It was the third day of our holiday in Shropshire and It had been raining all morning. When the sun finally decided to appear, our humans decided to take us to visit the Dudmaston Estate - a National Trust property close to where we were staying.
Dudmaston is quite unusual because it has been lived in by the same family for over 875 years. When the National Trust acquired the property in 1978, it was under the strict instructions that the house was to remain a family home – and so it is. As a result, the house itself is closed to the general public between October and April. Having said that, Dudmaston has one of the most important private collections of modern art in Britain, and the family is happy to share these with people on other days in the year.
In the beginning -in 1127 - Dodemannestone manor was granted to Harlewyn de Butaille who was a Norman knight. Harlewyn was also given half a hide of land. (In medieval times a hide was the amount of land thought big enough to support a free-living peasant family.) Harlewyn decided to set up home and he adopted the name of Dudmaston.
In all of those 875 years, so much has befallen the family, and they have had their fair share of early deaths, child heirs, rich dowries, mental illness, politics, law, gambling and debt.
The house is now lived in by the Hamilton-Russell family who are the second cousins of Lady Rachel Labouchere who left the property for the National Trust to look after.
We didn’t see any sign of the family today. – It would have been quite interesting to meet them!
As we hadn’t visited Dudmaston before we were given brief instructions of where we could and couldn’t go – Dudmaston is a two-paw property – so, there are certain places such as the house and the formal gardens where we are not allowed, but there are also lots of areas where we are.
It was already lunchtime when we arrived, so we claimed a picnic bench in the orchard where the trees hung so heavy with shiny red apples that they couldn’t hold on to all of them. As we slurped our doggy ice cream the relative peace was intermittently interrupted by the soft thud of apples dropping to the ground.
After lunch, we headed off to explore the estate. There was a very helpful large board located at the start of the walk which informed our humans what to look out for at this time of the year. But it also reminded us that we were walking on working farmland and that we were likely to meet livestock – and especially sheep so we most definitely had to stay on our leads. We didn’t mind. It is always exciting exploring somewhere new.
The scents of autumn hung heavy on the air as we trotted down the path. Our nostrils twitched as we breathed in fermenting fruit, and damp musty fungi, and, somewhere close, we could hear the gurgle and rush of running water.
But, then just around the corner, we ran into a large black metal sheep which was instructing us not to scare sheep – it really freaked me out!
But this was an important reminder - Sheep are very sensitive animals and even the slightest ‘fright’ can cause a pregnant ewe to abort her lamb. This is why it is so important for our humans to keep us on our leads because even the softest best-behaved dog has the potential to become a ‘killer’.
Having managed to slip past these metal beasts we carried on into the dingle. The soft damp earth felt lovely to our paws and there was the delightful sound of trickling water as we crossed over a rustic bridge made of oak and boughs of rhododendrons.
We climbed up and down steep paths through trees radiant in vibrant autumn reds, yellows and golds. There were miniature forests of fungi sprouting out everywhere. We pulled our humans up the steepest gradients and they, in turn, checked us as we strained to run down the other side – it was great fun – until we met another metal sheep – I really don’t like them!
We soon found ourselves down by the lake – Here there was an impressive boathouse roofed with an assortment of red clay tiles. - we couldn’t see a boat inside though!
There were lots of trees lining the lake side, many of them were clinging to the bank and dipping slender root toes into the cool water, and the lake spread out before us like a vast silver mirror.
It wasn’t long before we found our way back towards the formal gardens and although our humans were not allowed to enter, we could still appreciate the beauty within them. Tall statuesque trees looked down on beds of bright orange and red, and shrubs dripped with crimson berries. All of the autumn colours seemed to shine even more brightly in the late afternoon sunshine
On the other side of the lake, the house sat proudly on the hill – there was a small group of people standing outside it and admiring the view – could it have been the family?
Bruno and I thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Dudmaston, even though we were only able to glimpse a small portion of its 3,000 acres. By what we have seen, we think that it is certainly worthy of a two-paw rating, but we are looking forward to a return visit when we can explore even more of this magnificent estate.
An adventure for another day!
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