Neither my mother nor I had a particularly great night’s sleep in Bath – the room was really stuffy – so we were quite tired when we eventually got out of bed at about 8am.  Breakfast was ok, but it gave us the opportunity to find something we wanted to do on the way home.  I had seen a couple of signs for Dyrham Park on the way to Bath, and a quick internet search showed that there was a house and gardens to explore, so off we went.

We were a bit confused when we got to the car park as we couldn’t see a house anywhere, but we eventually figured out that it was a short walk away down a big hill.  It actually turned out to be a really pleasant stroll, mainly because of these guys:

There are just under 200 fallow deer roaming around the grounds of Dyrham Park, and it’s so lovely to turn a corner and see them just hanging out under a tree.  I think there are some cows as well, but I didn’t see any.

We went pretty much straight into the house as it was opening, and it was like we had it to ourselves – every room we went in was empty which left us plenty of time to look at everything.  It’s a really beautiful baroque mansion, and there are many pieces of Dutch art, some of which are truly spectacular.  I fell in love with two Samuel van Hoogstraten paintings – “A View Down a Corridor” and  “A Perspective View of the Courtyard of a House” – they were so striking.

We spent about an hour wandering through the house, and afterwards , we quickly popped into the church behind the house.

I had worn my Mum out the previous day from dragging her around Bath so we sneakily took the shuttle bus back up the top of the hill.  It was getting really busy at that point so I’m glad we’d got there as it opened.  It was a very pleasurable way to spend the morning before we went back home.