easter
I've spent the last week visiting friends and relatives in the south east. I spent three days with my cousins in Guildford then went to Reading to spend easter with a uni friend and also see some relatives there.
The three days in Guidlford were great. Elizabeth took me to some museums and so i got to see a little more of the area. The first day we went to the Weald and Downland open air museum which is a collection of buildings from around the area that show the changes in style and technological development over the centuries. They had quite an interesting collection of buildings, but there was very little interpretation. You either had to buy the guidebook and stand around reading the dewscriptions of each building, or talk to the live interpreters. Not every building had live interpreters, and given that it was school holidays when we visited they were kept very busy trying to interest the children in some aspects of the different buildings. They had parts of the land set aside for farming, with rare breeds of sheep and pigs, some strip farming typical of the medieval period and then lots of grazing land for the horses. The sheep were Southdowns who have this very funny wooly face that looks almost like a teddy bear. It was an interesting museum and one that was obviously very popular with families, but some more info would have been helpful.
On the way back from the museum we stopped at Petworth House. The house as it stands now is late 17th, early 18th Century. The house is fairly typical of that period - a large rectangle with lots of windows. However the collection of art within the house is stunning. There is one room full of Grinley Gibbons carvings which are incredibly detailed, there are also several Turners of the house and grounds as well as so many other paintings. The gardens are 'Capability' Brown and have wonderful paths leading to rotundas and summer houses, they are lovely to walk through and when we were there they were carpeted in daffodils. It was really lovely, and again gardens that I would love to go back to and see in the early summer when there is more out.
On Thursday we went into London to see the Banqueting House, Somerset House and also to try and catch up with William and Charles. I had been told by a friend on the course that Banqueting house was worth seeing, and was not very well known and she was right. We fought through the tourists around the London Eye and Westminster Abbey and then walked into the Banqueting Hall to find less than 20 people in there. The house is still used for functions and dinners, so the museum aspects of it are reduced to a very informative audio wand. However the two main draw points are the ceiling paintings and the fact that it was here that Charles I was exectuted. The ceiling paintings are done by Rubens and were commissioned by Charles I. They survived the dispertion of his collection after his exectution because they were too difficult to remove, but possibly also because Cromwell liked to hold his official functions in the Banqueting House. the history of the place is quite amazing, they have even identified the window that was most likely to be the one Charles stepped out of onto the scaffold to be executed. While it isn't a museum that i would go back to again and again I'm really glad i've been. It was really interesting and the audio guide was fantastic.
The afternoon was spent wandering around the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House and meeting William and Charles. The hermitage rooms have changing displays but they are always from the Hermitage, and seeing the display made me want to see the Hermitage even more. We didn't get into the Courtauld galleries at all, so I will have to go back and see them. All up it was a really nice day in London, and i got to see some places that I mightn't otherwise have seen.
Good Friday was a pretty quiet day, I went to church in the morning then after lunch caught the train to Reading to spend the rest of easter with a friend from Uni. Part of the reason for going to reading was the fact that there was a European Club Hockey championship being played there, but also because I wanted to catch up with Helen. We saw the hockey on the Saturday and Monday, and spent Sunday doing Easter family things. The hockey was brilliant, there were quite a few Australians either playing or coaching and I got to chat to Jamie Dwyer which was nice. His club won the tournament and I won a free meal from Helen as we decided to make the final more interesting by betting on it. Reading were never going to win, not against Jamie Dwyer and Luke Doerner - I'm not at all biased in that statement.
Tuesday I spent with some other relatives in Reading. It was great to catch up with them again. I can't believe that i have been here for over 6 months and this is the first time I've seen some of my relatives. However it was fabulous to catch up with them and I've had a wonderful week. I'm now back in Leicester for just over a week and have to get working on my essay. I've got a museums conference next week and I'm organising a small anzac day ceremony, so I'll post again after that.
The three days in Guidlford were great. Elizabeth took me to some museums and so i got to see a little more of the area. The first day we went to the Weald and Downland open air museum which is a collection of buildings from around the area that show the changes in style and technological development over the centuries. They had quite an interesting collection of buildings, but there was very little interpretation. You either had to buy the guidebook and stand around reading the dewscriptions of each building, or talk to the live interpreters. Not every building had live interpreters, and given that it was school holidays when we visited they were kept very busy trying to interest the children in some aspects of the different buildings. They had parts of the land set aside for farming, with rare breeds of sheep and pigs, some strip farming typical of the medieval period and then lots of grazing land for the horses. The sheep were Southdowns who have this very funny wooly face that looks almost like a teddy bear. It was an interesting museum and one that was obviously very popular with families, but some more info would have been helpful.
On the way back from the museum we stopped at Petworth House. The house as it stands now is late 17th, early 18th Century. The house is fairly typical of that period - a large rectangle with lots of windows. However the collection of art within the house is stunning. There is one room full of Grinley Gibbons carvings which are incredibly detailed, there are also several Turners of the house and grounds as well as so many other paintings. The gardens are 'Capability' Brown and have wonderful paths leading to rotundas and summer houses, they are lovely to walk through and when we were there they were carpeted in daffodils. It was really lovely, and again gardens that I would love to go back to and see in the early summer when there is more out.
On Thursday we went into London to see the Banqueting House, Somerset House and also to try and catch up with William and Charles. I had been told by a friend on the course that Banqueting house was worth seeing, and was not very well known and she was right. We fought through the tourists around the London Eye and Westminster Abbey and then walked into the Banqueting Hall to find less than 20 people in there. The house is still used for functions and dinners, so the museum aspects of it are reduced to a very informative audio wand. However the two main draw points are the ceiling paintings and the fact that it was here that Charles I was exectuted. The ceiling paintings are done by Rubens and were commissioned by Charles I. They survived the dispertion of his collection after his exectution because they were too difficult to remove, but possibly also because Cromwell liked to hold his official functions in the Banqueting House. the history of the place is quite amazing, they have even identified the window that was most likely to be the one Charles stepped out of onto the scaffold to be executed. While it isn't a museum that i would go back to again and again I'm really glad i've been. It was really interesting and the audio guide was fantastic.
The afternoon was spent wandering around the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House and meeting William and Charles. The hermitage rooms have changing displays but they are always from the Hermitage, and seeing the display made me want to see the Hermitage even more. We didn't get into the Courtauld galleries at all, so I will have to go back and see them. All up it was a really nice day in London, and i got to see some places that I mightn't otherwise have seen.
Good Friday was a pretty quiet day, I went to church in the morning then after lunch caught the train to Reading to spend the rest of easter with a friend from Uni. Part of the reason for going to reading was the fact that there was a European Club Hockey championship being played there, but also because I wanted to catch up with Helen. We saw the hockey on the Saturday and Monday, and spent Sunday doing Easter family things. The hockey was brilliant, there were quite a few Australians either playing or coaching and I got to chat to Jamie Dwyer which was nice. His club won the tournament and I won a free meal from Helen as we decided to make the final more interesting by betting on it. Reading were never going to win, not against Jamie Dwyer and Luke Doerner - I'm not at all biased in that statement.
Tuesday I spent with some other relatives in Reading. It was great to catch up with them again. I can't believe that i have been here for over 6 months and this is the first time I've seen some of my relatives. However it was fabulous to catch up with them and I've had a wonderful week. I'm now back in Leicester for just over a week and have to get working on my essay. I've got a museums conference next week and I'm organising a small anzac day ceremony, so I'll post again after that.
posted by bronwyn | 9:39 AM
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