Saturday 21 May 2016

A Chilterns Manor house

The home of Benjamin Disraeli 1848 - 1881... (he was a Victorian Prime Minister)

now a National Trust property








The Trust has to protect furnishings and hence it uses blinds at the windows to cut down the amount of light coming into the rooms.

I liked the idea here at Hughenden, where they added 'phrases and sayings' to their blinds



 







Quite a few National Trust properties remain open throughout the year these days.
The Winter months usually being the time when properties would get a 
Deep clean, but with them now Open throughout, it means that the
Deep clean has to happen when visitors are about.

This actually turns into a bonus as, although a room might be closed to 
the visitor looking around, it is nice to see how they go about that Deep clean.

Carefully & Slowly

is the main aim, as working too quickly could easily ruin
the precious items

Here, I saw a group of 'Deep cleaners' discussing what their aims were
in that particularly room for the day...



Keeping these houses up together must be continual,
but so worth it


This room was high up in the building and had the adventage of
lots of windows to look out across the grounds...








....and the grounds is exactly where I would be headed next,
but first, off down the stairs...



and out into the meadow, which was full of buttercups




And William enjoyed the visit too,
although he got to go on a long walk
whilst I looked around the house.






16 comments:

Marie Smith said...

It must be very expensive to keep up the estates but so worth it. We saw a Churchill property in Kent during one of our trips to the UK. It is a treasure for sure.

CJ Kennedy said...

Looks like a good time was had by all.

Eileen H said...

It's a beautiful house and grounds. Adding the phrase on the blinds is a good idea to make them interesting! I'm sure William didn't complain about having to wait for his Mum.

ann @ studiohyde said...

Yes they do cost an extreme amount of money to keep up together. It is a charity and is reliant for income on membership fees, donations and legacies, plus revenue from their commercial operations. I'm glad we help by volunteering at our local house.

ann @ studiohyde said...

It was, where I was looking in the house, husb. and William walked the grounds, so they got to see a different side of things than me. One day I'm going to do the walk around with William and send husb. into the houses first, lol.

ann @ studiohyde said...

Yes, I thought that was a great idea with the blinds, it took away the plainness of them.

Christine said...

What a beautiful property!

Joan Tavolott said...

You've shared another wonderful property with us! Thanks!!

robin cox walsh said...

I can't even imagine the staff it took to run/keep a house of this size! (not to mention the cost!)

ann @ studiohyde said...

Thanks Christine, Joan and Robin...This was another property that had a good atmosphere about it - and had a nice walk from the car park through the woods.

Judy said...

So lovely to see this property and also the one from the previous post. I love all the details of the decoration! I love the sayings on the blinds, fabulous idea! Also love to see a peep behind the scenes of the cleaners, phew, a lot of work!

Shammickite said...

Ah yes.... Disreali and Gladstone took it in turns to be PM during Victoria's reign. I have a pewter salt and pepper set, Disreali is salt and Gladstone is pepper, or is it the other way round? I love looking round those stately homes, but not that many of them near my home.

ann @ studiohyde said...

It really has been good that the National Trust show the work they do, normally behind scenes before the public visit. Nowadays some are doing what they show here. There was a board on an easle explaining the work too, so the visitors didn't need to disturb the cleaning team, although they are always ready to explain the work.

ann @ studiohyde said...

It did seem strange to be standing in the rooms once loved by them. So glad we made the visit.

Sadami said...

Oh, very interesting, Ann! I want to visit there one day. Best wishes, Sadami

ann @ studiohyde said...

I hope you do get to visit Sadami, if you ever do get over here, let us know we would love to show you our local area and history.