Two Stately Homes: Bodnant and Althorp

Over the period of a week or so, I managed to visit two very different but nonetheless impressive stately homes, Bodnant, in the Conwy Valley, and Althorp, on the Northamptonshire plains.

I saw Bodnant first, on a Saturday. To get there (from the Marches) one must drive up the A483 as if heading to Chester, skirt round the Roman town towards the industrial marshlands of the Dee estuary, and then trundle along the North Wales Expressway, a dual carriageway that will take you past Victorian seeside resorts all the way to Holyhead, on Anglesey. 

A little before that is the great medieval walled town of Conwy. Its thick Welsh-stone walls keep watch over the entrance to the lush river valley that, to follow, would lead you into the heart of the Snowdonia National Park. 

On this particular day, clouds languished close to the ground and raindrops speckled the air. Bodnant House, hiding among towering pines that poked through the low clouds, appeared like a temple discovered among the mists of a damp rainforest. 

Bodnant House is not open to the public. Only the gardens, including the famous laburnum arch, are available for common consumption. Even on a day which saw a monsoon appear to descend on the North Welsh hillsides, the car park (a grassy field where plastic hatchbacks and stunningly white Teslas jostled politely for a space) was busy.

Indeed the weather really did add to the beauty of Bodnant's gardens. Not so much the Winter Garden, which is manicured and might really only be of interest to the botanist, herbolagist, or horticulturalist ‒ who might amble slowly along the gravel paths making a note of the odd Latin name (say, Convalaria majalis or Filipendula ulmaria) ‒ but the meadows, forest paths and Italiate gardens. There the dampness and creeping clouds rooted Bodnant firmly in its setting: that is, the British Isles and its infamously wet climate. 

Despite heavy-growing rain, the terraces and stone pergolas, ornamented with pink and purple roses, and strewn with their fallen leaves, hinted at Tuscan villas and Roman fountains. Bodnant House not so much. It was built in 1770 by a Colonel Forbes, in the Italianate style, and altered slightly by Henry Davis Pochin from 1874 adding, in my opinion the most alluring feature, the large Victorian conservatory in 1882. Otherwise the house speaks of elderflower cordial and slow wheelchair rides on the terraces. It is medium-large, with no character of its own. That is reserved for the gardens.

What struck me, however, was the visitors. The gardens, finely manicured, exotically populated, romantically set in amongst misty hillsides, were nonetheless full of families with plastic yellow pushchairs, wearing neon coloured plastic ponchos and rainjackets, and photographing each immaculate lawn where no ironworked table was laid for afternoon tea. Where was Jane Austen? Where was Thomas Hardy? Where was the owner of the house? We were just trespassers, blots on a garden whose maintanance depended on us.

We viewed Althorp in an altogether different climate. It was the heat of the English summer, where the rustling of the wheat in the fields seemed to be caused by little nudges of the happy sunrays. Althorp lies in the wheat, barley, and maize fields, like one who has lain down in them after a thirsty day's walk. It has a long drive that approaches the home like a red carpet, but the visitor approaches down a road that leads through the stables. 

The house itself is buttressed by lavender beds, without the saturation of bright flowers and trees which at Bodnant draw the masses in like bees. Immaculate lawns suggest croquet and picnics. Beyond the whitewashed gates and fences is expansive English parkland, large oaks providing shade to the cows and deer, here and there a nettle copse.

Inside, large sash windows are opened, allowing lavender-scented air into the galleries and bedrooms, who, since its foundation in 1508, have hosted kings, politicians, the great and the good. As much is evident from the quality of the art and furnishings, guilded gold in many places. Reynolds, the master portraitist, hangs on every wall; the landings are dripping with the grandest characters immortalised in oil.

Yet the allure of Althorp, above all the finery, the powdered dusts of power that survive each spring clean, the superior looks of the portraits that seem not to give you a second glance as you walk by, is the effect on the visitor.

The cosy rooms of Althorp, the four-poster bedrooms, the large dining hall, the library, the hallway with grand piano (laden with pictures of the Spencer family), suggest to you illicit conversations, romances brought on by frequent bouts of ennui, state dinners where you find yourself sat next to an envoy from a town of the French Riviere, evening debates on the nature of Love and Being with a group of close schoolmates, late afternoon port, Barbour jackets wet with winter weather, hunting dogs, heirs, graces, pomp and circumstance. Yet the real power of the house is that you, whilst simultaneously believing that these things could happen to you, know that they could never happen to you, for you are here walking the gallery, sniffing, eyes closed, the lavender breeze on the parquet floor, clutching a guide book tightly, as if to let it go would snuff out the illusion. You have paid the entrance fee, parked your car on a distant muddy field, greeted the employee at the door, marvelled at all of this. You will never be this, and this will never be for you.

But as you walk, calmly, along the carpeted landing, smiling back at the portrait of Sarah Churchill, you almost believe it could.