We have been members of the National Trust for some time, but we haven't made full use of our membership, so today we decided to rectify that! We headed for Cragside in Northumberland ........ but we had a couple of delays on the way. The first was a heavily laden timber lorry
but we didn't really mind having to stop until these sheep went past
This was our first view of the house, a magnificent Victorian house built for Lord Armstrong. Its greatest claim to fame is that it was the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectric power
This information board tells you of the other wonders of the house
Unusually, photography is allowed in the house, but no flash, so some of the photos are a little bit dark. If I had lived/worked in the house, I would have made the butler my best friend - check out all the champagne bottles in his pantry!
When we walked into this room, we were stunned by the magnificence of this fireplace
But there were small details to catch the eye as well - like this exquisite wallpaper
Of course, the main theme of this blog is craft, so I was delighted to see several patchwork quilts. Unfortunately, the lighting in these rooms was even lower to protect the fabrics, so this is the best photo I managed to take
You know one of my obsessions is post boxes, so imagine my delight to discover that the house had one of its own in the hall
This next photo is for Malcolm, who likes both woodcarving and owls!
It has been hard to pick which photos to share with you .... tomorrow I'll show you some of the grounds - there are 40 miles of paths, so we didn't quite manage to walk all of them! In the meantime, you can read more about the house here, here, here and lastly, here. I know that's a lot of link, but they all have different bits of information, so it's worth having a look at all of them!!