Temple Newsam Centenary Celebrations

I've featured Temple Newsam many times on my blog. I grew up a stones throw away from the Tudor-Jacobean house and grounds, and we still live only a short car ride away.

Temple Newsam Estate was bought by Leeds City Council in 1922 for the princely sum of £35,000 and on Sunday, to celebrate the anniversary, general admission was taken back 100 years to 6p for adults and 3p for children. It's years since I've been inside the house so we decided to join in with the celebrations and take a look around.

There have been many residents of Temple Newsam over the years but the most famous is Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, shown here with his younger brother, Charles. He was born at Temple Newsam in 1546 and went on to marry Mary Queen of Scots and father the future King James I of England. James was the first king of both England and Scotland. 

This is The Picture Gallery, the grandest room at Temple Newsam. It was designed to provide a spectacular room for entertaining and impressing guests. 

I nearly always forget to look up when visiting grand houses but then you end up missing so much. Just look at this beautiful ceiling.

The Chinese Drawing Room is notable for its spectacular Chinese wallpaper which was given to Lady Isabella Hertford by her close friend, the Prince of Wales, who became King George IV in 1820. This room became a ladies' drawing room in the early 1800s but prior to that, it was part of the original Tudor-era kitchens.

How's this for a light shade.

The harp and piano fit well in this room.

We so often walk at Temple Newsam and see the house from the grounds, it seemed funny to be looking from the inside out towards the gardens.

I enjoyed looking at all the portraits around the house, especially on the staircase. In hindsight, we should have bought a guidebook as only a few of the paintings had any information about who they were, I'm sure more details would be provided in the book.

Looking from the bottom of one of the staircases.

The dark room. This room allowed two servants to reside conveniently next to the adjoining apartment. The contrast in decoration and comfort between the servants' room and the rooms of those they served is quite apparent.

The Organ Clock stands at over 2.5 meters tall and is not only a clock but an automaton - it has an organ that plays music by itself, accompanied by a lively animated scene above the clock face. The clock is said to have once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, though this cannot be verified. The music and animated scene once played automatically every hour but in recent years, the clock has undergone extensive conservation work to maintain it in working order and so they're now manually triggered.

This is just a taster of some of the things which can be seen at Temple Newsam, there's far too many to cram into a blog post, but it's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. My next post will show what we did after the house visit.