Montacute House, Somerset

We went off to Dorset for a short holiday today staying in a Bed and Breakfast in Dorchester for two nights.  Helena has a week off as it is the school half term holiday, so she wanted to make the best use of it.  We set off in the morning under a grey sky but with no rain forecast.

It took about two and half hours to drive slowly via Bath down to Somerset for our visit to the National Trust property called Montacute House, near Yeovil.  It has come into the public eye recently as the building was used for some of the locations in the BBC's new drama called Wolf Hall, based on the highly regarded Hilary Mantel novels set in the era of Henry VIII.  We saw the first episode but I have missed the next few because of evening meetings, so I have some catching up to do.

The house is normally closed at this time of the year, but today it was briefly being opened to the public and we joined a guided tour of the house, set in a large estate of mostly parkland.  Our guide was a bit annoying but I still listened and learnt a bit. The house is kept deliberately dark to inhibit the damage of sunlight on the furniture, paintings and fabrics.

When we finished the tour we were happy to find the sun had broken through and the approaching evening light looked wonderful on the rich red coloured stonework of the house's exterior.  My picture doesn't really do justice to the wonderful light but it will remind us to go back there in summer to see the house when it is fully open and when we can explore more of the parkland as well.