Burghley House

House - they call this a house?

So today, Bill and I dropped all children off at school and then hopped in the rental car to go visit Burghley House. It's located in Stamford which is very nearby - takes about 35 minutes to go the 20 miles or so. This house was built by William Cecil who was Elizabeth I's State Advisor. Since then it has been the Cecil's family home and still is. They have opened it to the public (as many castles and so forth are) to pay for the exorbitant taxes and repairs/upkeep of the place. Recently, it was used as the set for the new Pride and Prejudice movie.

Inside, you tour through a wing of guestrooms - the beds look like this. Every room is chock full of art. Aparantly a few different Earls and Marquesses throughout their history took it upon themselves to tour Europe collecting vast amounts of valuable art and other furniture and various treasures. Some were sold off years ago to pay for upkeep of the place before they got the brilliant idea to open it to the public. But there remain enough to occupy you for hours touring through the house.

You can't completely tell in this picture, but this house has a lot of painting on the walls and ceilings. Room after room is painted - ceilings and walls with various legends. If a room is not painted on the ceilings and walls, then pictures hang on every wall.

Every piece of furniture seems to be a treasure in itself. There are all sorts of beautifully veneered woods like this table, gold overlay, and the fireplaces are made of solid silver. Some rooms have beautiful tapestry on the walls instead of paintings. The Great Hall houses the library and has over 3000 volumes of pricelessly old stuff.

After going through the rooms open to the public, we went out to the Garden of Surprises. This would be a great fun place for kids in the summer - it's like a water garden with all sorts of water features that you could get completely soaked in if you so desired. It also contains some quirky things like a maze of mirrors, and modern sculptures. Exiting out of that we took a short walk through the Sculptured Garden. This is a tree/schrub/bushes type garden with various meandering paths and a lake. Scattered throughout are all sorts of modern art sculptures.

We were pretty hungry by this time, so keeping a close eye on the time, we went back into the House grounds to the Orangery Restaurant for a late lunch. We ordered one beef and wild game casserole and one steak and kidney pie to share between us - just to keep with the authentic British experience, and they were both very tasty. Then it was a short trip home to pick up the kids from school and get ready for church.