A trip to Burton Agnes Hall

Last Friday was a lovely day, I met up with an artist friend of mine who I haven't seen for 10 years since she moved to Devon and it was lovely to meet her little boy who was but a baby bump all those years ago.
Very appropriately we decided to spend our day at Burton Agnes Hall because my friend used to spend many weeks there as the artist in residence and as soon as we stepped out of the car she experienced a whole whoosh of memories & emotions.

We had a quick look in the courtyard area & gallery before a picnic in the grounds, then we went on the house tour. It has been a few years since I was in the house so it was great to see some things I recognised and some new contemporary artworks.

As soon as you get going into the Great Hall you are faced with this Elizabethan painting of 3 sisters. The one on the right in mourning is the sister who they say haunts the blue bedroom or The Queen's Bedroom as it is known.

The guide gave us the full story of how she was attacked on her horse in a nearby village by highwaymen & robbed, I won't go into the full story but she wanted to be buried in the house, otherwise bad things would happen and bad things did happen whilst she was buried outside. She was dug up (more than once) and now her head is behind one of the panels to the right of the fire in the Great Hall. There's certainly something in that room which makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck!
Onwards and upwards to the Long Gallery on the upper floor. Great view of the gardens.

Over the years I've taken lots of pictures at Burton Agnes so this time I took some pics of things I hadn't seen like these spooky looking puppets.

This is a beautiful tapestry by Kaffe Fassett of the gardens.

Some contemporary art / furniture, this lovely wooden cabinet with drawers and the trees on top.

Some nicely patterned ceramics and interesting art.

Did I mention Bob came along, we went around the gardens next, he loved it.

The gardens are spectacular, there's the Elizabethan walled garden filled with flowers, fruit, vegetables & herbs. There are the coloured gardens with the giant board games & the maze. We played the huge snakes and ladders and I managed to hobble around the maze which I'd never been in before, mazes freak me out a bit.

Here are some of the pictures, sorry if this is getting boring, I'm indulging as I don't think I've done a Burton Agnes post before.

Lastly, this ball thing floating on the pond, the rainbow reflections had us mesmerised as it bobbed and changed colour in the breeze.

It was a really wonderful day, great memories and lots of inspiration to feed the creative soul.