Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
A beautiful day and just a short drive through beautiful countryside to the privately owned Browsholme Hall. Open mainly on Wednesdays throughout the Summer, we had booked a tour of the house, and very good it was too. The guide Jean was exceptionally friendly and knowlegeable and we appreciated the informal atmosphere (as far from a National Trust house as could be). The Parkers have lived here since 1507 and so Browsholme has a genuine claim to be the oldest surviving family home in Lancashire. As to their astonishing longevity I can do no better than quote their own words...... 'The family motto ‘neither wind nor wave shall move us’ perhaps bears witness to the survival of Browsholme through the Reformation, the turbulence of the Civil Wars, the extravagance of the Regency period then through the Napoleonic, Boer and World Wars. Each period has left its trace … a skull from the Pilgrimage of Grace, a royalist coat worn by Capt. Thomas Whittingham (killed at Naseby), furniture by Gillow and Hepplewhite, even a fragment of a Zeppelin.' Indeed that gives just a flavour of the feel for the family history you get from the hundreds and hundreds of bits and pieces and objets d'art, furniture and paintings, collected and retained by the family over several hundred years. So many that you get the feeling that the family can't keep on top of them all. I must find out lots more about this remarkable house and family. See Browsholme Hall for just a start. The gardens were a delight in themselves, a series of different areas, which added up to a splendid whole.......and we didn't even see the lake. Lastly, just to say the tea room was a superb example of its kind.......the cakes home-made and delicious. We will return.
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Keith & Frances SmithArchives
August 2023
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