Day 2 at Dunham

As planned, it was a lazy start today, though we were both wide awake by six and making tea before the half hour. There followed a morning of pottering about, watering the plants, finishing drying the clothes from yesterday’s laundry and the like.

Peter has tied Maple just in front of us, so we had a good old natter with him as well.

After a prompt lunch we walked back to Dunham Massey, showed our NTS cards and got tickets for the house and garden. There’s an awful lot to see, but we did our best. It’s a good house to visit because all the furniture and stuff in it, including an amazing quantity of silver, belongs to the house, rather than the museum-like effect you get in some of these places.

It’s a very big house too, a total of 108 rooms, not that you get to see all of them. It was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1976 by the 10th and last Earl of Stamford and it’s been preserved as it was then.

Since he had kept it much as it was during his father’s life, it’s a remarkable example of a great house in the Edwardian era.

After the house, we did our best with the formal gardens, but it was starting to get very warm again and we were already pretty tired. You really need a total of three days minimum to do Dunham Massey justice; one each for the park, the house and the gardens.

We finished with mammoth and very good value ice creams, sitting on the grass under one of the trees and watching a herd of fallow deer wander about.

Refreshed and restored, we just about made it back to the boat, where we collapsed on chairs in the well deck for half an hour.

Having put the computers and the inverter off whilst we were out, the batteries are back to 99% charge, despite running the heating this morning to get a tank of hot water. Truly the solar panel earns its keep.

Tomorrow, we’ll boat on to the winding hole before Seamon’s Moss bridge and return to Lymm to restock with perishables.