Lord Wraxall's dog house

Before heading back north I spent the morning at Tyntesfield House, a Gothic pile that was home to the Gibbs family for 4 generations but now in the care of the National Trust. The Gibbs family built their fortune on the trade of guano, a fertiliser made from South American sea bird droppings. (Where there's muck there's brass, as they say in my native Yorkshire). William Gibbs' monopoly on this trade turned him from a successful merchant into a very wealthy man.

I was particularly struck by the Gothic iron dog house in the servants' yard which probably dates to the time of George Abraham Gibbs, the First Lord Wraxall.