Wednesday, 8 April 2015

Sudbury Hall & National Trust Museum of Childhood

We were on our way to our first cottage holiday of the year, staying at Swainsley Farm, just outside Butterton in the lovely Peak District.

We couldn't check in to the cottage until 3pm so had decided that we would make our 2nd National Trust visit of 2015 and stop off on the way to visit Sudbury Hall and the National Trust Museum of Childhood. 

It's one of our nearest National Trust properties, but neither of us had ever visited it, though we have passed it lots of times en route to elsewhere. Today we were really pleased to have plenty of time to stop and explore. 

We started off in the tea room for lunch, before having a really good wander around the Museum of Childhood, which is a real treat and had us reminiscing over the toys and games we had when younger, though, of course, lots were well before our time. We even, kind of, managed a game of hopscotch. 

The first room holds some display cabinets displaying all sorts of things, including some really nice old dolls' houses.  There is also a pretty impressive fully furnished child's bedroom on the ceiling! 

Yep, this really is on the ceiling!
There is also an old schoolroom where the National Trust volunteers told us about the old fashioned lessons that they hold for school children visiting. 
There is a really cool reading area with some fabulous murals on the walls and ceilings, where the letters of the writing in the books just jump out of the pages. 
About the freakiest thing we saw was the swimming doll, which did look pretty scary.
Having had a good look round the museum, we headed outside and had a wander around the gardens, which looked just lovely in the afternoon sunshine.  We then had a quick look at the neighbouring church before heading into the Hall.



















The tour of the hall begins with a view of a very impressive staircase with some really ornate plasterwork and carvings. 

There are lots of rooms to look at, with really good views of the garden and the lake. 

For such a big house we were surprised at how cosy lots of the rooms were. 
Your visit covers two floors, with rooms laid out how they would have been when last inhabited, with some showing good examples of restoration works currently in progress. 

There is also currently a WW1 exhibition on show.

In all we spent about two hours on our visit, including our visit to the tea room.  We really enjoyed it and were glad we'd finally got round to getting to see it.  It's definitely worth stopping off if you are passing.

3 comments:

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    1. Oh thank you so much. Glad you enjoyed it 😃

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