Norfolk is littered with stately houses… some I remember visiting as I had friends who lived there, and some because of the National Trust etc. I have never visited Houghton Hall but Jo had, several years ago. Houghton is the ancestral home of the Walpole family – Robert Walpole being the first Prime Minister – Norfolk bor dun gud ol’ master!
So we decided that we wanted to go, and were planning to tie it in with an overnight stay nearby, but we changed our plans as Ziggy had an MOT booked for Saturday morning, and myself and my very best drinking liver had an appointment with the Mighty Whites on Saturday afternoon… so on the Sunday morning we had our breakfast, washed the bedding – our resident Siamese do like to express their views on the morning’s breakfast offering in a predictable Jackson Pollock Projectile Vomit kind of way and headed to the hall.

One of the things that is peculiar to Houghton Hall is a large amount of art / sculptor installations – currently including a major piece by Antony Gormley the current exhibition is called Time Horizon and I was intrigued to see what the man responsible for the Angel of the North would do.

As you can see – interesting!

So, we set off, and bar a small detour for me to pop into work – helps to keep an eye on things, we arrived just as the doors opened for the garden – that’s 11, with the house opening at 1200. Jo had booked in advance so that saved a couple of quid. This walled garden is different than the one we enjoyed at Fellbrig but was still very interesting. The ornate side of the garden was exactly what I was expecting to see – geometric hedges and paths, with Statuary. Flowers were abundant and the sheer variety of colours and varieties of dahlias was great to see.

After a decent potter – and being pleased with some of the deliberate effects – the faux Greek temple made of wood, not stone being brilliant, we left the walled garden and headed up to the stable block. The stable block is the size of many stately houses and is remarkable as the original stables are there – along with a tack room, complete with polo mallets… more of interest to me – and just about every single chap visiting – was the toy soldier collection – the worlds largest private collection and the rooms and displays were amazing. What impressed – or possibly scared Jo was that as she was reading the pamphlet with all the details in of each diorama – I was correctly identifying the units, battles and campaigns…. She finally used a musket to beat me away and towards the main house.

The wealth trough to the main house is via another ornate garden, and it’s only as we left that that the sheer scale of the vistas open ended up and you can see the design of the estate – much of this article was missed by myself – the avenues of trees being on compass points and different trees used for each avenue.

The main rooms are difficult to try and describe – and the photographs I took cannot do it justice being honest – currently all the rooms have some modern additions as a part of a visiting artist’s work. There was also a piece of her work in a room in the range, which I did like, but the jury is out for me! One of the fascinating items for me was the consort’s and Prince of Wales’ state thrones -they live at Houghton until needed at Westminster etc…. The final thing of note is the wonderful Gladiator statue at the bottom of the main stairs – a stunning piece of art.

So – an interesting place to visit – the price might put me off visiting every month – but somewhere we will visit every few months I feel.