Where The Wildings Are

Belton House is located not far north of Grantham, in Belton. On the day we visited there were horse trials taking place on the grounds. This meant it was a bit busier than usual and the constant drone of the commentators voice could be heard around the grounds, which meant it wasn’t as peaceful as it should have been.

Anyway that didn’t really matter as there was loads to see, do and enjoy. We had lunch first in the stables restaurant, we both had jacket potato with cheese, coleslaw and salad, with a bottle of Pepsi, which came to £11.90.

Once our bellies were full we went for a walk. The gardens were immaculately kept and you need five minutes sitting down on a bench to really appreciate them. We passed by a little maze and I always enjoy the opportunity to go in a proper maze! Emma and I went in together but then split off from each other once there was more than one direction to take. I made it to the centre first and Emma wasn’t happy with my boasting while I waited for her to reach the middle of the maze too. As we exited the maze there was a very tall man in it who could see clear of the hedges, just seeing a head move around the maze was quite freaky!

We kept on walking and found ourselves at the boat house. A most unusual yellow structure next to a lake. From a distance it looked out of place, almost like it got picked up from Disney World and plonked in Belton. Close up it appeared almost animated or from a Disney film.

There were a lot of pretty flowers dotted around, many we didn’t recognise. On our way back to the house we stopped to admire the mirror pond and the orangery. The latter was a large and grand building, but appeared much smaller once inside, probably because of all the plants and greenery.

The actual house had an open door policy, basically if the door was open we could go through it, if the door was closed it was off limits. There were a lot of rooms to explore and it was a beautiful old house. One room had previously been used by the BBC series Pride and Prejudice, another was a cool looking library and another had that old house or museum smell that reminded me of my childhood when I used to visit these kind of places more often.

We didn’t call it a day at that point, as we fancied a cuppa and we also shared a brownie. Across from the stables restaurant was a second hand bookshop, which we had a ganders around, as we did with the gift shop. In the latter I dropped a fake egg when trying to juggle three at a time and not long later I dropped something else too. This meant it was time to leave, especially as one of the shop workers came to have a look at what was going on…

Belton House is one of the best National Trust locations we have been to so far this year. There’s so much to do and a whole day can easily be spent exploring everything on show.