Hallooooooo!!
Day 2 of my 7 day road trip. As predicted I fell asleep last night around 9.15pm, although with the lights on and didn't wake up until 7am today. One good night sleep: check. Then, the day started slowly, though with a beautiful sunset, a delicious breakfast and a quick viewing of a few scenes of Pride and Prejudice (1995).
I found my dream house in Teigh!At 9.15 am I finally left the vicinity and made my way to Teigh, about 20min drive from Oakham where I stayed. In Teigh, I ended up finding my dream house, although I wouldn't mind for the windows to be a bit bigger.
But, that wasn't the main reason I went to Teigh, to go house hunting. No, the main reason why I wanted to go to Teigh was because the old rectory of Mr Collins is situated in that tiny village (if you can even call it a village). Not the 2005 rectory, that one I went to see yesterday, no today was the 1995 rectory.
As it is a private residence (read, someone lives in mr Collins' rectory AND has shelves in their closet) I couldn't go crazy on the pictures and recreate film locations as I normally would, but I've got a shot anyway.Teigh itself is truelly photo genetic and somehow I ended up having a chat with Maurice, an elderly man who happened to live in my dream house. He was just starting his daily tour around town when we got chatting x)
I somehow spent 4hours at Belton House and it wasn't even enough!
From Teigh it was another 15min until I reached Belton House aka Rosings Park of the BBC series Pride and Prejudice. Today appeared to have been a 1995 P&P day.
I parked my car around 11.30am. By the time I got my ticket and made my way to the gardens it was already 11.45am. And from then time flew by. Before I knew it was 4pm and time to go. In those 4 hours I walked around the gardens, took film locations pictures, did the basement tours which was about an hour and 15minutes, took some more pictures, had my late lunch at the National Trust cafe (my usual: a sandwich and a cream tea) and took some more pictures.
For anyone who isn't familiar with Belton House, here's brief recap: built early 17th Century, aristocracy lived up stairs and the servants down stairs, used in the BBC adaption of Pride and Prejudice 1995. That is all I got from the basement tour I did today. The guide was most peculiar and not a lot of information was given about the house or family that used to live here. Or maybe the guide did tell us about the history, but I completely missed it as it wasn't really simple to follow her. Oh, and there are 64 windows.
Upon my arrival at the starting point of the basement tour, I got handed an entrance ticket by another National Trust employee and he asked if I had any knowledge about the house. I admitted that I didn't and that my main motivation was the Pride and Prejudice series and upon hearing that, the guy promptly opened a door leading from the hall way and showed me the staircase Darcy runs up after his failed proposal to Lizzy. And he also showed me Darcy's room with the impressive bed and desk where Darcy writes his letter to Lizzy. Unfortunately it was all dark in there, but I did get to see the silhouette of the bed and desk. It is the small things, hein. Will probably return at some point in the future to see the room by day :) As the main rooms of the house are closed during winter for maintenance so only the basements were open to the public, so this was pretty cool.
The final room of the basement tour was the dining room of the family up stairs and then went asked by my guide why I wanted to visit Belton, I again admitted that I was there for the film locations, upon the guide informed me that dining room was in fact lady Catherine's living room! Little geek moment. After the tour I asked if I could go back to take pictures, which I was able to, but the guide lingered around, so it was awkward the get in my usual picture taking frenzy. At least I did get two pictures of the room x)
And right before I went to my next hotel and on my way to my next hotel, I took a photo of some deer grazing to their heart's content and a beautiful sunset.
I'm now in the Manchester area and trying to figure out what I'm going to do tomorrow. The most logical plan would be to visit Lyme Park as scheduled, but I've changed my mind about something. At the time of my booking I knew well enough that Lyme Park house isn't open on Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday. At the time I didn't mind not visiting the house, but now I actually want to visit it. So this means a change in plans, but I'm now figuring out what is possible and what isn't... I've made it difficult for myself, yet again...
Anyway, I'm ending this post here today.
As always, thanks for reading!
xo Sara
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