DAY OUT: Kedleston Hall (Derbyshire)

 

Conveniently situated just over an hour away, Kedleston Hall presented a golden opportunity to visit a substantial stately home without spending four hours in the car on what promised to be quite a warm day. Temperature was forecast to be 23degrees, but the dashboard in the car hit 28deg on the way home. More than hot enough....

Being smart about things we decided to utilise the cooler earlier part of the day to walk the grounds. It was still pretty hot (20degrees) but fortunately quite a bit of the walk was though woods, although the ground was quite steep which I wasn't expecting. Still, it was nice to have at least some shade from the evil daystar.

On arrival we had been told that we were very lucky because today they were doing a 'soft' opening of the museum (which had been closed for two years). The words 'soft' opening should have given us some warning, but regardless we gleefully accepted our free tickets which granted us entry at 1:30pm.

The house itself was nice, with just enough plush rooms to hold the interest without descending into repetition and tediousness. There were some very grim paintings of dead animals which we could have done without and they seemed curiously misplaced in the dining room. Perhaps people liked to remind themselves of what exactly it was they were eating back then?

At the appointed hour we arrived at the very small museum, to be greeted by a woman with what can only be described as 'lesbian' hair. A tuft of blue to one side and a leopard skin effect on the back of her head. She was also wearing a sort of furry top with what looked like a monkey plaque attached to the front of it.

This lady was extremely officious and she nearly had a meltdown when she thought I had walked into her precious museum without a ticket (which let's not forget was FREE). Lots of amateurish standing about ensued, with one chap telling us to stand one way before her with the the hair (let's call her LESley) told us to stand another way so that she could address us with the VERY IMPORTANT things she had to say.

Frankly it felt like she would have been a lot happier not to re-open the museum, because it would be better for the exhibits if people didn't come and look at them. For some reason we needed torches to view the exhibits properly (well, we saw them perfectly well to be honest) but they only provided 4 torches for 24 people, they said they needed to create a plan to organize some more, or maybe start a committee to organize a plan to propose a project to acquire some more torches. Because that's how they talk.

The exhibits weren't all that exciting in all honesty, but we did our best to look interested. There was a lot of hand wringing about 'things were different in the old days' which reached unbearable levels when we discovered a poem written from the perspective of an elephant attached to a display cabinet full of ivory tat. I actually thought Rose was being facetious, but no, I discovered it was true. 

This was too much so we adjourned to the tea rooms where we served a can of Coke and a piece of Coffee Cake by a chap wearing a Rolex Air King, clearly there's money in cakes.

Overall it was a good visit, and it would have been even nicer if it had been a bit cooler and we hadn't had to deal with the museum's insufferable gatekeeper.