Nostell Priory

Finally, we went to a National Trust place on my family's little holiday; and I'm not hiding the fact that I'm a bit of a National Trust nut over here! I know I say this a lot - but this time I really do mean it - to date, this is the best NT place I've ever visited. The lighting and shadow effects there are fantastic, drawing your eyes to details you wouldn't otherwise have notices. The interior has plenty of stunning art and an Oriental twist, displayed most prominently in the chinoiserie-styled State Bedroom (which sadly I couldn't photograph, it being so dark inside).
The State Bedroom is so grand and opulent, with a huge canopy bed, golden silk everywhere, and a ceiling carved with angels playing a violin. I wish I could have shown it here, but my exposure on my camera isn't that great.

Beautiful dress details. Historical interior design and fashion paintings have really encouraged me to like bright, unusual colours that I otherwise wouldn't  have considered for dresses and wallpaper shades.

A lot of religious paintings.

The way they set things up at Nostell Priory is also engaging. They make it look like somebody actually lives there, rather than like a museum of sorts where everything is on display. You could just reach out and touch the items, though of course I wouldn't even try.

More exotic colours and gowns.

Another Oriental bedroom. The pairing of gold and green is rather interesting.

I'm taking a lot of pictures of this style of painting recently. I think it's Baroque? I'm hoping to have a go at copying the design sometime so I can get better at painting - maybe in the future I could do some painting in the home, to incorporate this style.

On the way out, I also heard a fascinating story about a servant girl called Nancy, who died in an elevator accident in the home. Stories like that always make me wonder if ghosts exist, especially in such historical homes.

Leeds Medical Museum and York

A couple of weeks ago I went on a short getaway with my family to Leeds and York. To be completely honest, I didn't have that great a time as I was feeling very ill - worse than I've been in months - so I found it hard to relax and enjoy myself. The things we did were fun, but my head was just in an extremely bad place.

On the first day we visited Thackray Museum, otherwise known as the Leeds Medical Museum. I'd been there before on a very enjoyable, memorable school trip a few years ago, so it was wonderful to go again. Although perhaps not for the fainthearted, the history of medicine and surgery is very fascinating, not to mention gruesome - and Thackray touches on it in great detail from Medieval times, until very recent modern day.
Another amazing part of the museum is the extremely life-like, realistic Victorian street. My senses were almost bombarded by the amount of detail put into giving it verisimilitude; it was dark, dingy, filthy, and even smelt strongly of a Victorian street! Be warned though, the realism is sometimes quite terrifying, and they spare no grisly details in constructing the bloodied wax models! I've seen at least three people scared of the models, and I'm pretty sure my brother was traumatised. ;)

 

There was a shop there that I loved, called Duttons for Buttons - I want to go there again! It was very quaint and had three floors of haberdashery, and many things in stock that you most likely won't find in the usual sewing shops. I got some antique glass buttons from the 1930s, some pretty lace, and an embroidery hoop for future use. To give you an idea how sweet the shop was, I heard a lady that worked there exclaim: "Oh crumbs, I forgot your hat pin!" to another lady. I'm pretty certain I want to live in that shop alone!