Well, we’ve hardly been living on the edge of late, but we did have lunch in a house built in 1570 today. As the host said, it’s amazing to think that Shakespeare was writing his plays around the time the house was built. Actually Shakespeare was only born in 1564, so he probably wasn’t writing much at that point, but you get the idea.
The people who own the house, which is situated near Bury St Edmunds, are both into the conservation of old buildings, and this place is a prime example of a house built (and restored) in the wattle and daub process. It has a thatched roof (I’m told thatched roofs are great, except that they need more frequent repair than more solid materials such as the tile roofs that are common everywhere in
It’s a bit weird going into a house this old (400 plus years), and sitting down at a table amongst furniture that’s also old (not as old as the house, but still old). On the walls are photographs of various ancestors in the typical serious poses of the early 20th century and before, and the floors in the kitchen are made of bricks on sand. Apparently that stays very dry. The rooms have an uneven look about them, and even though I’m only 5’6” tall, I hit my head on one of the door frames, and would have hit it on more if I hadn’t watched out. Even the ceiling beams are within inches of my head.
The house has mod cons, of course, because these are 21st century people, but it retains the atmosphere of a home built centuries ago – plenty of creaking floors, for example. (There were plenty of those upstairs at Blickling Hall as well – no doubt there for the benefit of Anne Boleyn’s ghost!).
We’re going back to this house mid-July, to stay there for a week, so you’ll no doubt hear more about it.
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