Sudbury Hall
Day 1
We arrived at Manchester International Airport and tried to find our way to the bus station in order to catch our bus, but we needed a few attempts in order to discover it, even though I had already been at the airport for more than 4 hours waiting for my friend to arrive, what can I say, my books distracted me. The first depression came when we didn't quit understand the bus driver, we would have paid him 64 pounds instead of the 6,40 pounds he asked for, now that would have been a bargain for him! Alas, off we went heading towards the hilly spa town of Buxton (www.BuxtonUK.com) in beautiful Derbyshire, on the way we thought we would be killed in a road accident a couple of times (that bus driver was mad!), but somehow we managed to arrive safely at Buxton Marketplace and took a taxi to our Bed and Breakfast, where we were welcomed warmly. It was freezing, at least compared to the weather back home, but we still walked into town after unpacking to get a first glimpse and maybe find a nice place to have dinner at, in the first restaurant we headed to the waiter told us "We haven't got any tables tonight", well, we saw at least 15, but we assumed he had meant it kindly, ha, ha.... We did find another restaurant and treated us with milkshakes on our first night in England.
Day 2
Our first official "Pride and Prejudice Tour" day put us to an almost impossible task, trying to get to Sudbury Hall (http://www.aboutbritain.com/SudburyHall.htm) using public transportation, it took us almost 3 hours (it would have been about 30 minutes or so by car!) and we had to change busses twice, but eventually we did manage to arrive there, we passed Longnor on the way to it and drove straight through the Peak District, beautiful, were amazed about how friendly everyone was on the bus, everyone seemed to chat with everyone about everything, the bus driver even ended up with a kiss from an elderly lady which he commented with "I could get used to that", we asked the driver about where exactly we would have to get off for the Hall and suddenly the whole bus was in uproar (no doubt because of our accents) and everyone tried to give us as many tips as possible and made sure we got off safely and happy. We bought tickets for House, Garden and the Museum of Childhood combined and had a lovely time, unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside the house, but we bought a guide book on it and a few postcards as well.
The Long Gallery (portraits, Darcy walking down it holding candles accompanied by his dogs in P&P2) was my favourite part of the house, we happened to be there at a day when they had a little dancing in the Gallery, we were encouraged to join in the fun but had to decline, it would have been improper in our clothing. We were looking for some of the costumes which were used in the movie and which supposedly should have been shown there, but the lady we asked told us they were already back in London, which was a bit sad, but she was really quite frantic about it and started to apologize to us, even saying she hoped we were not too disappointed and proposed to find out where they were exactly, how lovely! After touring the house we walked around in the garden were we became friends with a local dog, we spent about half an hour throwing a stick for him, he just would not have enough, he was really cute. I had to ask some locals about where the bus to Burton-on-Trent would come through and they told us it would be at the end of the village (making it sound a long way, in reality, it took us 2 minutes) and one gentleman even told us to make haste, as the bus was due to arrive shortly, we were quite delighted with his choice of words, naturally. Also, on a side note, on the way to the Hall we had to change at Uttoxeter and tried to obtain the "Derbyshire Wayfarer", a ticket which allows you to travel in and around Derbyshire for a small amount a whole day long, and when we finally managed to get one in a travel agency, the kind staff offered us a group-ticket which says " 2 adults and 2 children", and one man said "Just pick the children off the street, but make sure they behave at first!". One the journey back to Buxton we spend a few hours in Derby (http://www.derby.gov.uk) and visited the Cathedral and a very nice cafˇ.
Day 3
This was our much anticipated highlight (we did not think it could get any better than that), before hopping on the train to Disley, which is only a short ride from Buxton, we strolled around Buxton for a while, the Crescent in Buxton looks very much like the one in Bath. We got off at Disley and headed towards Lyme Park, (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/scripts/nthandbook.dll?ACTION=PROPERTY&PropertyId=114) the entrance to the grounds is about 1/2 mile or so from Disley, turning left from the train station, it's well out-signed. We walked down the main entrance to the park, as we thought, but to our surprise, it was another mile to the house itself, actually, you have to pay for being allowed to enter the grounds by car and the man who takes the money was more or less shocked to see us on foot, saying again and again that it's 1 mile to the house, what can I say, walking is a very beneficial exercise, ha, ha. The walk seemed longer than it probably was, we went cross-fields wanting to enjoy the beauty of it without cars driving up, exhausting, but beautiful nonetheless. "Will we reach the house before dark, do you think?" was one question that frequently came up though, but eventually we arrived at exactly the same spot where Darcy rides up on his horse in order to meet Elizabeth at the Inn at Lambton, a little tired but happy to be there, what a wonderful coincidence.
You get to the entrance of the house by walking through the gate on the North Front (Lizzy and the Gardiners leaving in their carriage after their evening at Pemberley) and then you're almost in front of the famous staircase, I have to admit we could not resist re-playing Darcy dashing down the stairs after his unexpected meeting with Lizzie in front of the lake, but no-one seemed to mind really, I guess they people there are already used to that, ha, ha. I was not really impressed with the inside of the house, it was mostly too dark for my taste, but I did love the garden, oh, and the gift shop, of course, we bought a beautiful water-colour painting of the house which now daily lifts my spirits at home, sigh, I wish I could go back soon..... After touring the garden we decided to head for the National Trust info as one staff member had told us about a certain "Pemberley Trail" which should lead us to all the important places shown in P&P2, but we had to get a map, otherwise we would have got lost in the enormous park surrounding the house. We had to climb stiles, were stomping through mudded fields and came upon lots of sheep, but life is full of these trials, isn't it - and it was well worth the effort, especially with the sun coming out when we reached the famous pond, unfortunately, a lady decided to bath her two huge dogs in it, but once they were gone we enjoyed every moment of it.
Back at the car park, we treated ourselves to some ice cream and headed back to the train station in Disley, but not before we saw a poster on a wall saying that the next evening, there would be a special event taking place in the house, organised by the National Trust, - "Jane Austen among Friends", after a bit of thinking we decided to see if there were any tickets left, since it was a once in a lifetime chance, it naturally would throw up all our plans, as we had planned to go to Belton House the next day, which would not have been possible if we had to be at Lyme Park again in the evening (using public transport), they did have 2 tickets left (at 12 pounds each), took our names and chatted to us a bit about where we came from etc.. We were all excitement on the way back to Buxton and could not wait for the next day.
Day 4
The actual plan was for us to go to Belton House in Lincolnshire, which would have taken us more than 3 hours from Derbyshire, but we had to post-pone it and do Chatsworth (http://www.chatsworth-house.co.uk/) instead (which had been planned for the following day), since it was so close and we were able to be at Lyme Park again before 8 p.m. that way. Chatsworth is near Baslow, Derbyshire and we were supposed to get off the bus at Baslow, but we missed the stop and had to ask the driver to let us off down road, he was already heading into the next village, oops. We walked back and as we could not find the entrance (you can drive up to the house as well, but there is a different entrance for that) we asked at a small news agent who told us they had tons of people asking for the way as it is a bit hidden, so true! The house itself is in a huge park, once you enter the grounds you have to walk on another 20 minutes or so until you reach the house itself.
To me, Chatsworth was the most beautiful of all the historic houses I have visited, even better than Lyme Park, because the inside is really beautiful, too. Also, we were allowed to take pictures in the house, even filming was permitted, I can easily picture Chatsworth having been the model for Jane Austen when she thought of Pemberley! I was really impressed by it and fell in love with it straight away, the grounds are beautiful, too, I especially loved the fountain. We could not spend as much time in Chatsworth as we would have wanted because of our plans for the evening, so we headed back to Buxton and then took the train to Disley, walked the mile towards the house again (it only seemed half so far this time around) and were welcomed by the staff being the first to arrive, it was such a beautiful evening weather wise that we could see the lights of Stockport from a hill in the park! Everyone was really friendly and we didn't even have to tell them our names, well, being the only foreigners with more or less strange names, too, they easily knew who we were. The event itself took place in the Salon, two ladies read from Jane's books and sang songs to it, one even played the pianoforte to it, it was so wonderful, I loved every minute of it, during the interval a group of dancers preformed some dances of P&P2 which was lovely, too, and we were greeted by one elderly gentleman just in Bingley style, bow (resulting in a not really perfect curtsey from us), broad smile on his face and happy manners, being strangers to a country (and being the youngest ones there) does sometimes give you certain privileges, hee, hee. Afterwards we bought a cd called "The Pride and Prejudice Collection" which has most dances on it except, of course, Mr. Beveridge's Maggot. All in all, it was a truly perfect day and I still have very fond memories of it.
Day 5
We spent the morning chatting to the owners of our B&B and did some sightseeing in Buxton, as were leaving around noon for Belton House, to tell the truth, I was afraid that we would not have enough time for Belton House since we were scheduled to arrive there around 3 p.m. and would leave again at 5.30 p.m., it was a Sunday and this was as good as it got as far as public transport was concerned. But at the end we had time enough for Belton House (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/scripts/nthandbook.dll?ACTION=PROPERTY&PropertyId=77), of which we were truly disappointed in a way, not only that they charged us 6 pounds even though some of the main rooms (e.g. Darcy's bedchamber) were not open to the public because of restoration, but we did not really warm to the house itself, though perhaps we were thinking a little too much about Lady Catherine... the park was lovely, though, and we also went up to Mr.Collins« very own church, luckily we didn't encounter him, or we would have had to scream "Other way, Mr. Collins!", as soon as he would have come into sight. There is also a little graveyard next to the church, I spotted one gravestone, which had the inscription "no more sorrow, no more pain" on it, I was really touched by that. We had the same bus driver from Belton to Grantham we had had when we came to Belton, he was a very funny guy, too and even turned up the radio on the bus because of lack of passengers, a nice ride, so to speak. Belton itself is a tiny village which I really liked, though we could not stop laughing on discovering the post office, you would not even have noticed it was a post office if it had not been for an A4 size piece of paper hanging in a window.
Day 6
This day brought our departure from Derbyshire, we asked our landlords if they could order a taxi for us whilst paying the bill (they would not even let us pay all of it saying it had been so nice having us there etc., the were really lovely) and the husband suddenly took our suitcases and gave us a ride in his car to the station, thank you, blush.... We went from Buxton to Stockport, from there to Bristol and changed at Bristol for the train to London which stopped at Chippenham (http://www.yourguide.org.uk/chippenham/) , Wiltshire, a lovely little market town near Bath. I truly liked Chippenham and the B&B was great, too. We had a very enthusiastic landlady who loved Bath so much that she kept telling us every 10 minutes or so "You have to go to Bath!", but we unfortunately did not have time for it, I still do not know why we did not include it in our itinerary, the weather was a bit strange, though, it was April and we had everything, from heavy snowfall to sunshine. We went into Chippenham after unpacking and saw "The Ivy", a small historic house which is now made up into flats, the landlady told us one has to wait at least 3-4 years in order to be able to get such a flat. We had not really planned it, but we went into Lacock this evening (it is only 10 minutes from Chippenham), being the result of us almost starving and no restaurant to be had, we asked in the tourist info and a man in there began telling us about his stomach problems and why he never goes to restaurants because of it and therefore was not really up-to-date with the restaurant scene, or lack thereof, but they did advise us to go into Lacock because of the nice pubs there, which we did and we ended up having dinner at the George Inn, which was one of the best ideas we had had, it«s a very old pub and the food is simply wonderful, though a bit on the expensive side. We managed not to get more than a glimpse on Lacock itself, though because we were going back the next day and wanted to save it for then. Back in Chippenham we chatted with our dear landlady about Lacock and Jane Austen and went to bed.
Day 7 We were horrified when it started to snow heavily in the morning, although this by no means meant we would skip Lacock (http://www.t-jdann.dircon.co.uk/) , not a single chance, so we waited in he house for it to clear up a bit and watched a British talk show, the topic was "Woman, you«re out of control!", well, the women there really were, we were laughing our heads off! But luckily it cleared up in the meantime and we headed again into lovely Lacock, it kept raining a little from time to time and was freezing, therefore we did not enjoy it as much as we would definitely had if the weather had been better, but the village itself looks like something out of a fairytale, if only cars would not be allowed in it..... I really want to go back to see it all again, we had to skip some parts because of the weather, but still enjoyed what we saw, an antique fair was also taking place that day which was really nice. We bought some postcards in the shop where we see Kitty calling out to Jane because she wants to show her a piece of clothing in the window. And naturally, we spent lots of money in the local National Trust shop, I finally got hold of a copy of Jane«s letters to Cassandra. We had a late lunch at the George Inn once again, which was full of people this time and afterwards went back to Chippenham.
Day 8
Luckington Court. It was a bit complicated to reach as we had to go to Malmesbury (http://www.knoll-house.com/malmesbury.htm) first, where we had to wait an hour for the bus to Luckington village, and once we arrived in Luckington, we had no idea where to find the Court, we tried to ask our way round but the only person we met was a stranger himself who had no idea, it was so quiet there, but then we saw a kindergarten and decided to ask for directions there, and after that we only had to walk down a road and spotted the house on the left.
When we walked on towards the house, a car was coming from it with two ladies in it who waved at us and once we reached the house we saw Luckington Church as well, we took a few pictures from the outside and rang the door bell then. A guide says you have to phone three weeks in advance in order to be allowed to see into the house, we did it well in advance but the owner didn't have a clue who we were, she is fairly old, so we thought she must have forgotten, when we rang the bell, a little dog came rushing out and wanted to be cuddled, we later found out it was called Lizzy Bennet since the owner had gotten her after the shooting of P&P2, when she was calling for the dog she almost sounded like Mrs. Bennett! She showed us around the garden, the church and even the horses and pigeons, but not the inside of the house.
We were allowed to get inside for some time when it started to snow again heavily and what we saw didn't really made us think about remembering her that we had phoned about being allowed to see the house, the entrance hall was almost empty, there was only a huge carpet and a chair in front of a fireplace, so we figured it would not look much like in the movie anyway. We caught the bus back to Chippenham and spent our last night there before going up north again.
Day 9
We were going to stay overnight at the house of a very dear friend of mine who lives in Sheffield (http://www.sheffield.gov.uk), so that we would not have to go straight back to Manchester Airport. On the journey back we went through Bath and made up our minds to come back to Bath next time for sure. My friend picked us up at the station in Sheffield and we drove to her house in the suburbs, she showed us a few spots which were shown in "The Full Monty". We went out for dinner and spent the whole night talking and talking and talking, we slept about 4 hours I guess and she accompanied us to the airport the next day.
Day 10
Yep, it snowed again when we woke up, actually, my friend now always blames me as soon as it starts to snow in England. We were a bit scared of missing our flights, since we had to get the train to Manchester Airport first and there was no taxi to be head because of the unexpected snow, but we did manage to reach the airport in time. The railway between Sheffield and Manchester has to be one of the most beautiful spots, as far as scenery is concerned, I have ever seen, That region is mostly know for steel and other industry, but having it«s share of the Peak District (http://www.peakdistrict.org/) it«s not only that, I could have looked out of the window all day with those hills and peaks, sigh...... and so ended our trip to England, do I have to mention that we did not want to leave?