A Beautiful Spring Day At Charlecote Park
If you’ve been a reader of my blog for a while, you’d know that I’m starting to get out a bit more. I ended up spending a beautiful spring day at Charlecote Park. I took lots of pictures, so a heads up!
A Little History
Charlecote Park is a stunning estate. This treasure in the Warwickshire countryside has been welcoming people for decades under The National Trust.
Held by the Lucy family since the 12th Century, the estate has seen many changes through the Tudor, Elizabethan and Victorian eras. The Lucy’s were a well-known family of wealthy country gentry. Meaning, we know they were a well-educated, politically astute family. With over 900 years of history, the Lucy family have a very interesting history. I’d highly recommend you to read more about them.
The estate even has links to William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I.
Within the first two decades of the new building, Queen Elizabeth I, en route to Kenilworth Castle, stayed at Charlecote Park for two days. Only a few short years after her stay, a young William Shakespeare was caught poaching on the estate. From this supposed encounter, many think Shakespeare’s character, Justice Shallow from Henry IV Part II and The Merry Wives of Windsor, was based on Sir Thomas Lucy.
The House
The current house at Charlecote Park was completed in 1558 for Thomas Lucy I and his bride, Joyce Acton. A marital union occurred when Thomas was 14 and Joyce was only 12. Over the years, descendants of the Lucy family made changes to the house. But it was George Lucy and Mary Elizabeth Williams who made the vast restorations and changes that you see now. Like the gatehouse. Giving it its “Elizabethan splendour”.
When you visit the house you’ll find so many grand rooms, from the library (a personal favourite) to the dining room and billiard room. Unfortunately, the upstairs was closed when I visited, but it gives me every reason to go back.
The Great Hall & Library
When you enter the house, the Great Hall is the first room you walk into. I was stunned. Decorated with so many portraits of the family, I had to take the video above. As you go through the house, past the Dining Room, you come to the Library.
I’ve always loved libraries in old houses. It gives me that feeling of home in the house.
I said in a previous post when I visited Baddesley Clinton. If we were able to access these books without damaging them, the information we could learn about the estate, about families from the area, about local writers… could be amazing.
The Outbuildings & The Victorian Kitchen
In the outbuildings, you’ll come across the Victorian kitchen and scullery, the brewhouse, the original laundry room and the carriages. Although, before I saw the sign, I thought the brewery may have been a communal bathhouse of some sort!
Seeing the carriages made me feel like I was on the set of Pride and Prejudice. I haven’t ever seen one in person before. It wasn’t hard to imagine that, amongst wealthy families, you had to pick your staff well. I can’t imagine what those workers have heard over the years!
The Victorian Scullery and Kitchen is one of the last stops before you walk around the grounds. The entrance faces the service courtyard and gives that upstairs-downstairs feeling to how everyone who lived on the estate had their place. It is said this Victorian kitchen at Charlecote Park is one of the best surviving.
The Grounds
With deer and sheep roaming the grounds, it isn’t difficult to fall in love with the view.
Already itching to go back, I would love to see how Charlecote Park sets up for festivities like Halloween and Christmas. I would very strongly recommend a visit to this gorgeous estate. With the weather turning out lovely for the UK this spring, I’d take a picnic!
As always, thanks for reading…