Tag Archives: Bess of Hardwick

Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, England

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We stopped off at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk on our way to the ferry that was taking us to the Netherlands last month. It’s now owned by the National Trust but originally it was built for Sir Edmund Bedingfeld’s family in 1482, but over the years it has been reconfigured a lot with each generation wanting to pull bits down to add whatever was fashionable at the time. The moat is only about three feet deep so it wasn’t really ever meant to be for defensive purposes, but it adds to the grandeur of the place. We had a guided tour of the outside of the building before going inside. I recommend doing that if you visit as it’s very interesting. Although the front of the hall (below) has been changed over the years it is basically original.

Oxburgh Hall Entrance Gate, Norfolk

From the side you can see the quite elegant bridge to the doorway. There was a bit of consternation while we were there as there was a ‘drowning’ teddy bear at the other side of the bridge and two worried looking wee girls waiting for help to get it out.

Oxburgh Hall , Norfolk

The photo below is of the back of the hall. It has been demolished and rebuilt a lot over the years to suit the prevailing fashions, I don’t think it was ever an improvement.

Oxburgh Hall ,Norfolk

Oxburgh Hall , Norfolk

The Bedingfelds were a prominent Catholic family with links to Mary,Queen of Scots and the Oxburgh Hangings which were worked by Mary and Bess of Hardwick are on show too as you can see below. People can be rather scathing about the amount of needlework purported to have been done by Mary, Queen of Scots, but she didn’t have much else that she could do over the years she was imprisoned, and of course she had the help of her ladies in waiting too

Oxburgh Hall Tapestry , Norfolk

You can read more about the history of the hall here.

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire

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What do you think of this National Trust stately home? We took a bit of a detour on the way home from our break in Warwickshire in the early summer, just to visit this one. It seems like a long time ago now but as you can see, it was a beautiful day, in fact it was the only really good day which we had, you know how wet this ‘summer’ has been.

Hardwick Hall, front

Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire must rate as just about the grandest of stately homes. Built by Bess of Hardwick, she moved in in 1597, having been at Chatsworth before that. Bess wore out four husbands I believe and she managed to move her way up the social scale with each marriage, as you can see, she wasn’t short of a bob or two!

Hardwick Hall, gardens 4

Although the house is still gobsmackingly grand and full of lots of interesting 500 year old tapestries and portraits, it was the gardens which I loved most. We seem to have got to these ones just at the right time for most of the plants. This is Jack enjoying a rest, it was a hot day – for us anyway, about 70F I think.

Hardwick Hall, gardens + J

The walled garden was the best designed and best tended one which I’ve seen out of all of the National Trust properties which we’ve visited recently. These rambling roses were just gorgeous.

Hardwick Hall, gardens

Another rosey corner, the walls must help to protect the plants during the winter and add some warmth during the summer as they keep the heat from the sun for quite a while.

Hardwick Hall, roses

There are some really lovely trees in the grounds and I loved this clipped yew and the cedrus glauca Atlantica behind it. The yew looks like it should be an illustration in a children’s fairy tale book. There are four of them on the large lawn at the back of the house and they’re big enough for an adult to stand underneath them. They’d be a perfect place to enjoy a picnic in the shade on a hot day.

Hardwick Hall, noddy tree

So that was a lovely way of breaking the journey back up to Scotland and I must say that the guides were very friendly and informative. This house was owned by the Cavendish/Devonshires who of course own Chatsworth House but when the Duke died suddenly in the 1950s the death duties were enormous and they ended up settling the bill by giving up Hardwick Hall, amongst other things like works of art. What a dilemma to have, although I think they made the right choice as Hardwick Hall would be impossible to live in comfortably, even in Elizabethan times. They said of it when it was built – Hardwick Hall – more glass than wall. Of course glass was so expensive then that it was a great status symbol.

The day following this one couldn’t have been more different, they had 12 inches of rain, resulting in a lot of flooding in the county of Derbyshire. That’s Britain for you, rarely two days in a row alike!