Wimpole Hall

While travelling down to London on Tuesday, we went into Royston, and discovered that Wimpole Hall was just along the road. This is another of the seemingly endless National Trust places, and has a working farm attached. In fact, people have been farming on this spot since before the Domesday Book was written, which makes our individual lives seem rather insignificant. Wimpole also has a large walled garden, with a great variety of dahlias in particular, along with the usual vegetables, and scarecrows - one is a Humpty Dumpty not yet fallen off the wall. And it has very extensive walks.
We got to the House after we’d been to the farm and through the gardens, so we’d already done quite a bit of walking. The sight that greeted us on arriving at the house, however, was something the National Trust presumably hadn’t provided: hundreds of swallows flittering and scattering around the façade, in preparation for doing their major trip overseas. They were swooping and diving and clinging to the front of the building and in general making a wonderful spectacle.
The House itself is yet another example of the wonders of a past age, and how money was spent wisely on all manner of beautiful things. But perhaps what was most impressive to us in this House was the servants’ level. Down in the basement, of course, but not without windows looking onto the grounds. In fact, one of the bedrooms down there would have made a great room for any guest, with its lovely views across the grounds. There was a steward’s room, with a writing desk and table for the other male servants to press their clothes, and there was the housekeeper’s room, with a small piano which she no doubt could use to while away her (very) few idle hours.
While I don’t remember a lot about the other floors of the house - unfortunately after a while all these great houses tend to blur into one big amalgam - I do remember that there was one long room that had originally been three smaller ones. It had become a room for walking in on wet days, or for putting on concerts, or playing the piano in. Another large room had been, for a time, converted into three small rooms by one of the more impoverished ladies of the house. Doors in this room were covered over, the wonderful plaster ceiling was obscured and in general there had been a lack of concern for the look of the place. Yet another room now houses all the odd sketches and paintings and drawings: pictures of servants’ livery, of various carriages, dozens of extravagant cartoons by some forgotten political satirist, pictures of horses.
Rudyard Kipling’s daughter married into the family that owned the house, early in the 20th century, and she was the final owner. There are a number of books and papers by Kipling on display.