Of all the great houses built in Charles II’s reign, Sudbury Hall is one of the most idiosyncratic: a marriage of old-fashioned Jacobean features (particularly on the exterior_ with carved stone, wood and plasterwork in the up-to-date classical style of Sir Christopher Wren’s City Churches. Some of the magnificent interior decoration was not completed until 30 years after the house was begun, and as time progressed, prvincial craftsmen, like the plastere Samual Mansfield and the carver William Wilson, were replaced by the more fashionable London men, including Edward Pierce, Gringling Gibbons, Thomas Young and the plasterers Bradbury and Pettifer. The finishing touches came only in the 1690s, with Louis Laguerre’s Baroque murals and painted ceilings to the Staircase, Saloon and other rooms.*

Sudbury remained the home of the Vernon family until it was given to the Treasury in 1967 in part payment of the 9th Lord Vernon’s death duties. Ownership was subsequently transferred to the National Trust.

*Information from the National Trust guidebook.

This is a window from All Saints Church that can be found within the grounds of Sudbury Hall.  A plaque in front of the window gives the following information:

When war was declared in 1939, Manchester like many other cities moved fast to protect its young; living in and near to the city centre.  Children were uprooted from the security of their homes, marched in columns to the railway stations and re-housed in selected locations within the countryside.   One such location was Sudbury, Derbyshire, which catered for the children of St Thomas’ School, Ardwick, Manchester.

Now some 60 years later, this historic event has finally been recorded for all time by the instillation of a specially designed stained glass window; handmade by Michael Stokes.  The window was commissioned by a small group of evacuees and presented to the community in the first year of the Millennium as an expression or their gratitude and thanks for the protection and affection, the experienced during the war years.

The Bishop of Derby dedicated the window at a special service on 3rd June 2001.

It was fixed quite quickly after the engineers had gone back to work, the engineer explained that it was a switch in the exchange that had become faulty.

Fast forward to today, those of you who read this post from yesterday will have noticed that that I mentioned that my central heating system had gone faulty over the weekend.  When the engineers arrived this morning they asked why no one had answered the phone when they rang to say they were coming.  What phone call?  I thought nothing more of it and they went on to change the part that they thought was causing the problem with the heating.  The engineer will check back tomorrow and in a couple of days time to make sure that the problem has been fixed satisfactorily.  If it hasn’t he will be back to check out a few more things that could be causing the problem.  I can’t complain at that, well done British Gas

A bit later in the day, my Mum rang to tell me that my Dad had been rushed into hospital and she needed a lift home.  I did a bit of rescheduling to make sure I was able to see my Dad before visiting hours were over.  When I got there, my Mum asked me where I had been for the day.  Apparently she had rung me at 2pm on the home phone…  It definitely didn’t ring because I was sitting right next to it!!!  Now I am feeling rather miffed with BT because I am paying them for a service which they don’t seem to be able to provide properly.  I am especially miffed because the call was an emergency and I should really have been with my Dad this afternoon.  Get your act together BT

Friday and the time of the visitors arrival finally arrived but there was no sign of the visitors…  The evening had a tight time schedule involving a Chinese takeaway and a visit to see my parents early in the evening, before my Dad got too tired (because of his chemo treatment).  After a phone call it was established that the guests were sitting in a local pub!!!  And they were hastily rounded up.

Following that saga my early Saturday hair appointment was quite welcome, I find having my hair done quite relaxing.  I was having light perm which means sitting around for a while for the treatments to set.  I had to smile when my stylist gave me some magazines to read to stop me getting bored.  The rack is full of those tacky, gossipy,  tasteless magazines (which I would never read) but she rifled through the rack and brought me the Shropshire Magazine, Shropshire Woman and Country Life.  I think she has got me sussed out

After my hair appointment the plan was to go out for lunch and I had said what time I would be back for.  When I got back everyone was sitting around drinking tea and reading papers and not at all ready to go out!!!

Eventually we left the building and made our way to Attingham Park where we enjoyed the sunshine and lunch.  We made a tour of the house, it has had a lot of renovations done to it recently which has brought to light some interesting details about the property.  I also  had my first glimpse of the walled gardens which are a fairly new introduction to the property.  On the way back home we visited Sunnycroft which was also interesting and it was nice to see the grounds with very few people around.

The weather was equally as good today so we visited Sudbury Hall and the museum of childhood then came home to a meal that had been bubbling in the slow cooker since this morning.  There was a slight technical hitch, but it was delicious anyway.

I have booked the day of tomorrow so that I could have a lie in to recover from the busy week and weekend.  Unfortunately the heating system broke on Saturday and although I have turned the heating off it still turns itself on at the allotted times.  Today it decided to heat only the upstairs radiators, that should not be possible with the system installed!  Anyway, enough of that technical stuff, the bottom line is that I won’t get my lie in because they might just arrive at 8.00 in the morning :-/