I was lucky last week to see inside the Guildhall in Harwich in north Essex. One of their rooms which is now an office used to be a cell for holding prisoners awaiting trial. The walls had been plastered over, but were stripped back a few years ago to reveal wooden boards covered in graffiti made by the prisoners. Ships were a popular artistic theme amongst those being held in the naval town, but there are also names and dates, and even a hangman.
This weekend was apple weekend at English Heritage’s Audley End.
I have a particular soft spot for Audley End – not only is it the only grand house open to the public in my home county of Essex, but I did some research as an EH volunteer which (in some small ways) has helped to feed into the new interpretation that they have created in the servants wing and the stables in recent years.
The interpretation is pretty innovative – on special days such as apple weekend, costumed interpreters take on the role of various servants who worked at the house in 1881, based on real people (I can promise you, painstaking research went into finding out about them!). In the kitchen, a fire is lit, and food is prepared and cooked, while in the stables horses are groomed and fed.
A perfect way to begin autumn.
The Temple of Concord – built to celebrate the return to health of King George III, a little prematurely.
I have a tripod now! So I can do things like this.
Vegetables being prepared in the scullery
Preserves!
Cook, kitchen maid and scullery maid hard at work. All of them are based on real people who worked at Audley End in 1881. Find out more here.
Laundry. I’m so glad I wasn’t born in a time when I could have ended up as a laundry maid.
Dairy
Stables – which look Tudor, but were built later than the Jacobean house, but deliberately built to look older than they are. Sneaky.
Apples growing in the walled kitchen garden
Geraniums in the vinery. They always have something in display here like this, I love it.
Apples! I had completely no idea there were so many different types…
I do love a good red brick wall. I can’t resist them.
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