The family were at work all day & we wouldn't see them until the evening so we had a leisurely morning doing some chores and chatting with the neighbours. After lunch we headed off to Petworth House, a National Trust property about 10 miles away and one we have wanted to visit for a while. It was the home of the Percy family, the Earls of Northumberland who were the most powerful family in northern England during Tudor times, and whose descendants still live at Petworth today.

Petworth has extensive grounds designed by Capability Brown which you walk through to access the house; the autumn colours in the park were beautiful, but obviously much further on than those in the Pyrenees as there were a lot of leaves on the floor. The park has England’s largest herd of fallow deer, although we didn’t see any; the path winds through trees and lawns until you emerge at the rear of the house, which you enter through a very utilitarian looking corridor.












In stark contrast to the plain entrance, the first room is a wonderful 16^th century chapel with stunning stained glass windows from that era. Further down the corridor is a room in even greater contrast – the North Gallery, which is full of fabulous paintings by Turner, Constable & Van Dyck, ancient and Neo-classical sculptures and beautiful furniture & carvings by Grinling Gibbons. One of the nice things about this room was the fact that there were seats to sit on so you could really drink in the artwork, and there was a LOT to take in as the paintings were 4 canvases high in some places.

We wandered through the public rooms, marveling at more paintings in some, Gibbons’s intricate carvings covering the walls in the Carved Room and huge tapestries in yet more. The Grand Staircase was also filled with artwork and carvings and there were views over the park from all the windows. Coincidentally we were there on a Monday, which is the day that Lord & Lady Egremont, the current owners, open some of their private apartment for visitors, so we saw them too but were not allowed to take pictures.









Across the courtyard were the stand-alone servants quarters including the kitchens, and what a revelation that turned out to be: apparently the contents were all packed up during WW2 and stored in a cellar, but had been unearthed by the National Trust in the 1990s. There were over 1000 copper pans on display in a highly polished state, bain maries and other cooking vessels plus a cabinet full of the most ornate ice cream moulds.



I was entranced by a small display in a corridor, with information boards showing the hierarchy of the servants, photographs, a description of their jobs and quotes from some of each role. This really brought the house to life for me as it was about real people doing real jobs and I lingered there for quite a while. However it was getting late and we had a dinner date in Bognor, so we walked back through the park having had a lovely day.









Our holiday had finally come to an end and it was time to return home. We had travelled just over 3000 miles, of which 2600 were getting to Benicassim & back. We had seen mountains and plains, beaches and deserts, castles and fiestas, experienced rain and a lot of sun, been active & fairly sedentary and spent time with friends & family. What more could one ask of a holiday?