Country House

The first pensioners club outing of the year today. I suppose I should say “retired staff club” as many of us do not qualify for a state pension for a few more years yet - though we do get a pension in one form or another courtesy of Barclays.
Anyway, whatever you call it, they do organise some great days out, all subsidised for members. Todays trip was to Browsholme Hall, which is in the Trough of Bowland, just north of Clitheroe. It was a lovely day - check out the blueness of the sky in the photo - and we had a very pleasant drive through some spectacular countryside to get there. Sat Nav kept trying to take us in the wrong direction, but I knew roughly where we were going so just ignored it until it finally woke up and suddenly leapt from “arrival 11.05, distance 33 miles” to “arrival 10.41, distance 16 miles” in the space of 100 yards or so!
We were a large party so we had the place to ourselves. Split into two groups, ours had lunch first, followed by the tour of the house. The lunch was pretty decent and we then had the guided tour. There has been a house here since the 15th century, though the present building is much modified from the original, with several extra wings and extensions added over the years. The estate is owned by the Parker family and was hung with many pictures of their ancestors. The current owner inherited from an older cousin who had been great at collecting things, but not so hot on maintaining the building. Tours and weddings now provide income and the house has been brought up to a reasonably good condition.
The Parkers never aspired to public office and nor have they achieved excellence in any particular field. As such, Browsholme is what you might call a quintessentially English example of a country house. Slightly faded around the edges but with loads of history and absolutely stuffed with fascinating objects - in just the entrance hall alone we had furniture “rescued” from the dissolution of nearby monasteries, a collection of Boer War rifles, a Civil War jacket and part of a Zeppelin shot down in 1916 and brought to the hall on the basis that the metal it contained “might come in useful”.