Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
We were going to Leighton Hall near Silverdale , so were looking forward to stopping off at Lancaster castle and its excellent cafe. Worth a visit on its own. We did enquire about the free tours, but these have to be booked in advance, so another time...... We were able to view all the buildings externally from the Shire Hall - Joseph Gandy’s ten-sided masterpiece to the Norman keep. 'The Keep (also known as the Lungess Tower) is a four-storey tower, 20 metres high and with a shallow buttress at each corner and halfway along each side. Its outer walls are about 3 metres thick, and it is divided internally by a central wall into two rooms on each floor. The upper storey of the Keep was rebuilt in the reign of Elizabeth I in 1585.' It only stopped being used as a Prison in 2012. However the Crown Court, 'the oldest continually sitting Crown Court in the country', continues. A fascinating building. And not the least impressive aspects of the castle is its setting - surrounded as it is by a marvellous streetscape. Next on to Leighton Hall. We arrived early, explored the beautiful gardens, and had tea and cake on the lawn. How nice! It is described in Peter Fleetwood-Hesketh’s Murray’s Lancashire Architectural Guide as ‘a picture of magic beauty, with the distant fairyland of Furness beyond’. If you subscribe to the free newsletter of Country Life you will be able to access a superb overview of the house and its families.....'The whole scene is the very quintessence of English Picturesque taste, with the early-19th-century castellated façade, built of finely dressed white limestone, looking like an opera set against the sublime landscape backdrop. When the sun shines and the white stone gleams, it seems a barely credible vision. This remarkable house has been the seat of the Gillow family, descended from the famous furniture manufacturers, since 1824.' Suzie, widow of the late Richard Gillow Reynolds showed us into the Music Room to wait for our tour as we were a little early, a personal touch reflecting the whole ethos of the house. An earlier email had been answered immediately by daughter Lucy. A typically good article on the house is in Country Life which you can access by signing up to their free newsletter. I wasn't expecting to be both amused and impressed by the wild bird display (put on for free), but I certainly was. It was great from the lovely Barn Owl to the Harris Falcon. The keeper utterly wowed by getting the birds to fly onto the balcony where we were standing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Keith & Frances SmithArchives
August 2023
Categories |