Postings for visits from 2026
Postings for visits from 2025
Arley Hall and Gardens, Cheshire
Our July trip to Arley Hall and Gardens was a splendid day out and much enjoyed by all. Arley is only open to the public a couple of days a month as it is the home of the Viscount and Viscountess Ashbrook and their family. We were able to explore all the main rooms on two floors at our own pace but with guides available to answer questions. The present Viscount’s mother’s family, the Warburtons, have had their home on the site since the 15th century. The main house was completely rebuilt between 1832 and 1845 by Roland Egerton-Warburton and his architect George Latham. They visited many 16th-century properties as they wanted to replicate what they called the ‘Queen Elizabethan’ style. Internally and externally it is so exquisitely done that it’s hard to believe that the house is not 16th century.
There are magnificent plasterwork ceilings by Latham, a beautiful oak staircase and much period ornamental detail. Despite its beauty and grandeur, the rooms were not too large and we sensed the house was very much a home. Outside, the brickwork looks Elizabethan as they had special 16th-century style bricks made from clay dug on the estate and the tall chimneys also look authentic.
Arley’s style has been called Jacobethan, as it was built between 1832 and 1845, copying both styles.
The house is surrounded by over 15 acres of beautiful grounds and gardens, open to the public daily. The present gardens have been created and added to extensively since 1846. The double herbaceous borders were the first of their kind in England and very impressive. They are beautifully framed by mellow brick walls – they even have topiary buttresses.
Cherry Rosewell
Rugby Museum and Art Gallery
We started at the ‘new’ Museum and Art Gallery (opened in 2000), where a collection of artefacts illustrate the story of a small market town whose expansion was due to the important railway junction facilitated by the Watford Gap. The lines were controlled by the Rugby Bedspread, a 90-foot high signal gantry, represented by a scale model. Long before the railways, a Roman market was based at Tripontium, a small settlement which straddled Watling Street, four miles away. Gaming counters, hair pins and a Celtic bronze head were among the many finds from the bath house drains. Particularly beautiful was a belt buckle inscribed with two peacocks feeding from the Tree of Life.
The town is also synonymous with the game of rugby, and the ball manufacturers, Gilbert, started early in the nineteenth century when Rugby schoolboys brought inflated pig’s bladders to their shoe and boot shop encased in leather. In a different case were the officer’s breeches worn by Lady Dorothy Fielding during her dangerous work as an ambulance driver on the Western Front. Preserved here also is the cold cathode clock which set the time signals for radio from 1927 until 2007.
The art gallery was hosting two exhibitions: Found in the Fields featured linocuts, screen prints and lithographs by Carry Ackroyd to convey the vitality of nature. Many were inspired by the poetry of John Clare, as on the right.
Another exhibition, Woven from the Field, by Sue Kirk, displayed woven hangings of alpaca wool and flax, coloured by natural dyes.
Sue also creates willow basketry sculptures, which combine intricate shapes with practical uses.
Photos: Carolyn Gifford
Ashby St Ledgers Manor House
We then crossed into Northamptonshire and passing the pretty thatched, ironstone cottages (six designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens) in Ashby St Ledgers, on our way to the Manor House. Its large forecourt is enclosed on three sides by buildings, and at its head is the rambling honeyed front of an early Tudor hall, home of the Catesby family from 1400 until 1612. Sir William Catesby was beheaded after the Battle of Bosworth and handsome Robert was killed by a musket ball after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot.
The property was bought by Bryan Ianson, a wealthy London draper who embarked on the building of a tower and gable on the south side. Another draper, Joseph Ashby, purchased the manor in 1703. He installed the garden statues and started a walled garden.
We were taken on a tour by Nova Guest, who was very relaxed in spite of being accompanied by a camera crew from Channel 4.
Inside, carved dragons and horses adorn the panelling in the corner study, along with a heavily carved Italian Renaissance door installed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who worked on both the house and gardens for 30 years after Ivor Guest, later 2nd Lord Wimborne, acquired the estate in 1903. In the panelled Card Room William Walton’s piano resides, after he was invited to move in by Lady Wimborne, whose full-length portrait by John Lavery hangs next door. Most impressive was Lutyens’s Stone Hall, with gallery and exposed roof timbers. He built a half-timbered bridge to link his dining room with the Jacobean house on the west side of the forecourt. He also had to accommodate a timber-framed shop, purchased at the White City Exhibition as Ipswich was selling off its ancient heritage.
We spent a sunny hour in the grounds walking through the walled garden which has been recently restored using organic principles. The lawns slope down to a long, river-like pool. We passed on to the famous gatehouse (on the right) which has an atmospheric room where Catesby and his fellow conspirators may have hatched the Gunpowder Plot. Beside it stands the ancient church of St Mary and St Leodegarius, a French bishop in the 600s. It retains its 15th-century rood screen, wall paintings and sanctuary knocker. Our memorable visit was rounded off by excellent tea and cakes in the Stone Hall – a perfect day out.
Marilyn Lowe
Photos: Carolyn Gifford
Visit to Royal Holloway College
Our tour of Royal Holloway College began beneath the imposing North Clock Tower which forms the main entrance to the palatial building. Born in 1800, Thomas Holloway made his money by producing and selling patent pills and ointments to cure a wide range of ailments by ‘expelling gross humours’. His beloved wife, Jane Driver, helped in his enterprise and it was her idea for some of the fortune (swelled by investments) to be used for women’s education.
Some £600,000 was available for the creation of a college on the 90-acre site by William Crossland, a former pupil of George Gilbert Scott, who had already designed a sanatorium for the Holloways. He was sent to study the Chateau of Chambord, upon which the Renaissance Revival edifice is based, using red brick with stone dressings and embellishments.
The death of Jane in1875 was a heavy blow, and even Thomas did not live to see his creation opened in 1886 by Queen Victoria, who was persuaded to officiate by Count Gleichen who sculpted an imperious statue of her in the north quad and another, more affectionate, image of the Holloways in the south quadrangle.
The sloping ground of the south quad allows an extra storey in the southern section which houses a museum, physics laboratory, lecture theatre and a library, which we walked through to the wide corridor, which runs the whole length of the building (550 feet). The college was built to accommodate 250 students. The first intake of 25 arrived in 1887 (with their maids). Their day began at 7.30am and ended at 10.00pm. There were daily sessions of outdoor activities.
Photo: Marianne Pitts
The chapel is a gilded extravaganza of paintings and bas-reliefs by Ceccardo Egidic Fucigna (1834-1884). The apse depicts the Creation of Woman with lions, a deer, a silver hare and tortoise looking on. The chaplain brought out a precious jewelled altar cross which was given by Matilda Ellen Bishop, the first principal of the College (1887–1897). She resigned when non-conformist services were instituted on alternate Sundays (the Holloways were non-conformists).
We ate lunch in the art gallery surrounded by Victorian landscapes and seascapes, and historical and salutary scenes. One of the largest was The Railway Station by William Powell Frith, 1842, bustling with farewells, arguments, an arrest, dogs and luggage. A pair smaller, dark oils by Millais depicted the Princes in the Tower and the captive Princess Elizabeth. Landseer’s painting Man Proposes, God Disposes, which shows two polar bears
savaging the remnants of Franklin’s ill-fated ship, is usually covered during examinations as students feel uneasy sitting by it.
Man Proposes, God Disposes – photo by Mark Tollerman, on Wikimedia Commons
The grounds are still beautiful with old oaks and beech, cedars and monkey puzzles. Springs feed ornamental pools and cascades. We all enjoyed this rare opportunity for a look behind the scenes of this progressive seat of education.
Through the archway, Count Gleichen’s sculpture of Thomas and Jane Holloway in the south quadrangle. Gleichen was the youngest son of Prince Ernst of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and born as Victor Ferdinand Franz Eugen Gustaf Adolf Constantin Friedrich in 1833. After a successful career in the Royal Navy, he became a sculptor.
Photo: Marianne Pitts
Marilyn Lowe
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