smallhobbit | Days Out - 2018

The last of our summer days out (I shall be in London next Friday) we visited Charlecote Park. This, like the last two places, is owned by the National Trust, and we've had free entrance to them because we hold Art Fund cards. Charlecote Park is a recent addition to that list.

The land was granted to the Lucy family sometime after the Norman conquest. The house was built in 1558, but almost entirely updated in the 1840s.

The family travelled in Europe between 1840 and 1842 sending back a wide variety of objects to furnish the home. Rather like very expensive souvenirs. Most of the house is shown as it would have been after it was remodelled.

This is an incredibly beautiful table which Napoleon removed from Rome during his campaigns and which was subsequently sold on, being eventually bought by George Lucy for a huge sum.

There is very little sense of history over the years, but above is a family group of the third Sir Thomas Lucy painted in the early 1600s. The boy in the front on the left grows into the man in the portrait on the right. This is Richard Lucy, who as an MP in 1652 was ordered to attend Parliament by Oliver Cromwell. The letter and the passport signed by Cromwell himself are on display. My history geek heart was so excited to see them. In addition the parliamentarian forces camped just outside the house prior to the Battle of Edgehill.

The house has a deer park and we walked across that and then onto the local church, where there are monuments to the first three Sir Thomas Lucys.