Fountains Abbey by Floodlight

Enterprising Evenings for Ancient Sites

The National Trust has been creative in its use of evening events at ruined places (probably following the success of enterprising places like the Bolton Abbey estate with their Bonfire and Firework nights.) 

Fountains by Floodlight

Fountains Abbey (and Studley Royal and the high walks and low walks round the estate) is fantastic to visit at any time. On selected evenings in the winter, as the sun set over Fountains Abbey, coloured floods and spots reveal the architecture, literally and metaphorically, in a quite different light.

Make we joy now in this fest

Clutching our heated glasses of mulled wine, we listened to the live choir singing carols ancient and new in the cellarium.

Colours of the past

We know from places like Cathédrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens (Amiens Cathedral) and the traces of paint found there that ancient monuments, in their early pomp, would likely have been brightly painted. It is impossible to say whether or not the colours would have been as lurid and varied as the Fountains by Floodlight experience, but it makes the past seem less monochrome and brightens up the chill of winter.

Great British New Year

Resolutions, resolutions....
I think my close family have given up on Resolutions because they seem to cause unwanted pressures and annoying feelings of failure when they're abandoned by the end of every January. Instead, we just enjoy the New Year (now traditional) reunion with the Thompsons and a wintery walk around the Bolton Abbey estate.

Wheelchair at The Strid

Since Alex had an injured leg, hitching up the wagons for our New Year walk involved a wheelchair this year. Still, plenty of laughter, anecdotes, catching up of the past and imagining the future and, of course, reviewing the evidence from last night's Murder Mystery....

Tripping the Light Fantastic

"We came this way to explore the Moon and the most important thing that we discovered was the Earth...." Space exploration has featured in many people's imaginations in the last year as we celebrate the anniversary of the Moon landings (July 20 1969.) One of the Saltaire Advent Windows naturally paid tribute to it (see above.)

If a spark can start inside your heart....

As always we enjoyed the atmospheric walk through the streets of Saltaire seeing the witty and sometimes religious, sometimes topical, sometimes sentimental, sometimes charming solutions to the challenge of decorating windows with craft materials that look good when lit from behind.

Hope in the Dark

2018 ended with Theresa May as "strong and stable" Prime Minister of the UK (she is anything but; and her government seem to be presiding over cruelty to vulnerable citizens and the decimation of public services, all in the false name of "Austerity".) At least she is a grown up which is more than can be said for the 45th President of the United States, the reckless (frankly unintelligent and often unintelligible) Donald Trump. History will evaluate the legacy of this strange time of increasingly right-wing populism. The past suggests that everything comes in cycles and I hope compassion and kindness are back in vogue before too long. In the meantime, I take comfort in loved ones, places like Bolton Abbey and the messages on the windows of Saltaire's Living Advent.... hope in the dark.

Great British Murder Mystery

Murder on a train

In 1933, somewhere near the Austrian border, the banging and clanging aboard the Simpleton-Orient Express fell silent as the “wrong type of leaves” on the track forced the mighty engine to grind to a halt. The hysterical train guard shrieked: “There’s been a murder!” And Monsieur Parrot assembled the suspects to try and solve the puzzle in the victim’s cabin: shards of glass from a lightshade, a scrawled note, a single gunshot wound….

The Women

• Nurse Elektra Cushen, a manically overworked carer with bright lipstick and flashbacks to her past career
• Miss Crimson, sophisticated secret agent with a penchant for secretly recording conversations
• Sister Soprano, a meek nun, a sister of mercy who uses her bible to swat flies
• Indy Temple, tough-talking tomb raider, terrified of snakes and on an obsessional treasure hunt
• The Duchess of Downton, an imposing and opinionated heiress, dripping in jewellery and furs

The Men

• Illusionist Houdunni, a mesmerising showman on his way home to Budapest to launch his new show
• Professor Albert Weinstein, a scatterbrained genius who secretly wanted to be a rock star
• Gerard the Butler, an impeccably well-groomed servant, ready to polish silverware at a moment’s notice
• John Doe, the deceased, a man with secrets and connections to all the guests….

Photos by Janet

Previous Murder Mystery Game Nights:

• The Red Rose Murders
• Stiffed at the Speakeasy
• Death by Chocolate
• Monte Carlo Murders
• The Champagne Murders

Great British Christmas Decorations

Burton Agnes Hall and Gardens
Every year we mosey along the M62 to Burton Agnes Hall to admire their Christmas decorations and this year was no exception. There is something homely and admirable about the accessibility of the house and what they achieve with craft-based decorations, fully utilising material from the grounds.

House and Presents
The house itself is a glory with its impressive fireplace and marvellous Long Gallery at the top of the building, but the home-made decorations are charming because they are made by staff and local schoolchildren and the family who live there.

Rainbow Butterflies
Swans, icicles, angels, wreaths; the outdoors and indoors mingling together. And who doesn't love butterflies arranging themselves in rainbow formation? Venturing outside in the crisp winter air, who doesn't wants to tap on the teeny tiny doors of the fairy dwellings? My brain might turn to mush at Christmas-time, but the World is a Harsh Place and my inner child just can't be suppressed!

Homely to Grand....
Chatsworth is on a different scale. Their themed decorations involve far more glamour and glitz than Burton Agnes and are awesome in their own way. In the pictures below spot Cinderella's coach (and pumpkin), kite-flying and a chimney sweep heralding the new Disney sequel to Mary Poppins.

Shadow Play
One of my favourite rooms this year at Chatsworth was an animated shadow-play version of Sleeping Beauty. Absolutely enchanting.

Fairy Tales of Childhood
The colours, lighting, stage settings and props in each room sparked both wonder and a bit of a chill, since childhood (and fairy tales) can be full or terror as well as fun.

Raffaele Monti's Veiled Vestal
Chatsworth is a breathtaking experience, not only for the glimpses high and low of the kind of luxury few people enjoy, but also of key artworks, including the famed veiled woman sculpted in 1846/47 having been commissioned in Monti's studio in Milan by the Sixth Duke of Devonshire (the current one is Twelfth.)  Originally displayed in a London house, it came to Chatsworth in 1999 and featured in the 2005 film of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Middle-sized House?
If Burton Agnes is Baby Bear and Chatsworth (See the Princess and the Pea bed above) is Daddy Bear, then Harewood House is Mummy Bear.... below are a few collages from their Christmas decorations, along with charming tales of times gone by. George and Gerald ascend the steps, determined to stay awake....

Simon Costin
The art designer Simon Costin has worked with big-named brands in the past and brought his skills to this year's Harewood House decorations, evoking the hopes and dreams of the real-life George and Gerald Lascelles in the year 1929. What seemed clever to me was the perspective of all the decorations was that of a small child, so you saw familiar things as you had never seen them before.

Child-eye view
A wedding dress became a Christmas tree, yellow flowers recalled The Wizard of Oz's famous road, an open window became an ice-nightmare recalling the Snow Queen's threat and, dominating my imagination, was a willow god Pan, over 12 feet high, looking equally benign and malign.

Lascelles Slavery Archive
I know Harewood the best of the three houses featured in this post because it is geographically nearer where I live. As a family we've spent hours at the Bird Garden and Adventure Playground when the children were young. It was the place where I got the first inklings of the connection between great houses and the slave trade. What impresses me these days is that Harewood's acknowledgement of its past, and its ongoing community work, was one step ahead of the current (justifiable) re-evaluation of Britain's empirical exploitation.