Calke Abbey stables and church

Calke Abbey is set in a sizeable estate, with gardens and a deer park. It also has a huge stable block, part of which is now used for weddings. I'm assuming that they used to keep racehorses or something here, but surprisingly I can't find any info about this anywhere. Like the rest of the property, it is somewhat rundown and littered with bits and bobs just lying around. 

There is a sizeable blacksmith's forge, another reason that leads me to assume the equine enterprise was at one time quite significant. 

The church of St Giles is now a private manorial chapel, rebuilt in Gothic Revival style in 1827 by Sir George Crewe. Before that there was a medieval church associated with Calke Priory, and then it became a parish church for the village of Calke. 

It's small and relatively plain inside, full of memorials to Calke Abbey's family members, including the diamond shaped funerary hatchments. These are heraldic devices that were hung for a few months outside the mansions of the gentry when they died, before being lodged in the family chapel or parish church. You see them in many churches associated with noble families. 

I didn't have time to explore the gardens, but on the way back to the car I noticed these unusual cattle. From a quick Google search, I think they are native English Longhorns, nowadays a relatively rare breed. The land in the Midlands and further south is even more parched than up here. All the grass is so dry and brown that the animals are effectively eating hay right there in the meadows. 

Calke Abbey's treasures

Calke Abbey (see also yesterday's post) is so rammed full of treasure that it was difficult in a quick look round, which was all I had time for really, to see and appreciate what was there. These photos show just a few of the things that made me pause to look. The huge doll's house must have been beautiful at one time, and a delight to any child that played with it. 

Equally, the rocking horse, now rather sparse in mane and tail, must have given hours of pleasure to a child. 

I was much taken with this soft-eyed ceramic pig, with its shamrock decoration, perhaps hinting at an Irish connection? 

The mobile shower unit was a thing of wonder! 

One of the most precious treasures must be this state bed, carefully preserved in a 'room within a room' - a glass box that enables the temperature, humidity and light to be carefully controlled. The bed hangings are a rare example of early 18th century Chinese silk, produced for the European luxury market and possibly made for George I. They are believed to have been a wedding gift to Sir Henry Harpur and his bride Lady Caroline Manners in 1734 and for some reason they were never used, kept in a box and so protected from light damage until they were rediscovered in 1985. 

Lastly, just one example of the hundreds of display cases containing natural history specimens, in this case a pelican swallowing a fish. Weird, wonderful and rather endearing in its way! 

Calke Abbey

I went to a family wedding in Berkshire recently. It was a long drive (about six hours) so I opted to stop halfway for a breather. The National Trust property of Calke Abbey, in Derbyshire, was positioned in exactly the right spot, not too far off my route, and I'd never been there before - so that was where I ended up. 

From the front, it looks, I think, a little like Buckingham Palace in miniature and is of about the same age.  It's a Baroque mansion, built on the site of a former priory and an Elizabethan house, between 1701 and 1704. It was owned by the Harpur-Crewe family for nearly 300 years. They extended the house over several generations, until they were forced to relinquish it to the Trust in lieu of death duties in 1985. By then it was in a state of considerable decline, and the NT have elected to leave it exactly as it was when it came into their care, with several of the rooms looking much as they did in the 1800s. They have halted the decay but deliberately not reversed it. It is an amazing (and somewhat disturbing) clutter of furniture, paintings, and masses of natural history specimens, from stuffed birds and animals to fossils and butterflies, the beloved collection of the 10th and last baronet. The further you explore in the house, the more the decay is obvious, with peeling wallpaper, broken furniture and items randomly shoved into rooms for storage (just like many of our own homes' 'glory holes'!) The family, apparently, rarely threw anything away. It seems they were all somewhat eccentric and kept themselves very much to themselves, living life in quite a traditional way. I gather the house didn't even get electricity until the 1960s!  

One room is decorated with political cartoons and caricatures cut from newspapers and pasted to the wall. 

Some of the rooms are not unattractive, and even quite comfortable, though stuffed to the gills with furniture, books, paintings and artefacts.  

Many of the bedrooms are in a state of massive neglect. I found it all oddly repulsive and yet fascinating in equal measure. It does illustrate the huge amount of work that goes into restoring other NT properties and keeping them stable and beautiful, a never-ending battle against damage from damp, light, pests and old age. Tomorrow I'll show a few of the treasures that stood out for me as I explored.