After the weekend storms, bank holiday monday turned out bright and beautiful so we headed of to the Shugborough Estate. It was our first visit since the National Trust had taken over all of the estate after Staffordshire County Council surrendered the lease with the National Trust.

The context of the house and estate are being reinterpreted to highlight previous owners of the estate in their place in history. The late Lord Lichfield’s apartments are now fully open by timed ticket. We didn’t get to see these on this occasion, we weren’t offered them as we should have been when we arrived at the entrance to the estate. As the day was so beautiful and sunny we decided not to pursue the matter when we were informed of this as we entered the mansion.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that the gate on the blue bridge barring access to the wider estate had been removed. This allowed us to follow an enjoyable walk that led to the red bridge and the Chinese Pavilion.

For information about this monument see my previous post.  The photos above make some of the details on the monument clearer.

I invite you to join me at Vision & Verb for a little bit of Shugborough history and its famous connection with photography.

Now that I have finished sharing my Paris travels and photos I decided to look back at some of the days out that I had during 2012. I realised that there were quite a few places that I haven’t posted about properly yet.

So now I will take you back to a sunny day in July when I took advantage of one of 2012s rare moments of sunshine.  The venue is the Shugborough Estate in Staffordshire.

The Mansion that we see today was developed from a three-storied house that was built in 1693 after the demolition of the original manor house.  The transformation of the three story house into a Georgian Mansion took place between 1745 and 1748 by the architect Thomas Wright, who added the pavilions either side of the 17th century block.

In between the house and the River Sow, stand the formal terraces with borders of lavender and ‘Bright Smile’ roses.

I mentioned that Sauniere had requested a copy of a painting from the Louvre.  This is what the Cadogan Guide has to say about the painting:

Interest in the Razes began in the 17th century, after a humble shepherd found a gold treasure in the area, but never revealed exactly where; there is some evidence that artist Nicholas Poussin used landmarks of the region (including the hill of Rennes-le-Chateau) in the background of his enigmatic painting Et in Arcadia Ego (1638-40), generally understood to mean death is present, even in idyllic Arcadia.  Or some say it is a rather juicier anagram: ‘l Tego Arcana Dei’ (‘Begone! I hide the Secrets of God!’).

At Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire there is a monument called ‘The Shepherd’s Monument’ that is based on the original painting:

The Shepherd’s Monument has long posed an enigma as people have tried and failed to crack the mysterious code which sits beneath the sculpted relief.  The code reads:

O. U. O. S. V. A. V. V.

D.                                        M.

Many have drawn on the family’s associations with free-thinking groups and societies at the time of the monument’s building and some repute it to lead to the Holy Grail.

The sculpted relief is based on the 1642 painting Et in Arcadia Ego by Nicolas Poussin – a work which in itself has attracted much speculation.  The Shugborough relief is a reversal of the original depiction with several key – and some would say deliberate – changes.  The work was carried out by Peter Scheemakers and designed by Thomas Wright.*

An unusual orange globe appeared in the sky today, so I grabbed my camera and headed out to make the best of the rare occurrence.

I visited Shugborough Hall which I found had changed a lot since I last visited. The car park is in a different place which gave the opportunity to walk through the grounds to get to the house and gardens and  I really enjoyed my walk to the teashop for lunch There is however, transport laid on for those who are unable or choose not to take the walk.

More rooms were open in the house than the last time I visited and things had been brought out of storage that made the house more relevant to the late Earl (Patrick Lichfield). The tour round the house was really interesting.

Then there is that monument which links to Rennes-le-Chateau where my latest holiday view was taken from…