my name is mwd

On another nice weekend, having done our various Sunday chores, we headed out to Ickworth House, which is just past Bury St Edmonds.

Ickworth is set in very nice grounds, but interestingly it’s very nice inside. Usually I don’t get very excited by looking inside old houses, finding them very uninspiring, but Ickworth was a noteable exception to this. This is probably due to the Bristol family, who had the house built and owned it until recently, all seemingly being slightly eccentric (to put it politely). But they have made a very interesting house, and it’s one which would seem quite pleasent to live in, particularly the drawing room and the hall way, which are almost modern in style despite having been built at the end of the 17th century. It was apparently described at the time as “a stupendous monument to folly”, which could be a the exact reason I like it so much.

In addition, the house has it’s own vineyard. As we hear that Kent is now gaining a reputation for its sparkling whites due to the recent spate of warm summers, we bought home a bottle of Ickworth white, which was quite enjoyable.

As an aside rant (this is the dull biking bit, so feel free to switch off now), the car park was, like a lot of places, covered in gravel, which is somewhat hazardous to motorcycles. I’m sure they do this for a level of “authentic” feel, but you can get gravel looking surfaces without having actual loose gravel on the top, but I suspect that’s more expensive and thus unlikely to be considered. It was slightly more maddening in this case as you could see a painted tarmac carpark surface under the gravel!

Anyway, that’s an aside, it’s well worth seeing the house if you’re in the area!