Holiday II - Blickling Hall

   Sunday, the first full day of our stay.  And we went to Blickling Hall, a truly magnificent piece of Jacobean architecture by Robert Lyminge, architect also of Hatfield House.  Nothing can quite prepare you for your first sight of this house.  It springs upon you as travel along the road from Aylsham in all its pomp and splendour.  Unfortunately for us it was pouring with rain when the got there and it continued throughout our visit.  Unfortunate too that many of the rooms, including the Print Room, were closed to the public.  That said what we did see was wonderful.

   What remains in the memory are the two rooms that were re-decorated in the 1960s on the ground floor (the work of David Hicks?), and the Tapestry room and the Long Gallery on the first floor.  The latter has a sumptuous plasterwork ceiling, with images taken from an English Emblem Book 'Minerva Britanna' by Henry Peacham (1612).  The garden too was interesting, though we were too sodden and cold to really take it in; it is a survival of English Gardening as before the landscape tradition swept all, or nearly all, before it.

   Afterwards we took a return journey on the Bure Valley Railway between Alysham and Wroxham.  This is the engine.  Love the vibrant blue. And for those who want to know, the gauge is 15 inches.