Shugborough

Having returned my teenage ward to the bosom of his family, it was time to do old people's stuff. So his dad and I headed off for a day at National Trust property, Shugborough near Stafford. Actually its only part National Trust and part local authority owned. Its two claims to fame are that it was the seat of the Late Lord Patrick Lichfield, royal photographer and it is a complete working estate. It has the big house, flower gardens, landscape gardens littered with follies, but also the supporting farm, mill and walled garden to produce food for the lord. All of which makes it very interesting. And fortunately, on a Monday with showers predicted, not at all busy.

Walled garden with Head  Gardeners House

Blacksmith in residence

Mill complex

Aylesbury Ducks. Delicious

A guinea-pig house

The Tower of the WInds. Used as a gambling den

The sculpture walk is very lacking in sculpture - this mosaic newt being one of the few.

Longhorn cattle

The house from the front gardens

The ruin, curiously built as a ruin, but now in a more ruined, and reduced, stae

The Chinese House

The Cat Monument

And with time to kill before my train home, a little walk round Stafford