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…

Mr C woke up at 7.17, precisely two minutes after the alarm was due to go off! When we opened the curtains sunshine blazed through the windows and the Malvern hills were layered in soft mist. Breakfast was freshly cooked to order and lived up to our expectations.

We settled our bill and, before departing took a walk around the hotel’s garden which was delightful in the sunshine. We had hoped to visit the nearby Grade I listed St. Leonard’s Church to see the frescoes. However when we arrived the church was closed and there was no indication of opening times. So we headed off in the direction of Croome where the Shutterchance meetup was taking place later in the day.

On the way, we stopped off at a viewpoint showing the positions of the the armies during the battle of Worcester. Trees were obscuring some of the locations making them difficult to see. We got to Croome early so we took a slight detour down country lanes to Defford before returning.

At Croome our first port of call was a drink in the cafe before venturing into the grounds. The sunny weather showed off the grounds in a favourable light unlike our previous visit when it poured down. The field in front of the house contained several large hay bales which enhanced the scene.

We returned to the cafe for lunch and to find some of the Shutterchancers had arrived so we joined them for a chat until the rest of the group arrived. We all headed off into the grounds, cameras at the ready.

At the house we were able to join one of the attic guided tours which was very interesting because the attic is being used to store items until the property’s various rooms are sufficiently restored to be able to display them. We were shown paintings of former owners and residents of the house and given a brief history about them. Some of the rooms also held restored and partially restored furniture.

In one of the rooms the guide pointed out some markings on the floor that had mostly been covered over with shelving (for now) partially protecting them. The guide advised that this was the place where exorcisms took place when the hall was the headquarters for The International Society for Krishna Consciousness in the late 70s and early 80s.

After the tour, we made our way back to the cafe where everyone was congregating to celebrate a 70th birthday. Yes, there was cake and very colourful it was too. All too soon it was time for us to begin our journey home.

The Landscape at Croome was not made as an afterthought. House and garden here form an integrated design. The park may be in the naturalistic style, based partly on the landscape paintings of Claude Gellee ‘le Lorraine’ and Nicolas Poussin and partly on ‘Capability’ Brown’s native Northumberland scenery, replacing the formal patterns of earlier periods, but every element in it is in fact orchestrated. The house and the lake, the follies, temples and statues, the parkland and the river are all carefully arranged in relation to each other.*

*From the Croome guide book

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

Within the Church of St Mary Magdalene shrubbery, the ice house that served Croome Court can be found. The ice house became overgrown and filled with rubble when it ceased to be used in 1915.

The thatched roof was partly a decorative touch to make the building blend in with its surroundings but it also fulfilled a practical function of keeping it cool. More than two thirds of the building is below ground. The depth of the Ice House is 24 feet which is a surprising drop. The Ice House worked rather like a thermos flask. The walls are double-skinned, and ice would have been taken from a nearby pond in winter and packed into the chamber, which was lined with straw for extra insulation. Throughout the summer the ice from the Ice House would have been used to preserve food and cool drinks as well as to create ice creams and sorbets.*

*From the National Trust Croome Handbook

The original medieval church was considered, by the 6th Earl of Coventry and Capability Brown (who landscaped the estate) to be too close to the house and was demolished. A new church was built in 1763 which incorporates interior masonry and timbers from the old church. The exterior of the church was designed by Capability Brown in imitation of the ‘Gothic Style’, whilst the interior was designed by Robert Adam in a ‘Georgian Gothic’ style. As part of his design Adam had suggest stained glass windows but instead the church has clear glass in its windows.

The Coventry family cared for the church until 1949 when the house passed out of the family, and they are commemorated by a series of magnificent monuments. By the late 1960s the building was no longer viable as a parish church and was placed in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust in 1975.*

The 6th Earl had the tombs of four of his ancestors moved here from the demolished church and installed in the chancel. The bodies of the Coventrys, including the 6th Earl, are buried in a vault beneath the Church, which could be accessed via a secret passage at the side of the building, marked with the words Candide et Constanter, the family motto. Not all of the ancestors appear to have been moved, so it is assumed that there are many more still under the soil near the house.. **

The new Church was built on higher ground so that it could be visible from many parts of the estate.

*The Churches Conservation Trust

**From the National Trust, Croome handbook