Dudmaston Hall

The first visit we made on our few days away was to Dudmaston Hall, a National Trust property near the village of Quatt which is in between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster.   We always travel to places away from motorways and huge city centres if we can and National Trust properties are wonderful for stopping for leg stretches, lunches, picnics and other facilities.  We'd been past this place on a couple of occasions but we'd always found it closed.  This time it was open so we spent couple a couple of hours there including eating our picnic before we continued with our journey.

Apparently Dudmaston Hall has been lived in by the same family for 875 years, passing down the generations through inheritance or marriage and has never been sold. The present house dates from the 17th century and is still lived in by members of the family.  Because it is still a family home photography isn't allowed in the hall but there are many surprises inside as alongside the period room settings there are two galleries full of modern art and sculpture.

We took a stroll in the gardens and down towards the water which is known as the Big Pool.

The plants and flowers down by the pond were lovely and the gunnera was high enough to be able to walk under the leaves.

This is the public exit to the house, straight out under a lovely pink rose entwined with a deep purple clematis.  The last exhibition just before we left was my favourite.  Several objects from the collection had been chosen and put on display with a time line around the walls of both British and World events to put them into context plus the history of the family at the same time.

Shepherd's Hut in the orchard

Bright geraniums against the old brick wall

Around the garden were modern sculptures and also photos of what certain areas would have looked like in the late 19th century.

A photo of the family in the 1890s

Flowers by the Big Pool

and in the Kitchen Garden

I loved these modern gates to the courtyard, they are called The Eternity Gates and were commissioned in 1983 by Sir George and Lady Labouchere to commemorate their ruby wedding.  

There was a small version of this sculpture on the piano in one of the galleries.
The sculpture called Spaceframe 1970 is by Anthony Twentyman.

It was beginning to drizzle with rain so it was time to move on towards Kidderminster and Bromsgrove and our next destination.

A Walk: From Beautiful To Ugley

> We parted yesterday on a lovely path descending to the village of Quendon. Perhaps now would be a good time to tell you that we're in an area known as "The Hundred Parishes". It has no official status but is the brainchild of a society set up to promote this beautiful area. It covers 450 square miles of the best of Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Essex's ancient countryside and has over 1,000 miles of footpaths. We've been to parts of the area before, of course, around Linton, Thaxted, Much Hadham......

The main street through the village was busy with traffic so I quickly sought out the lane to the church.

Churches with little wooden bell-towers like this are found commonly in a band running through Hertfordshire and Essex, though I can't recall a single one in Cambridgeshire. It's strange how you find these little variations across the country. 

Evidently people in Quendon are not such early risers as those at Rickling and the church was still locked.

The path I chose from here ran alongside a strip of woodland. A few oak trees were still valiantly hanging on to their leaves, despite it being December. One walk guide says, of a walk that coincides for a short while with the route we're taking, that this particular path has views across the M11 valley: since when did motorways start appropriating valleys from rivers? >

Soon I was leaving the wood behind and crossing a field to the next village....

Oh, yes! That wasn't a typo in the title; we really are going to a village called Ugley!

The church isn't ugly though, quite attractive in fact. It's called St Peter's and I rather hoped to find a notice board that said "St Peter's Ugley", but was disappointed

The rest of the village had some quaint-looking cottages too.

From the church I found myself wandering through a farmyard, though I'm not certain I was supposed to be there. I took a couple of pictures though I thought it best not to hang about.

In a way I was rather hoping a friendly farmer might appear as there was a lot of very ancient equipment lying around just waiting to be photographed. On the other hand if I was trespassing.......

There were a few buildings too that were well past their "best before" date. I suppose you could call those "ugly" though I rather like to photograph them.

We've done about five miles so far and I thought that the rest of the walk would be less interesting, it certainly appeared so on the map. Little did I know how lovely it would be. Will you be coming with me?


Take care.