Tapestries

This morning we went along to Levens Hall, and as I thought, it has closed till next spring.  It wasn't possible to even glimpse the famous topiary gardens - I think to do that you'd have to be on top of a double decker bus, and I've not seen any round here.  

So we drove the few miles over to Sizergh Castle for our fix of ancient monuments.  It is charming, not particularly grand.  The sort of place where you get the feeling that they never threw anything away. Though they did have a bit of a Grand Designs thing going on - successive generations adding a wing here and a tower there. The National Trust have it in hand now, but the family still live in one of the wings. Don't go visiting this weekend, it's closed, as one of the boys is having a Big Birthday party. Imagine that, with the eyes of your ancestors gazing down from the walls. 

There's the usual array of furniture, pictures, porcelain, etc that you see in such places. Also some enormous tapestries depicting the story of Antony and Cleopatra. These are very faded and the NT are having a raffle to try and raise the cash to restore them.  We bought some tickets.

The best tapestries were outside. There's a very lovely sunken rock garden, and it was ablaze with colour in the sunshine today. And we met a very friendly black cat who let us share his bench while we enjoyed it.