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A visit to Osterley Park
Apr. 18th, 2021 08:16 amStaying with my mother for the weekend, yesterday we went to Osterley Park. It's a National Trust house, the house itself is shut but the extensive gardens can be visited by appointment. The drive through South London on the first Saturday shopping day for months was a bit trying, compounded by the fact that I had carelessly put "Osterley Park" into Google Maps rather than "Osterley Park National Trust" (turns out that the first address takes you to a Tesco, who knew?).
Anyway, once we had got over that little contretemps and M and I had both regained our tempers the visit was delightful. It was a gorgeous spring day and many tulips and daffodils were out, and cherry trees and magnolias were in bloom. The colours were a delight after the drabness of the last few months. The formal gardens were pretty empty (you have to pay for these with your car parking ticket), so Mum and I didn't bother with masks.
We ambled round looking at the Palladian style buildings incongruously embedded in the English landscape. They had shiny white façades but were backed with Georgian style windows, looking neither properly classical nor Italian. We sat under trees and listened to birdsong, spotting a tiny wren sitting on a shrub and giving forth a vocalisation that resembled a (very high-pitched) machine gun in style and volume. We saw brimstone and orange-tip butterflies, which made my mother happy as she hadn't seen one of the latter for years.
We finished with a cup of tea in the Stables courtyard, at socially distanced tables. When we got home Mum dug out a guidebook which explained that the house was owned by the Child banking family and eventually inherited by Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, who married the Earl of Jersey and became Sally Jersey in the Georgette Heyer novels. There's a picture of her in the book in her countess robes of red velvet and ermine looking rather statelier than she appears in the novels.
Anyway, once we had got over that little contretemps and M and I had both regained our tempers the visit was delightful. It was a gorgeous spring day and many tulips and daffodils were out, and cherry trees and magnolias were in bloom. The colours were a delight after the drabness of the last few months. The formal gardens were pretty empty (you have to pay for these with your car parking ticket), so Mum and I didn't bother with masks.
We ambled round looking at the Palladian style buildings incongruously embedded in the English landscape. They had shiny white façades but were backed with Georgian style windows, looking neither properly classical nor Italian. We sat under trees and listened to birdsong, spotting a tiny wren sitting on a shrub and giving forth a vocalisation that resembled a (very high-pitched) machine gun in style and volume. We saw brimstone and orange-tip butterflies, which made my mother happy as she hadn't seen one of the latter for years.
We finished with a cup of tea in the Stables courtyard, at socially distanced tables. When we got home Mum dug out a guidebook which explained that the house was owned by the Child banking family and eventually inherited by Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, who married the Earl of Jersey and became Sally Jersey in the Georgette Heyer novels. There's a picture of her in the book in her countess robes of red velvet and ermine looking rather statelier than she appears in the novels.
