Family Day out to Charlcote Park, Warwickshire

Yesterday we went out as a family to National Trust property Charlcote Park.  Its not that far from where we live, about a 40 minute drive, depending on traffic.  I am the only one in the family that has ever been here before but that was about 34 years ago so to come back and visit this place as an adult was very interesting.

It has been home to the Lucy family since the time of King Richard I in the 1100's and the current Baronet, Sir Edmund Fairfax-Lucy who is a painter and artist, still lives in the private upper rooms to this day.  You can read more about the family history here.

When you arrive, you park across the road in the car park, pay or show your membership and then go across the road, through the gate and walk along a really long path to the outer building/gatehouse.  Once you are through the gatehouse it opens up into a lawned area with a few statues and a small area with small fruit trees growing and the main house in front of you.

Left: The Gatehouse.  Top: The Main House.  Bottom Centre: Rear view of the Main House. Bottom Right: Cottage next to rear entrance gates of the property.

That beautifully ornate "cottage" sits right next to a set of massive gates, obviously the rear entrance to the property and maybe would have been some kind of Gatehouse in the past, maybe home to the head groundsman many years ago, maybe it still is, but someone would have had to have been close by to open and close those huge gate.  The gates lead directly onto a long tree-lined path which you can see the end of in the bottom middle photo as it goes over a bridge and although it looks like it takes you right up to the rear of the building it doesn't, it actually takes you off to the right and you end up at the outbuildings which house all of the old coaches and carriages and years ago would have housed horses too.  As you walk from those gates along that path you can imagine coach and horses travelling along.  If you look at the first aerial view further down you can see the path coming in from the bottom and into the stable and outbuilding area.

The park is home to a herd of Fallow Deer and you can see these as you walk from the entrance gate to the Gate House.  There are a lot of them, more than you can see in my photos.  I stopped and changed lens's for my "big lens" though as they were still quite a distance away and I didn't want to get too near to them.  My "big lens" is really good for zooming in on objects far away, as you can tell, but not for anything close up so I had to change back to my normal lens after I took these shots.  I was amazed by the different colours in the herd.

Once through the Gatehouse, you enter a large court yard area with nice lawns on either side of the path and a couple of statues either side of a set of steps that lead up to another area that is open to the public but you can't go up the steps as there is a locked gate at the top of the steps with a fancy stone wall on either side, and I couldn't resist getting an "arty" photo of one of the statues through that wall later when we were the other side of that locked gate.  Maybe the steps are too dangerous to have people constantly going up and down them.

Inside the house, in the main hall, there are these beautiful stained glass windows and the guide told us that they represent the history of the house and the Lucy family.

There is also a lot of beautiful furniture and I was especially drawn to the detailing of the inlay on these chairs and cabinet.  Absolutely stunning and, for me, totally mesmerising. 

Round the back of the house is a beautiful formal Capability Brown garden with steps down to the River Avon, where in times gone by visitors to the house could arrive by boat, if they lived on neighbouring properties or just along the river, or the family could just go for a boat ride along the river on a nice summers day.

There really isn't a good focal point in which to get a great shot of the garden but thanks to the power of Google, I can show you an aerial shot.

And finally, a photo from a history display in the main gatehouse, which I found really interesting and then a couple of photos from our walk around the vast expanse of the outer areas of the estate.  The Jacob Sheep, how could I not go and see them and how could I not include them after the amount of yarn that I spun from the fleece of Jacobs sheep.  I can't add all the links to all of the posts I've written about the yarn I've made from Jacobs fleece, if I did this post would be twice as long as it is and I think its already as long as War and Peace as it is!

If ever you are in the Warwickshire area and fancy an historical and educational day out, you certainly can't go wrong with paying a visit to Charlecote Park.  For exact location for a SatNav its CV35 9ER and if you need details of opening times, prices, what's on and special days then just go back to the top of this post and click on the Charlcote Park link, which will take you to the National Trust website for this place.