Harlaxton Manor

My annual trip to Harlaxton today to see the wonderfully named Gregory Gregory's beautiful house, now the British home of the University of Evansville, Indiana.

Gregory travelled extensively throughout Britain and Europe gathering ideas for his masterpiece and then mashed together Gothic, Jacobean and Baroque styles into one amazing whole.  You wander around wondering if any of it is real, so opulent, well preserved and downright unlikely it all is.

Poor Gregory envisaged a wife and a large family to enjoy his massive house with but unfortunately he died just six years after it was completed, still a batchelor.

I can only imagine that the overwhelmed students of Evansville believe that all Englishmen live in such bonkers Baroque splendour and must envy us until their dying days.