Cheshire’s Halls & Gardens
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Sherlock Holmes, a helpful Dalmatian, 116 bottles of bubbly and a fat lazy blonde
Growing up in Lancashire, Tatton Park has always been synonymous with days out; with ice creams and picnics, sunbathing and frisbee throwing. I suppose what I didn’t know then was that the park and the imposing pile of the Hall were one of Britain’s most impressive pieces of Tudor heritage. Standing at the gateway to the vast grounds of Tatton Hall I gazed ahead as the road stretched out in front of me. For a moment I pictured a horse-drawn carriage thundering along, hooves kicking up gravel as the occupants in their slightly mud-spattered finery were carried to an audience with Lord and Lady Egerton of the hall. What a sight that must have been.
Meandering away from the road I headed in the direction of a pack of deer. Deer are a living, breathing ‘part of the furniture’ at Tatton, so to speak. In fact, Tatton Park has been home to red and fallow deer since the 13th century and with a vast 2000 acres to roam in, you can understand why they thrive here. They are a much loved part of the Tatton family; shy, but not too shy.
After happily roaming about like an old stag myself for a while, I eventually arrived at my first port of call: The Neo-Classical Mansion House and its immaculate gardens. Imagine waking up to 50 acres of stunning scenery every morning. It certainly beats the sight of my blue wheelie bins left out for the morning collection.
During my journey to Cheshire, I’d buried my nose in the history of the Mansion House and discovered that rather a lot of ‘home improvements’ had been undertaken by the Egerton family who purchased Tatton Park in 1598. Head of the household was John Egerton but it was his son Samuel Egerton who obviously fancied himself as a bit of a Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen – but less dandyish of course – and started to make changes to the house and grounds. Intrigued to see how Samuel’s visions had been brought to life, I made my way to what was once an exuberant Rococo drawing room, but is now a dining room simply dripping in 18th century French style. The room is certainly spectacular and more than a little refined.
