal Oak Foundation, an affiliate of the English National Trust. For a little more than $100 we were given access to more than 500 protected sites, gardens, and buildings across the whole of England and Scotland. We chose a dozen sites of particular interest to us and built an itinerary around them. Since our first group of buying appointments concluded near the Welsh border, we planned to begin there and work our way up the west side of the country, concluding in the Yorkshire Dales and the city of York.

As usual, we took hundreds of images, planning to use them in our monthly newsletters. Because of the richness of the experience and the number of photographs we took, we decided to break the story into three installments: 1) The Midlands; 2) Cumbria and Lancashire; and 3) Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Click any link below to travel with us.

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Part 1 - Cotswolds to West Yorkshire

Part 2 - Cumbria and Lancashire

Part 3 - The Yorkshire Dales, York, and the Peak District

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