One of the coolest things about Britain is the casual scattering of
heritage found lying around everywhere—such as Stonehenge, the Tower of London
and the leftover WWII pillboxes dotting the coastline—and some of the coolest
bits of their redundant past are the old stately manor houses.
If you don’t watch Downton Abbey, manor homes were huge estates, staffed
by legions of servants, surrounded by vast tracts of land cared for by armies
of groundsmen and gamekeepers who kept the woods, rivers and meadows well-stocked with
fish and game. These enormous estates provided employment for much of the
surrounding towns and many, many residents were beholden to the landowner for
their livelihood.
If you do watch Downton Abbey, then you already knew all of that.
Back in the day, I would never have been able to get a glimpse inside
one of these estates; the closest I could have hoped to come (if rumors of my
British ancestry are true) is while being presented to the land owner, accused
of poaching his rabbits, before being taken out and hung.
These days, the majority of the surviving estates are open to the public.
Thanks to the introduction of the minimum wage, plus a few other key labor laws, as
well as two World Wars that greatly diminished the ranks of the working class,
the upkeep required for these anachronistic monstrosities became unsustainable,
leading to their wholesale destruction. Around 1,500 manor homes were destroyed
in the 1900’s before someone opined, “I say, do you think we should keep a few
of these to, you know, show off to the tourists?”
Some people look back on that destruction, wishing fervently that more
estates could have been saved, but not me. There are plenty left; get a
National Trust Handbook and have a look through it if you don’t believe me. Anywhere
you go in Britain there are half a dozen stately homes within easy reach of
wherever you happen to be. I say it’s a good thing they knocked the bulk of
them down; if they hadn’t, where would they have put all the industrial estates,
Tesco super-stores and council flats?
Anyway, there are no shortage of these homes in Sussex, and one of them—Wakehurst
Place—is a favorite destination of ours. It’s a short drive away and its 500
acres of gardens, wetlands and woods are some of the most spectacular in
Britain.
William Wakehurst first bought the land in 1205. Back then, it was
only a 40-acre estate, but over the years the land and home were expanded.
During the 1900s, Gerald Loder—later Lord Wakehurst—spent 33 years developing
the gardens. He left the estate to Sir Henry Price and Sir Henry left it to the
National Trust in 1963. It is now open to the public, which means I can go
there whenever I wish, without the risk of being hanged.
All of this is a prelude to me telling you we went to Wakehurst Place
this past Sunday, and it was a glorious, spring-like day and I want to gloat
about it to my friends back in Upstate NY who are still experiencing weather
like this:
Over here, we have flowers blooming and, as we wandered the trails
through the gardens and woodlands, the smells of damp earth and new growth were
everywhere.
It was just lovely.
Except maybe a meadow of Cyclamen. |
Before I forget, this is the mansion; it's such a pretty building it's hard to take a bad photo of it. |
This was taken about 11:00 in the morning; the sun is not going to get much higher than that. |
Ah, Pussy Willow! Now we're talking spring! |