Saturday, June 19, 2010

Saturday 19th June 2010: Nunnington Hall

The weather was windy and wet during the night and remained that way until we were well inland on our way to Nunnington Hall, where there was a least a brief sunny spell
This is the reception area and as you can see the previous owners of the place had the typical cruel streak and lack of respect for nature that so called aristocrats seem to regard as normal.
How anyone could take pleasure in killing such lovely animals is beyond my powers of comprehension.

There are some lovely rooms in this house, though they are heavily updated from the original 1650 model, as one can expect when the house is in continuous occupation for hundreds of years
Outside in the garden is this "Wishing tree" where supplicants tie a ribbon on one of the branches and make a wish, the last one we came across was in Paphos, Cyprus.
Here in close up you can see this has been a popular thing to do, wonder if any of the wishes ever came true?
The gardens here are interesting at any time of the year, just look at the size of this poppy!
Much bigger than my hand.

I took this close up of the marvellously intricate centre of the flower, absolutely amazing!
Pat goes for the roses and she really liked this all white specimen growing as a climber up the stone garden wall
Peacocks stroll around as if they own the place (perhaps they really do?)
Here is another of the roses that caught Pat's eye, once again this was one of the climbing varieties.
And look at the delicacy of this pink one, plus it had a delightful perfume
I almost forget there was a couple of Elwell paintings in the restaurant, this one is of the Beverley Arms kitchen, we had seen it before in an exhibition at the Ferens art gallery in Hull
Near the exit there were plants and other items for the garden, Pat found these ornamental dragonflies worth a picture.Considering the bad weather today we had a good time at Nunnington Hall it was a good choice for our last day in Whitby.

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