Hardwick Hall

We have just become members of The National Trust, so last week we eagerly visited two stately homes in quick succession: Belton House and Hardwick Hall. The Renaissance-style Hardwick Hall was built for Bess of Hardwick in the late 16th century. At the time Bess was the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth I, just as JK Rowling is today after Queen Elizabeth II. The photos below, however, are of the ruined and roofless Hardwick Old Hall, which stands next to the New Hall. This building is older and, in my opinion, a lot more atmospheric. The Old Hall is cared for by English Heritage.

Interesting colours and textures. As well as the roof, the floors are missing too.

The imagination can really run wild in this architectural emblem of the picturesque.

Blinded by the light: The Solitary Walker in penitential mood.

Inside looking out.

National Heritage

Lately I've been mentioning English Heritage and the National Trust, those 2 guardians of the nation's heritage. What are these bodies?

English Heritage (or the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission) is the government's statutory advisor on the historic environment. It reports to Parliament through the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. It's funded partly by Government and partly with revenue earned from the historic properties under its guardianship. Its aims are:

• to conserve and enhance the historic environment



• to broaden public access to our heritage



• to increase our understanding of the past

The National Trust, on the other hand, is a registered charity and is funded entirely from membership and entrance fees, donations, legacies and revenue from its commercial operations such as publishing and gift retail. It has 3.4 million members and 43,000 volunteers.

It was founded in 1895 by 3 Victorian philanthropists: Miss Octavia Hill (a social reformer and one of the most influential women of the era), Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Herdwicke Rawnsley. They were concerned about uncontrolled development and industrialization.

To date the Trust has 300 historic houses in its care, plus 49 industrial monuments and mills; also castles and islands, gardens and nature reserves, and other countryside areas including forest, fen, woodland, moorland, farmland, downland and the coast. Its aim is:

• to preserve and protect the coastline, countryside and buildings of England, Wales and Northern Ireland

It acquired its first building - Alfriston House (Sussex) - in 1896, and created its first nature reserve - Wicken Fen (Cambridgshire) - in 1899. Blakeney Point (Norfolk) became its first coastal nature reserve in 1912. During the 1930s the children's author Beatrix Potter gave the Trust much financial support; and she left the Trust farms, land and flocks of Herdwick sheep in her will. More recently in 2002 Sutton Hoo was placed under its stewardship, and William Morris's Red House in 2003.

The National Trust for Scotland was set up in 1931.

Heritage Open Day (2)

On Sunday last weekend we enjoyed free admission to Orford Castle which is managed by English Heritage. Only the keep remains of the original 12th century fortress built by Henry II - but it's impressively intact.

We walked north from Orford Quay along the western bank of the Alde and Ore river - the river with 2 names. It was very peaceful, with only the terns and the occasional sailing boat for company. Across the river lay Orford Ness, a National Nature Reserve and the largest vegetated shingle spit in Europe. It was a secret military test site until the mid-1980s - when the National Trust bought it from the Ministry of Defence. It's a wild and fascinating 10 mile coastal strip formed of rivers, mud flats, lagoons, saltmarsh, grass, shingle and abandoned wartime buildings. Someone once called it "half wilderness, half military junkyard".

Later we explored another National Trust site nearby: the mounds at Sutton Hoo, the burial ground of Anglo-Saxon kings. The most heralded excavation here in 1939 (Mound 1) revealed a ship burial site containing many priceless treasures - including the famous iron helmet which probably belonged to King Raedwald of East Anglia. Many of these beautifully crafted artefacts are housed in the British Museum.

Heritage Open Day (1)

Back from another long weekend in Suffolk. This was a weekend of Heritage Open Days throughout the country - meaning free access to many National Trust and English Heritage sites and properties which are normally closed to the public or charge for admission. We made the most of this, visiting, on the Saturday, Valley Farm at Flatford (see photo on left), a 15th century open hall house with a crown post roof and huge fireplace; and Thorington Hall near Stoke by Nayland (see photo on right), a beautiful 17th century timber framed farmhouse with a splendid limewashed oak staircase and six-stack chimney. The novelist and travel writer Nicholas Wollaston had been tenant here for 30 years until his death in May. I've never read any of his work, but Graham Greene described his book Red Rumba (1962) as perhaps the best travel book since Patrick Leigh Fermor's The Traveller's Tree. His widow Deirdre, who was there to welcome the visitors, told us that he was unable to find a publisher for his last 2 books - a reminder of how authors and styles of writing can go in and out of fashion just like everything else. Read here Wollaston's Observer article on how it's difficult to get published if you're not young and trendy.