The Last of the Cotswolds

We've been getting great use out of our National Trust membership (American visitor version).  Here's a round up of some other places that we've visited:

Lodge Park was built as the "play house" for the Lord of the nearby manor.  He was disabled in some way, probably a case of scoliosis, and was not able to be athletic, so he indulged himself in gambling instead.  This lodge was set about a mile and a half from his home (still well within his property as he owned everything for many miles around) and was not used as a guest house, but merely as a place to go for fun.  

The owner had a one mile long field built in which a deer was chased by two greyhounds.  He and his friends would bet on which dog would bag the deer and watch the chase from the balcony.  After a 40 mile-an-hour chase through the field, the deer was given the advantage of jumping a water trap that the dogs could not breach, and therefore, escape to be chased another time.

In later years, the Lodge was broken up into apartments and rented out, most likely with the tenants never realizing what the place was built for.

And, finally, my least favorite, Chastleton House.  The thing about this house is that all of the owners, from the first who built it to the last elderly widow, never modernized it. It looks like fairly standard, land-owner built and occupied housing, appropriate for the family's station in life.  

It seems on the exterior to be in about the same shape as lots of other houses that we have visited, although it did have one interesting exterior feature:  no grand entrance.  The front door is actually on the left hand side of the center entry way.  It is unusually unprepossessing.  It's where those people are about to enter.

On the side opposite to the doorway -- the other tower type protrusion -- is the church which is built right into the house. More likely, the church was built first and then the house was built around it and incorporating it.  Often the village church shares a wall with the manor house or its perimeter wall, but this was completely encompassed in the house.

The house was built between 1607 and 1612 and has had very, very little in alterations since then.  The family became impoverished as a result of being on the wrong side during the English Civil War and never (after all these centuries) regained their financial security.  There must have been a good deal of old fashioned mismanagement of the family business as well, because 400 years seems long enough to recover.

As a nod to modernity, there is plumbing and electricity. Beyond that, each successive generation obviously brought in some "new" furniture and their own personal things, but as a whole it remains a testament to time. 

This screen which separates the front entry from the reception room is original to the first owner.  The house is full of Jacobean furniture -- long tables, large chairs, and tapestries. 

The owners and their wives are pictured on the walls.  This house could be used as a movie set with all of its authentic armor, weapons, paintings, furniture and wall hangings.  Some rooms still have the candle lights, never updated.  In the photos, the house looks like a well-maintained period piece.

So, with all of this authenticity, why did I dislike it so much?  Because it was a case of total neglect, not even gentle neglect or benign neglect.  There was nothing benign about the neglect of the succession of homeowners to not have the sagging wallpaper repaired or replaced, the worn chairs reupholstered, the centuries of dust and dirt cleaned, the broken things repaired or removed.  I could just imagine the Lord and Lady of the house pretending to be so grand and living in such a dump.  

I thought that the condition of this house was just disgraceful.  What's more the National Trust made the decision to keep the house as is and only do the work necessary to prevent total ruin; i.e., fix the roof.

Homeostasis.  I'm not a big fan.