This Victorian umbrella stand is believed to have once stood in the Entrance Hall greeting guests into the mansion.*

*from an information board next to the artwork…

to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.

Etty Hillesum

I revealed the first of those photographs as Pitchford Hall.

My next blog post will reveal the second location from that post. The photo above is a  second teaser to the second location…

I have just returned from a weekend mini break, meeting up with photographer friends, old and new

I have included a teaser photograph of our meet up location (it is a teaser for those not present at the meet up ).

A signboard next to these carefully crafted and decorated wooden objects informs that they are a pair of commodes:

The name is taken from the French word for a chest of drawers. They were introduced during the reign of King Louis XIV (1638-1715) and the style was adopted in the mid-1700s when French fashions became popular in Britain.

The term usually describes cupboards with curved or ’serpentine’ fronts, supported by legs. In this case the shape is a very plain rectangular chest with all the emphasis being on its elegant decoration.

Commodes were used on the principle floor of a house, either in the main reception rooms or in bedrooms and dressing rooms.

Many commodes were not functional at all but simply a means of showing off the decorative skill of the maker and they sometimes formed part of a decorative scheme for a complete interior.

This pair was functional and designed for use in a bedroom to store clothes. One of the interiors is fitted with shelves and the other with sliding drawers. The top has a narrow shelf which could be slid out, traditionally for use as a flat surface for brushing clothes.

After Croome Court passed out of the hands of the Coventry family it had several owners each leaving their mark as can be seen in different rooms around the house.

In 1921 the 9th Earl set up the Croome Estate Trust, in order to ensure that the 15,000 acre estate would be preserved. However, in 1939, fate and the tragic circumstances of the Second World War intervened. The 10th Earl having volunteered when war was declared, was killed in the retreat to Dunkirk. A whole new chapter began when, after the war was over, such houses were not longer viable and had to be sold.*

Initially the Croome Estate was sold to the Roman Archdiocese of Birmingham. The house was adapted to become a Catholic junior boarding school for disadvantaged boys who were taught by Nuns. This part of the house’s history  lasted from the 1950s-1970s.

Croome subsequently became the headquarters for the Society for Krishna Consciousness. They provided a primary school for devotees and a worldwide centre for training students in Krishna Consciousness.

The house then became the base for various property developers until it came up for sale in 2004 when the Croome Trust were able to buy back the Coventry family’s ancestral home, whereupon they leased it to the National Trust for 999 years.

*Introduction to the National Trust Handbook of Croome (George Coventry, 13th Earl)

Source of information – National Trust Handbook of Croome

At breakfast we were served with the first proper cup of tea of the weekend. Two individual pots of tea that were brewed to perfection.

Rain was forecast for the day so we headed of to Croome Court, a National Trust property. As we are National Trust members, entrance was free so it didn’t matter if we could only visit the house and not the wider estate.

As we arrived at Croome Court the heavens opened so we donned our waterproofs and hastily made our way to the ticket office entrance. After a brief visit to the shop, we made our way to the house via the church. The route we chose was mostly sheltered by trees so we kept dry. We passed the walled garden on the way, it was probably just as well it is only open at weekends because it wasn’t really the weather for visiting a walled garden.

We toured the house and then had lunch in the basement cafe before making our way to the RAF Defford Museum which is situated near to the entrance office. The weather had cleared up allowing us to see the wonderful vistas and landscaping created by Capability Brown as we walked to the museum. After exploring the military history of Croome we still had time to spare so we headed off to Broadway where I became reaquainted with and old friend, ‘The Hudson Guide’, but that is a story for another day.

Whilst in Broadway Mr C couldn’t resist the temptation of visiting a cook shop and we came away with two colanders. As we made our way back to the car I noticed an ice cream parlour which allowed us both to indulge in a ginger ice cream.

When we arrived back at the hotel we were greeted by the barman who had welcomed us on the first day of our stay. We started to engage in conversation with him but the hotel receptionist of the day interrupted. She was querying the basis of our stay and informing us that we had dinner bed and breakfast booked for two nights of our stay. We had booked on a bed and breakfast basis but had said we would be ‘dining in’ on the first evening. We were advised that we had another meal in the hotel, but we said that we already had made other arrangements, she said she would sort it out for us.

Once back in our room I washed my hair so that I looked more presentable after the day’s rain before we made our way to the final meal of the holiday which was in the L’amuse-Bouche Restaurant. As mentioned in a previous post, before the meal we were served  an Amuse-Bouche. On this occasion it was pork and pickled vegetables presented in a delightful way. I chose Nut and Vegetable stir fry  followed by passion fruit mousse with coconut ice cream. After our meal we returned to Colwall for a brief nightcap. Mr C wanted to return to our room to follow the exit polls for the UK general election on the TV. Luckily for me the TV was in a separate room allowing me to chill and wait for the result in the morning. I had already come to a conclusion on the result and what I had thought came to pass overnight.

Whilst chilling in the bedroom I noticed that the book of menus, emergency phone numbers and breakfast times, etc. had still not been returned to our room…