Where The Wildings Are

This year we have National Trust membership and hope to take advantage of it as much as possible. I used to visit a lot of castles and old stately homes when I was a child, but that hasn’t happened as much in recent years. This is mainly due to us not being able to afford it.

We went to Derbyshire for the weekend and on our first day we visited Kedleston Hall. The sun was out as we passed through Derby, but the fog descended once we reached the countryside.

The first thing we did was go to the church next to the hall. Emma’s uncle sadly passed away last year and he is buried in the church graveyard as he was the head gamekeeper at Kedleston Hall.

Because we visited in late January the hall was closed, but the shop was still open. To reach it you get to walk through part of the building and see some stuffed animals and varied portraits on the walls. My aim was to buy an eraser once we were in the shop, which is what I used to do when I was a child. But to my surprise there were no erasers to be seen! I was flabbergasted!

Even though it was cold, grey and foggy we still went for a walk around the grounds. The Pleasure Gardens which are situated at the back of the hall were a nice area to walk around and would be a lovely location on a warmer day to have a picnic. We also walked to the bridge, where we drove in from, as there’s a pretty waterfall that runs underneath. We walked part way round the lake, but turned back when we realised it was a longer walk than we anticipated. We’ll have to walk around the entire body of water on a summer visit.

We had lunch in the restaurant. It wasn’t particularity cheap but the food was good. I had Thai squash soup with a piece of brown bread and Emma had a jacket potato with cheese, coleslaw and salad, which she raved about! At least the money is going to a good cause.

There’s a lot to see and do here and we’re looking forward to coming again to do more than we could this time round.