A Beautiful Day's Outing ~ Final Part

After the Pit village we made our way back up the road to Home Farm.

The Farm has a beautiful farm house, stables, barns, two cottages & vegetable garden.

Home Farm is set in the 1940's, it shows how the countryside was in wartime.

 

The vegetable garden at the farm. I think the fence will be on our to do list in the spring, hopefully it will help keep the little rabbits out of our vegetables.

 

                                                           
                                                      Mary day dreaming

  There is a beautiful duck pond at the farm, we would love some ducks.

There are two old labourer's cottages on the farm, this one is called Orchard Cottage & is set out to have evacuee's living there. The twins loved the Ludo game.

At the back of Orchard Cottage is an Anderston shelter, Sidney was straight in there. Not the girls though, Kitty especially does not like anything dirty unless it is planting flowers.

Inside Garden Cottage with it beautiful cast iron range, this cottage is set out as the Land Girls would have been billeted here.

             The front of Home Farm, to the far side is the farm house & to the near is the stables.

 

Danny & the twins walking in to the old stables, there were two shire horses in there.

A vintage tractor pulling out to work on the fields. The following weekend was a ploughing celebration so they were getting ready for it.

 

The Pantry at Home Farm.

       Such a beautiful large room, how I could fill those shelves. They have some lovely old hooks for hanging meat & drying things. We have some of those in our cottage, I do wonder what was hang on them many years ago.

The farmhouse kitchen, they have a lovely large old kitchen range always so warm & welcoming. The settle is original to the house, such a lovely shade of old green.

 

Bobby meeting a very large pig.

 

The orchard at Home Farm laden with apples.

The farm has many dry stone walls, a favourite of mine.

Yorkshire, County Durham & The Lakes are full of them.

 

                      The last stop on our day out was to the Georgian Landscape,
               which includes Pockerley Old Hall, old house, gardens & farmstead. 
                                          The first record of a settlement at Pockerley
                                                            dates back to 1183,                  
                                  there is such a feel of history in this magical place.
                             This is by far my favourite place in the living museum.
                                        The Manor House dates back to the late 1700's
                                                      & is built from local sand stone.

 

We found this back lane that we hadn't walked before,

I love our English countryside.

 

Mary caught them up in the end.

 

 

& then she came back to Mum.

 

We entered Pockerley Old Hall set in the 1820's through the back kitchen or scullery.

This room was used for heating water, washing clothes & dishes.

 

 

Peat is used on the fire in the scullery.

This room does remind me of home.

 

                                       The Pantry, I love the simple look in here.

 

Preserves made in the kitchen.

 

Such a beautiful Georgian dresser with pewter & Spode lining the shelves. I love the set of copper pans over the doorway.

             This room is so beautiful, there is always something baking, today it was cheese thins.
This kitchen has a very early cast iron range, it also has an older brick bread oven in a beehive shape. We have a brick beehive bread oven in our inglenook fireplace at home, that was one of the first things that I loved when we viewed the cottage which we now call home.

 

An early court cupboard.

                                           The bureau in the parlour full of old papers.

                     One of the things we love about Beamish is the fact that you can touch & feel everything, they really get you feeling the history. Not many museums would let you play games.

 

Coming out from the main door of Pockerley Old Hall to the formal garden. Below the terrace beyond is the vegetable garden.

 

Front of the old hall.

 

Next to the hall is the medieval strong house.

The roof timbers in here date back to the 1440's.

The children love the old spinning wheel & have a go at carding.

The items in this house are so beautiful.

 

The fireplace in the medieval strong house, it has a beautiful chimney crane & there is always something bubbling in the pot.

Above the fireplace is a rack called a flake, this is used for drying oatcakes.

                                            Making tallow candles & rush lights.

The vegetable garden, the gardens in the Georgian landscape are set out as gardens would have been around the 1820's.
   

 

Simple Bee Skep.

                                                       Beautiful nasturtium's.

 

On our way through the woods back home.

It was a perfect day, one I will treasure for a long time.

 

Enjoy your day

fondly

Michelle

A Beautiful Day's Outing ~ Part Two

It is a dull day this morning in England, I have got my bread rising & thought I would get my second post about Beamish done.

After the town we took an old bus to the Pit Village. It is lovely down there in the valley, there is a row of miner's cottages, an old school, coal mine, vegetable gardens, church, pit pony stables, coal fired fish & chip shop & farm animals.

 

In one of the pit cottages they were making vegetable soup on the cast iron range. It smelled so good.

 

 

These cottages have a kitchen & then a parlour downstairs, there would have been the parent's, grandparent's & many children living in these cottage's. Sometimes the parlour had a bed in it.

                                                     Such a lovely amount of vegetable's.

             These turnips were so large, they use all the vegetables to cook in the cottages.

    We bought some of these ash split rail fences when we went to The Georgian Fair at beamish earlier in the year. We have used them for dividing the area in our vegetable garden.  The row of cottages is called Francis Street, they originally came from Wearside.

 

The twins are enjoying Black Beauty at the moment so the rocking horse in the school was really enjoyed.

 

                                      We could do with some of these little desks at home.

                                                              Danny with the twins.
                                                  We could have left them there all day.

         The girls have some of these slates at home, they really enjoyed the school building.

                             Two of the trams on the way back up for the Pit village.

 

On our way to the carousel.

 

If you talk to the Kitty & Mary about Beamish the first thing they will say is can we go on the carousel. At the moment it is one of the best things in the world to them.

 

 Better get back to my bread.

Home Farm will be in the next post.

Fondly

Michelle

A Beautiful Day's Outing Before School Starts

Part One.

We had such a beautiful day for our day out to Beamish Living Museum, we always love going there & the sun truly shone for us on Tuesday.

I had made raspberry muffins the day before so we left at 7 o'clock & had breakfast on the journey.

 

 

                                                    Raspberry muffins & tea bread.
We always take a picnic when we have days out & with five children I need to bake plenty. Daisy was painting at the other end of the table.

 

We were there at just past 10 o'clock & were so glad to get out of the car. Beamish has old trams & buses to get on but we decided to walk to the 1900's Town our first stop, the fresh air was lovely after being in the car.

 

 

Kitty & Mary outside a little hut on the walk to the town.

I wonder what they were talking about.

 

We arrived at the Bakers first & they were in the middle of making tea cakes. They have a shop next door where you can buy bread & cakes they bake.

                    Next stop was Jubilee sweet shop, they were making cinder toffee.

The twins outside Annfield Plain Co-op which is the grocer's, they do enjoy going in all the shops. A lot of the building's & inside's were moved from other places in England to here, Annfield Plain is in County Durham. The girls love watching all the demonstrations & get quite involved in them, you are not so shy when you are five.
                                                

 

Inside the grocer's shop.

All the bags of tea, sugar, lentils & other food item's were in different colour bags, this way to help people that could not read.

 

I love all the old tins & packets.

To go back & shop here.
The till was made in Dayton, Ohio.

 

Beautiful old buttons & threads, I have some similar from my Grandmother's sewing box.

 

Kitty's looking at her next pair of boots. Oh I wish you could buy the displays, she loved those boots.

 

Inside the hardware shop.

There were household goods sold here.

There was so much beautiful china, oil lamps, candles in here.

 

This is a cottage in Ravensworth Terrace, a row of houses in the town.  They were making chutney in this kitchen, that is on my list to do next week.

 

                            Kitty in one of the bedrooms, she could have stayed the night.

 

I loved these outside one of the cottages.

This is the nursery bedroom in the town. The twins stood here for ages talking about what toys they would like, we have a lot of antique & vintage toys at home that they play with.

 

A beautiful cast iron range.

 

We have a cupboard similar to this one, it all felt so homely.

 

One of the trams picking up people in the old town. Here are two of our boy's Danny & Sidney.

 

I took so many photo's so I will do a few posts about Beamish. There is a beautiful Georgian Manor circa 1825, a 1940's farm & a Victorian coal mining town to come.

 

We have a new member coming to the family a week on Sunday, a little kitten.

We are trying to think of a name for him.

 

Thank you all for your lovely comments.

Fondly Michelle

Last Week of Our English Summer

I can't believe how fast this Summer has gone, maybe it is because I am growing older.  But don't they say the older you grow the quicker it goes!
                
The children are back to their studies this week so life will change. I have enjoyed the carefree days & days outside, we have had a truly blessed Summer.

Kitty & Mary planted these sunflowers, they have done so well in this spot. I know the hens will enjoy the heads once they have dried a little.

 

A friend gave us some Victoria Plums from his garden so I made a plum pudding with them.

 

 

I love the colours of these plums, so pretty.

 

 

We enjoyed it warm with some cream. These photo's look very Autumnally, how quick Summer is ending.

                   Kitty is busy collecting leaves in the garden to make a wreath.

 

 

We are off out for a day on Tuesday to a working museum so I made a batch of Toll House Cookies to take with us. I have had this recipe for nearly ten years now, it was sent to me from a friend Karen in MA. If you look above the inglenook fireplace you can see the girls wreath, they loved collecting all the leaves, chestnuts, rosehips & hazelnuts to decorate it.

 

 

I thought you would like to meet Bobby our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel , he is such a gentle loving soul.

 

 

Kitty with a pot of raspberries, they have done so well this year.

We have a late fruiting variety & they just keep fruiting. You have to be quick though before the birds get them.

I have frozen so many & the girls can not get enough of them on their porridge.

 

 

I made the meat loaf out of Tasha Tudor cook book for dinner, we had it with noodles & green beans.

This is the first time I have made it & we had an empty plate.

 

 

Sweetcorn just picked from the garden, perfect with our chicken, potatoes & beans for Sunday lunch.

 

 

 

Rock cakes for tea, we enjoy them with butter on top.

I make these every week it seems, we love them & they are quick to fill the cake tins as they never stay full for long!

 

 

Andy took this photo of me in the garden the other day.

I thought you might like to put a face to the name.

 

 

Enjoy your day.

Michelle