This October, I visited Shugborough Estate, which is located in Staffordshire and managed by the National Trust. This was my first visit to the estate, and there is a lot to see here. Visitors can view the house, which includes open state rooms, the rooms used by servants to run the house, and the apartments of photographer Lord Lichfield until 2005. There is a photographic exhibit in the apartment rooms. The estate also contains grounds to walk, a walled garden, water mill, arboretum, and farm. With the amount of things to see and do, I think many could spend at least half a day here.
The walled garden is set away from the house, so it was what I went to see first. It contains the kitchen garden as well as a garden of flowers. This was the end of the season and harvest time, so the flowers were late summer and autumn ones. Squash and pumpkins were growing in the garden.
A lot of pumpkins, gourds, and squash were on display in the walled garden.
Dahlias were in bloom, and I photographed a few of them. I love them.
I passed the working buildings with clear water. I enjoyed seeing the parkland with cattle grazing and the autumn colours.
After the walled garden, I walked to the house and past the farm. The "Tower of the Winds" is on the other side of the farm from the house, and it is a folly. Follies, of which there are a few at Shugborough, and bridges serve a purpose to create a pleasant parkland.
Finally, I got to the house and saw the servant's area first. This separate part of the house can be visited to see where the servants lived and worked and their daily insight or activities into their lives.
This was the servant's dining area with table and some homely furnishings. Off to the side were other rooms, including a collection of the family's silver on display.
The laundry would have been hard work, and I saw that next.
Next up were the kitchens and pantries.
After the visit to the servant's quarters, I went into the house.
The first room to see was the Drawing Room, which contains paintings and beautiful ceiling pasterwork and artwork. This room was the first entered and designed to impress. A lot of inspiration of the room is from Egyptian and Greek style.
The green room had two rooms leading off of it.
The Red Drawing Room includes original furniture for the room and dates to the end of the 1700s.
The next room which led off the above green room included information about the brothers who lived in the house, and there is a lot of information about their travels across the world and items in their collection.
The next room is the library.
The last room marks the start of information about photographer Lord Lichfield and his apartments on the first floor. He was the last to live in the house and paid the National Trust a small rent for the apartments. He passed in 2005, but the apartments contain his living quarters and are now set up as an exhibition of his work. In many of the rooms, we see the subjects in his apartment settings, such as Princess Diana. Unfortunately, photographs of his apartments were forbidden due to copyright reasons. He is famous for taking photographs of Diana and Prince Charles' wedding, and he also took a lot of photographs of celebrities and royals through the 1960s.
After the visit to the house, I went outside and had a quick walk around the estate to see the views and get some photographs.
I came across this bridge across the river.
The Chinese house, pictured below, is one of the follies created on the parkland to make it pleasurable. This was one of the first buildings influenced by China in the country.
This Doric temple was another interesting folly in the parkland near the house.
At the back of the house is a fountain and the river.
After the visit to the grounds, I had a quick look around the farm. There were som farm animals there, and I could also look through the different rooms in the barns and farm buildings, such as the mill. There is a lot to see, read, and interact with at the farm.
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