Blickling Hall

Today Dawn and I went on a U3A Bury St. Edmunds trip to Blickling Hall in Norfolk.

This was the description provided when booking.

"Blickling Estate

Built on the foundations of the Tudor manor house supposed to be the birthplace of Anne Boleyn, the imposing Jacobean Blickling Hall was constructed by Sir Henry Hobart after a lucrative career as a London lawyer.

Passed down through the Hobart and Kerr families over 4 centuries, it contains many family portraits including works by Gainsborough and Reynolds and watercolours by Humphry Repton.  The hall is also richly furnished with a fine collection of tapestries.

It is the home of the National Trust’s largest and most magnificent library, the core of which was assembled by Sir Richard Ellys, a cousin of the Hobarts.  The interior features spectacular 17th century plasterwork by Edward Stanyon including the remarkable Long Gallery which is 123 feet in length.

The garden covers 55 acres and contains formal and informal gardens the result of three centuries of inspired planting."

We had a lovely day of it and arrived shortly after 11am, giving us nearly 3 hours to explore.

Here are a few of my photos.

Our view on arriving.

There was an art exhibition of works by local artists in The Loft, which we visited first.

My favourite was this landscape by Paul Burnham.

We decided to leave visiting the house until later and explored the grounds first.

The formal gardens.

The temple.

At the south-eastern cirner of the grounds we got a view of Aylsham church.

The orangery.

It wasn't open but we could look through the windows.

They had a croquet set on the lawn, but it was laid out a little oddly.

The lake. We didn't have time to do the Lake Walk, unfortunately.

They had some dramatic enactments on the hour. We passed this one in progress..

...and carried on to the walled garden. We loved all the squashes....

...and dahlias...

...and sunbflowers.

Time to tour the house. It is well worth visiting.

We picnicked in the sun.

Then visited the bookshop, where I got some piano music for Sarah.

It was quite hot so we decide to drop into the Buckingham Arms.

We had a beer in The Snug.

It was soon time to go.

Lovely! You can read more about the estate here. We re-joined the coach at 1pm and were transported the short distance to Aylsham station for the second part of our day out... a ride on the Bure Valley Railway. Read all about that here.

You can find more of my photos of Blickling here on Flickr.