Apologies for the radio silence recently, I have been super busy with work and have been finding things a bit overwhelming so blogging has had to take a back seat. Luckily, our families had something planned to get me out of the house and despite me being super tired, it was super fun! You know how much I love going on little day trips (yes I am already an OAP!) and Croome Court was ideal as it is just up the road from us. It is one of the closest National Trust properties to us and we used to visit a lot when we were kids but it has been a while (last time we went, my 4 siblings and I managed to fit into a hollow tree trunk, that's how log ago it was!) so I was interested to see how much had changed since then.
We had really lovely weather and the estate looked beautiful. I love visiting stately homes and swanning around pretending to own the place, I definitely could live as a lady of leisure! ;)
Croome was a little different though as it is currently undergoing significant restoration at the moment.
I mean you can see it in these pictures, there were flagstones pulled up, walls exposed and scaffolding covered the outside of the house.
The beautiful decorations just made the contrast even more stark...
The Long Gallery was probably my favourite room, it was fairly bare but had loads of cool art in which was apparently inspired by Croome...
I mean, isn't this cool?!
I'm not sure when these tiles date from but they look super 1970s to me!
There were originally some beautiful French tapestries in this room but they were sold off when the estate ran into difficulties. The dominant colour was this gorgeous raspberry pink- I bet they made an amazing feature wall!
There was a really cool interactive display in the basement; a miniature Croome Court! The original house was hidden inside the walls by 'Capability' Brown when he redesigned it in 1751. I loved this display and it was super fun to take it all apart...
A dizzying look up the staircases (this house is huge)
The dining room is amazing, the fruit plasterwork dates back to the eighteenth century but the house was used by Hare Krishnas between 1979 and 1984 and they painted it all in these vibrant colours. It's a bit of a controversial topic but I love how colourful it is, even if others aren't so sure!
As you saw, there is scaffolding enveloping the entire house at the moment and there's a cafe 12 metres up there at the moment. We didn't buy any food or drink but the views were worth the climb, even if I was too scared to go anywhere near the edge. Luckily Mark took this video for me so you can get an idea of how amazing the views were!
Apparently the house and parkland were Capability’ Brown’s first commission and he transformed it from marshland into this beautiful estate.
This beautiful bridge is a replica of the Chinese bridge which stood on the same site in the eighteenth century but was lost to decay. Luckily a £200,000 Sainsbury Trust grant meant that the National Trust were able to reconstruct the crossing and this opened properly earlier this year.
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| Playsuit: Marks & Spencer, top: H&M, shoes: French Sole c/o Spartoo, bag: Clarks |
I asked Mark to take a picture of me and I didn't realise that this woman was looking at me so scathingly, her face is priceless!
Beautiful views along the culvert...
There was a kite flying event on and although we had limited success, it was very very fun!
A look back up the hill towards St Mary Magdalene's Church, Croome D'Abitot.
This was built in 1763 and is absolutely beautiful inside. Unfortunately the camera had run out of battery by the time we got back up the hill so you will just have to imagine it, or look up some photos! ;) This was such a lovely day out and I would definitely recommend visiting Croome if you are in the area...
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