Tonights evening stroll......

...was accompanied by the giant that is the young man as hubby had gone to work. (My 15 year old is only 5 inches shorter than his dad now! ) The young man was not keen, but I managed to persuade him and we had a lovely time - chatting about his day and GCSE year as we went.

I decided we would walk down the park at Wentworth - always an easy stroll and always so very very beautiful - no matter what time of year. We parked by one of the gatehouses - it always amazes me that people still live in these tiny places.

Many locals remember a time when the big house was a college for women - PE teachers in training I think. ( I wrote a long sentance about female PE teachers here, based on my experiences in the 1970's at a Barnsley Comprehensive school - but deleted in case my teachers read it and sued me!!! ) A lot of the facilities from this time remain. The police use the site these days for fire arms/dog/seige training these days, and it can be a bit alarming if you walk down the park when the training is in full swing!

The stable block is the first building you happen upon - and its very impressive. In recent years, one tenant (a London property developer with a house on the mall!) housed his collection of "vehicles from the 20th century" in here - until his impossibly young and pretty wife of a year divorced him - and presumably ran off with wads of his dosh.

Someone has taken time to paint the gates.

And I love the ruts on the floor - evidence of many years of wear by carriage wheels.

We proceeded down through the deer park. At one time this century, they dug up the whole of the park to open cast mine it - I'll have to dig some of the pictures out that I have in a book - it looked a real mess then. You should have heard the noise that the stags were making - really loud!

You get great vista's of the many "follies" that were built around the area.

The house itself is amazing. Wentworth Woodhouse is my most favourite stately home in the UK. It is still occupied (by a recluse - the Fitzwilliams sold a 100 year lease on the house, so it still remains in what is left of the family really). What I wouldn't give to have a good old nosey around. The fact that you are allowed to walk past - tantalisingly close - is pure torture!

Ive mentioned before that it has features in films and the odd TV series, and I believe it features in the Guiness book of records for something like having the longest frontage of any house in Britain, or something similar.

Any way, it is a splendid, mysterious, intriguing house - full of history and secrets. Apparantly in the early 1970's, the family burned many archived records. The fire burned for almost 3 days. It is rumoured that they were covering up illegitimate births which might have led to some "outsider" claiming a title! Fascinating! - especially as I had a relative - who when she died, it was discovered she had a photograph of one of the earls in her purse!! He was known to have had many daliances with local ladies, and my relative was very flighty!!

We were going to continue our walk down to the lakes, but a full pheasant shoot was in full swing - and we got a bit scared (of stray bullets! - who says the countryside is a peaceful place).

Any way, I'm off to spend the rest of the evening with Nigella, Hugh FW, and "whoopsed" bottle of red from Asda (down to £3.50 from £9.00).