The Weather Can’t Hold Us Brits Back
Sunday, November 11th, 2007
Despite the forecast being showery today, we decided to take the children out for a picnic. It’s the first time I’ve been able to leave mom all day without fretting (me fretting that is) for the last couple of weeks. (Update tomorrow.)
We took them to Witley Court as the boys had never been there. Although there is nothing for children to do in terms of playgrounds etc, we crossed our fingers hoping they would enjoy the ‘exploration’ and ‘investigation’, which they happily did by the bucket load.
It started to rain when we got there, so we sat in the car devouring our sandwiches waiting for it to slow down, which it did. The beauty of children is that they don’t care about rain and will quite happily run around getting soaked.
Even in the partly miserable gloom of the day the remains of the house were still beautiful and still made me well up. There is something about this house that really gets to me.
A fire in 1937 in the servants quarters was the cause of the building being in the state it is today. We were informed today that although the house was insured, the insurance company would not pay up anywhere near the amount needed to put it right. It seems (apparently) that this was all that was needed for the owner to abandon it as it was.
Looters got in and stole the lead of the roof and once water started to get in, that was that. Then in the 1950’s antique dealers were sent in to salvage what they could.
The English Heritage have started work on it, but it will be a slow and costly process.
However, a lovely event that happened today was a young couple getting engaged by the fountain. He’d phoned up a couple of days before to ask if the fountain could be put on for him to propose by as it was his girlfriends favourite place. The fountain is not usually put on for visitors after the end of the season, but they obliged for him.
There was champagne and roses and smiles all round. I did try to catch a sneak look at the ring (as you do) as she walked past, but congratulations to the both of them.
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