October 2003
Boscobel House
We visited Boscobel House in Staffordshire with our first guests of the autumnal season, Agnes and Robert Kardos. A former Jesuit safe house, Boscobel House and the "Royal Oak" afforded Charles II refuge during the Civil War.
Shugborough
On our way to Boscobel House we stopped at the ancestral home of the Earls of Lichfield (today home to Thomas Patrick Anson, Fifth Earl of Lichfield, the world-famous photographer and second cousin to the Queen). Shugborough Mansion House dates from 1693 but regrettably we found it already closed for the year. Still, we managed to snap a photo (upper left). We'll have to wait until next year for a proper visit.
Revisit to Wales
We accompanied our second set of visitors, Bruce Campbell and Veronique Monet, to two Welsh estates we'd visited in the past, Erddig and Powis. The contrast between the two homes, one belonging (still) to the nobility (Powis), the other (in the past) to a prominent landowner (Erddig), proved enlightening.
The magnificent gardens at Powis were as beautiful in autumn as in spring, as the photo at left attests.