Our National Trust Adventures :: Part 2

Hello Lovelies, 

I'm happy to report I finally managed to talk my boys into a second visit to a National Trust property yesterday. This time we headed for Belton House..............

It's an extremely popular spot, with a huge car park. On a sunny bank holiday weekend  it was busy but very efficiently organised to avoid queues at the entrance.
It's actually a property that we had visited before, but since that was twelve years ago our memories of that visit were rather hazy.

Yesterday the gorgeous yellow stone glowed in the sunshine...........

We headed around the back of the house and through some formal gardens............

and soon we came a cross a maze, just my sort of maze, one you can see over the top of :0)

In the centre was this gorgeous willow sculpture of a Greyhound...........

None of the places we had seen so far seemed at all familiar to me, but there was a spot that had made a big impact on our first visit and I was very keen to find it again.

We wandered the grounds and I was so happy to see large areas of uncut grass filled with wild flowers............

under the trees little streams meandered...........

We climbed up a hill and around a bend we found the place I had been looking for...........

A lovely lake with a very special boathouse that was actually just a ruin the last time we were here.......eeek, it looked wonderful now.........

Instead of heading straight over for a closer look we decided to walk around the lake and save it for a treat at the end. You can just glimpse it across the water here..............

The footpaths were pretty muddy here after all our rain and some moaning about flies and smells might have been heard from my youngest in particular..........but I wasn't listening..........I was too happy to be in such a wonderful spot on a sunny day at the most beautiful time of year.............

Through a gap in the trees I spotted the beautiful park lands and a folly called Belmont Tower in the distance. I recognised it straight away as the setting for THIS wonderful painting by a favourite artist of mine..........

Presently we found THE perfect picnic bench with a wonderful view across the water..........

We enjoyed a drink and some cake and I tried to absorb as much as I could about this perfect spot......but all the time my eyes were drawn to that cute little building..........

Isn't it wonderful. 

Presently I had to go and have a closer look.

Inside were photo's of how it looked before restoration......look, those are the steps the people are sat on in the photo above..............

I did think the inside may have been a little more staged....something the National Trust are excellent at, but it was still nice to wander around the empty room noticing the lovely details like these beautiful windows.........

And on the balcony there was some artwork............

Here's a close up of the basket-weave plasterwork on the walls...........

The chimney and the "fish scale" tiles on the roof...........

There's some more information about it's restoration HERE

As the information board said....it does remain a wonderful spot to take a stroll and enjoy the tranquillity of the lake......especially in late spring when beautiful yellow Irises line the banks........

I would guess that the lake is about half a mile or so from the house it's self, so it was a pleasant wander back to the formal gardens behind the house...........

Here there's another building that I remembered from our first visit with two toddlers........The Orangery....

It's a beautiful and imposing structure.....shall we go inside............

Just at the side of the entrance is this lovely fish pond lined with Geranium..........

There are loads of huge tropical plants reaching up to the glass roof...........

And even a few oranges...........

For me the little touches like a Stunning red  Amaryllis  placed in a wall recess were a true delight..........

One thing I need to mention about this property is the lengths the National Trust have gone to to make it a family friendly visit.
There is a large adventure playground and yesterday there were loads of lawn games ( like croquet and giant Jenga) set out that were free to use.
Here in the Orangery there was an abundance of wonderful art materials you could take to any spot that inspired you and use..........

I wonder if any of you lovelies know what this pretty climbing plant is.........it's tiny yellow flowers had a beautiful ( and strong) scent that reminded me of old fashioned perfumed soap ( the boys said it smelt of hand cream )........

The view of the Italian garden from the open doors of the Orangery was gorgeous...........

The walled garden behind the Orangery was awash with climbing Roses............

And I loved the glimpse of the pretty church from this spot............

The fountain in the Italian garden was not working yesterday , but I recognised it straight away from another painting of Haidee-Jo's HERE

The water was VERY green and I think I prefer this cloudier view with the reflected buildings and sky.........

More pops of colour against old stonework.......beautiful...........

We wandered through this courtyard looking for the toilets............

There was a big queue at the Ladies ( surprise surprise ) so I decided to wait here for my boys and I could almost imagine I was in some old Mediterranean town.............

How I loved the dappled shade on old cobbles here...........

Now we were heading back to the main house, through this lovely archway...........

On the lawn in front of the house a game of Cricket was being played and Middle son decided he would like to sit on the sunny stone steps and watch the match rather than going inside............

My only memory of the inside of Belton house from our first visit was that it was dark........and it was, particularly on the ground floor.........

The pretty and creative way visitors are discouraged from sitting on the antique chairs made me chuckle.......

On the first floor I loved the view down to the chequered marble floor.........

And this beautiful painting of a beautiful lady caught Hubby's eye.........

We were following youngest as he had been given a map of the rooms, he loved announcing which room we were coming to next.....his is the pretty Boudoir......with it's concealed door.........

And stunning painted ceiling..........

From here you could see the scale of the grounds......that Cricket match looks tiny and the grand avenue of trees stretches as far as the eye can see..........

This bedroom looked cheery and welcoming ............

Next door in the "modern" bathroom I loved the Harrods weighing scales........

And the" British Tiger" toilet roll in another bathroom..........

The wall-paper in the Chinese bedroom was stunning...........

Back in the ground floor we were once again in the gloomy darkness. This opulent room had no windows at all and smelt musty.....we quickly moved on......

I do love the way the rooms are staged so you can see what they would have been like in their hey day.........

Apparently you have to take a tour to see the basements.....something I loved at Sudbury.

Just before we went outside again I noticed this painting of the cascade in the grounds and wondered what had happened to it..........

There's info on this painting HERE

Then look what we came across.........it's barely visible because of the greenery (and the scale is much smaller than the painting implies ) but it's definitely the same construction..........

you might like to click on the photo to see it more clearly.

Well done if you got to the end of this super long post. It's so nice to be able to record and share this visit in a way that was impossible twelve years ago.

We had a lovely second visit to this gorgeous place and even youngest conceded it was "all right" 

Jacquie x