Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
A day out in Cheshire. Lunch first at The Roebuck Mobberley. I had read good reports and it proved very good food and very good prices, a combination that is not always easy to find. The thing that struck us most was how quiet and entirely rural it was. mobberley is quite a large village, but this could have been in the middle of the Auvergne. Our first glance of Peover Hall was at the end of a very long drive. We were booked on a tour and as usual there were no photos allowed inside. Before I got that message I just managed to get a pic of the Runnymede buffet made in Jersey for the Great Exhibition. Tremendous detail and very impressive. After the usual war use by the Americans the house was in a very sorry state. Randle Brooks the son of a wealthy Manchester entrepeneur got permission in the 60's to knock down the Georgian wing ( in fact the main part of the house ) and restore the original Tudor brick house. Nearly all contents had been sold off in a previous ownership. Brooks started buying back what he could and also bought from auction houses and salvage merchants what was appropriate to the period. What a brilliant job he did. A good use of commercial monies if ever there was one. The tour was a little bitty and twice as long as scheduled (tours had only just resumed) but was nevertheless informative and enjoyable. Afterwards we had a quick look at the amazing stables a gift from one of the original owners in 1654 to her son - 13 cobbled stalls in a finely decorated building with a fine plaster ceiling and much else. Lucky boy! After a nice cup of tea and slice of victoria sponge, we then looked around the extensive gardens..... .........basically a series of 'rooms' with a white palette prominent.... and lots of good topiary work....... In the wilder part of the gardens I did like this jumble of azaleas, one growing through another in a most unusual way. There was a crooked man who walked a crooked mile....he must have ended up at a crooked door like this! The next day we had a lunch booked at La Locanda, a family Italian restaurant in the nearby village of Gisburn. It proved a genuine Italian treat.
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August 2023
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