Jane Austen day 1 - Lyme Park (15/8)

In the previous posting, I meant to tell you about our return to the UK which did not start well. There was an accident on the road to Chester and not knowing the roads, we didn't dare get off the motorway to try another route. It was stop-start for over an hour. (Literally stop too. The cars over here shut down as soon as you put them in neutral when you are stopped, but start again as soon as you put them back into gear! Quite disconcerting at first. Apparently these systems have been around since the 1970's but early versions didn't work well. Further developments were made with hybrid vehicles and now is spreading right across the range.  see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-stop_system).

Two addicts looking for Mr Darcy!!

We went to Lyme Park (or Pemberley as addicts of Pride and Prejudice such as Jill and Christine would have it, since it was used as such during the filming of the BBC production). It also happens to be where Ralph volunteers a little of his retirement time since they live within walking distance.

The estate was in the same family for 600 years, and was finally donated with much reluctance but necessity to the National Trust in 1946. It is the largest stately house in Cheshire. The land was originally donated to Sir Thomas Danyers in 1346 for saving the life of the Black Prince, but it came into the Legh family by marriage when Margaret, the daughter of Sir Thomas, who died without a son, married the first Piers Legh in 1388. The first recorded building on the site was in 1465, but that house was demolished in the early 16^th century to make way for the construction of the present house.

Some of the gardens

Much of that Elizabethan house has survived the additions and modifications mad over time. The present house is in the Baroque/Palladian style and is the result of major alterations in the 1720's. Fortunes declined over the next 100 years, but the house was restored again in the early 1800's. Its heyday was really about the beginning of the 20^th century, but by 1946 the cost of running it and difficulty of finding staff due to the war forced the family to give up the estate.

Many of the rooms are open to the public, and we spent a couple of hours wandering the corridors. Most of the rooms are furnished, but much of it is on loan from other estates or from other properties of the Trust.

Also on display is the Lyme Caxton Missal, known to have been in the family since 1508. It is the only known copy which is essentially complete, and is unique in that after the dissolution of the monasteries someone has been through it and crossed out any reference to the Pope. These would have been scrubbed clean if the book had changed hands. It also had many other comments written by family members in the margins which would make an interesting study of attitudes and politics of the times.

The pond where "Mr Darcy" went swimming

We had lunch in the restaurant, then went for a walk around the grounds so that the girls could retrace the steps that “Lizzie” and “Mr Darcy” from Pride and Prejudice. Unfortunately it rained as we walked to the dam that the latter dived into, but the girls enjoyed doing it anyway.

Afterwards for some strange reason we drove briefly through the town of Poynton which happens to be close by.  It developed in support of the coal mines nearby.