Dyrham Park

Thursday
Today, Janet, Roger and I went to Dyrham Park, a National Trust property near Bath. The current house was built in stages during the 17th and early 18th centuries for William Blathwayt, who was Secretary of war to William III, on the site of a previous manor house. It contains art works and furniture from around the world, in particular a collection of Dutch Masters and Delftware. The house is linked to the 13th-century church of St Peter, where many of the Blathwayt family are buried, and is surrounded by formal gardens and parkland which supports a herd of fallow deer, though unfortunately they weren’t very much in evidence today. It was also one of the filming locations for the 1993 film Remains of the Day. It is a fair walk from the car park down the hill to the house - there is a minibus that goes back and forth, but we chose to walk it, as it was a lovely sunny day, though with quite a strong wind. The road winds down between a beautiful avenue of ancient lime trees, and offers beautiful views in the distance. We looked at the different tours available, and decided to take one that talks about the former water features of the park which started at 1pm, so with that in mind, we went for a look around the formal gardens before having some lunch at their cafe. The tour, whilst interesting, turned out to be more extensive and detailed than we had envisaged, and a bit long for Janet. When we returned, we treated ourselves to tea and cake, then Roger and I explored the house, leaving Janet to sit and rest in the sunshine. In the evening, after dinner, Janet was taking Wispa to Agility training, so we went along to watch. They regularly enter competitions, and Wispa has a fine collection of rosettes on the wall in their living room. By the time we returned from that, and had done the washing up and had a drink, we were all ready for bed.