Post by Dave on Jun 20, 2023 18:14:29 GMT
Saltram House Revisited 20th June 2023
I first visited Saltram House on the 20th July 2009 with my late wife Carol. It was our second visit to a National Trust property and we caught the bug and then spent a number of years visiting as many as we could in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset.
Back then the Trust would not allow any photography inside their buildings so you had to be content with just shots from the outside and in the gardens.
Thankfully that has changed and in most properties you can now click away as much as you want, but I do believe you are not allowed to use any flash inside. Not a problem if you have a high end pro camera that performs well in lower lighting.
Last month Devon Live was offering a limited number of free family tickets to any National Trust properties and I made sure I got my hands on one. Where to use it was the only thing I needed to think about as I said I have been to most of them in the Southwest of England.
Before she met me Lyn had never had any interest in old buildings or ruined castles etc, that all changed very quickly. Soon she was climbing towers in ruined castles in Wales with me (she was born in Swansea) and making sure she learned all the history on any National Trust properties we visited together.
Despite living in Plymouth for over thirty years, Lyn had never been to Saltram house, so that seemed the perfect choice. I knew I enjoyed my last visit to the house and now I would be able to finally get some inside shots.
The downstairs rooms in the house cry out we are rich and want the world to know, but maybe because I had seen them before they did not have the same wow factor as they did the first time I saw them. Also only one room was open to the public upstairs, I am sure there was more the last time. But I do know some rooms end up getting closed if they do not have enough volunteers on any given day.
Still it all looked grand and you need to look everywhere in each room to marvel at such things as the wonderful ceilings. There are plenty of boards to read which we took the time to read.
All was going fine until we got to the library, my camera has been set up by me to use back button focus, and this means the shutter button can now only take the final picture after I have focused the image using the back focus button.
Went to focus a shot and nothing happened and all the information in the viewfinder was missing. Took me a while to find out the lens I was using was not fully connected; I must have pressed the release button by accident. Thankfully it had not fallen off the camera as it would have been ruined and I would be £700 worst off.
Now happy again as the camera was fine and working well, we finished off our tour of the house and went to walk around the gardens.
In the past Lyn as struggled at some of the places I have taken her with inclines. But thankfully the gardens here are mostly flat and she did really well walking the whole area with me. We walked to the orangery and also the castle folly and decided we had walked as far as we could.
So it was down the Lime Avenue back towards the house, here you just imagine yourself on horseback riding to the house. During the afternoon I had stopped and talked with so many people, it is something I always end up doing wherever I go.
We had already decided to get something to eat and drink here before we set off home, not something we normally do. But as we had already saved ourselves £29 it did not matter how dear the food etc was. To be honest just over £34 for the food, drinks and an ice-cream seemed a bargain day out.
We both needed to get out of our house and it turned out to be such an enjoyable day and a big thank you to Lyn for putting up with me stopping to talk with everyone and stopping to take photos.
I spend a lot of my time following urban explorers on Utube, who visit old abandoned mansions etc. its heartbreaking to see the state so many of these buildings are in now with no hope of ever being saved.
It is why I am thankful we have the National Trust and English Heritage who between them save what they can. Once they are gone they are gone for good along with all their wonderful history.
