After a peaceful night at Stonea we had a slow start and were on the road a bit before 10am for the 34 mile journey to Burghley House. A grey morning with no sun and brisk northerly wind. We had a pleasant drive across the Fens past Peterborough to Burghley House. We parked up in the coach park at Burghley and had it completely to ourselves although there were many hundreds of cars parked all around. There was a big game and country fair on in the grounds so no coaches were booked in to the house.

Burghley House is amazing. We have seen many historic houses across the country but never anything like this. To me what stood out was the use of trompe l’oeil in not just one room but most of the grand rooms. It took us an hour to walk around and all we saw was the grand rooms in that time. We took many photographs as, unusually, there is no problem taking photos anywhere in the house.

This is the centre of one wall of the Heaven Room which is painted like this on three sides and the over the whole ceiling
This is the centre of one wall of the Heaven Room which is painted like this on three sides and the over the whole ceiling
This is the corner of the Heaven Room. Note how the characters painted on the walls appear to be coming out of the wall and in to the room.
This is the corner of the Heaven Room. Note how the characters painted on the walls appear to be coming out of the wall and in to the room.

The photos above are of just one room – there were several like this culminating in the Hell Staircase. My photos of the Hell Staircase are not good as the poor light and dark subject matter made for rather fuzzy photos.

Another amazing room with all the walls and ceiling painted to look as those you are in the midts of an amazing scene. Note these walls are straight and smooth - there are no columns or capitals or fancy decorative mouldings!
Another amazing room with all the walls and ceiling painted to look as those you are in the midts of an amazing scene. Note these walls are straight and smooth – there are no columns or capitals or fancy decorative mouldings!

 

After a nice lunch in Bertie we went to see the gardens. The Garden of Surprises was an amusing collection of fountains and water features and installations. Great fun especially for little kids who encouraged to get thoroughly wet! We managed to stay mainly dry and moved on to the Sculpture Garden. This was really more a section of the park sprinkled with sculptures. Some of these left me cold but one or two were dramatic and interesting but the best feature of this garden for me was the lake!

We headed off about 3:45 after almost 5 hours at Burghley House. We arrived at Boston Farm Park at 5:30pm after a smooth but busy drive up the A1. Bertie purred along well at about 90kph on cruise control on the dual carriageway.

Sadly we arrived here after the Farm Cafe closed and we will be rolling tomorrow before they open again. Had a nice chat to the farmer who welcomed us warmly and invited us to come and walk around the farm park and visit the animals.

We had the huge car park almost to our selves.
We had the huge car park almost to our selves.

Mileage reading this evening: 115380
Mileage today: 183kms
Total mileage so far: 308kms

20th night on Bertie

Burghley House
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