For Roys birthday Emily had brought us a ticket to visit Mapledurham estate, just outside Reading. A country manor house and watermill, with a cream tea included. After checking the weather reports we booked in for yesterday afternoon.
But upon hitting the motorway the heavens opened.
Although just 6 miles down the road it was blue skies and warmth.
The house on the outside is beautiful but no photographs are allowed on the inside. I was expecting beautiful rooms full of beautiful things, but everything was a bit tired and tatty. It wasn't shabby chic, it just had an out of date 70s feel about it. There were lovely oak panelled doors and walls that had been painted dark brown and to me it just felt a little bit sad when it could be stunning.
The plants either side of the front entrance were magnolias and the flowers were bigger than dinner plates.
The grounds were nice and looked all the way to Reading in the distance.
A huge cedar tree took pride of place
They had a walled vegetable garden for viewing. I thought we would enter the gate and see a well kept garden brimming with veg, but no it was just a few cabbages and grass.
We had our cream tea in the sunshine and went to see the watermill which is currently out of action due to renovation and alteration, but the inside was lovely.
We made a quick visit to the little church on the way out.
A lovely afternoon out and it made such a change from a normal Sunday. Would I recommend it, probably if you had a special offer voucher as we did, but maybe not if paying the full entrance price. But then these observations are just mine, other visitors didn't seem to have the same reaction as me and thought it was wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment