Our Gothic Drawing Room, decorated to the designs of AWN Pugin in 1849 contains six tapestries, which combine to give the room its rich and warm atmosphere.  Four of them came from Wimpole Hall, the former home of the Earls of Hardwicke, one of whose daughters married the Second Earl Somers and brought the tapestries with her.

It is wonderful to have them .  But the problem with tapestries is that they are vunerable to damage from light and, in museum conditions, would be kept at very low levels of lighting, so that it would be hard to appreciate their beauty.  One of our tapestries, showing the Battle of Arbela, now referred more accurately as Gaugamela, in 331BC, has suffered in this way over the years.  The sun has shone on part of it through a gap in the blinds, and the ultra violet rays have cut the silk so there is a noticeable tear.  There has been some fading of the colours too and it is in need of a good clean..

This year, we decided to have it restored.  We first had a reproduction made by a process using a photograph to print its image onto linen so we could use the “fake” to fill the gap on the wall.  The original has now been removed and its currently in Belgium where it was woven in Flanders.  It will be back early next year and should look much better.  I only hope it does not make the other five look too scruffy as a result.�

We have just hosted the Travelling Souk  at Eastnor, and it was attended by over 300 keen shoppers, snapping up bargains well in advance of Christmas.  We have quite a number of Middle Eastern and oriental objects and carpets on display, including Persian bronze peacocks and two Persian portraits, north Indian armour from the Sikh wars, an Amritsar carpet, a Syrian bridal chest and a bas-relief from northern Iraq, so we felt very much at home with the souk.

Some of the money raised will go to charity.  We are very happy to host a number of charity events either in the house or the grounds.  One activity that attracts lots of sponsored entrants involves abseiling 65 foot (nearly 20 metres) down one of our towers or taking a zip wire across the lake, also starting at the top of a tower.

We do not always hear how much has been raised, but the known total so far this year is just over £19,000, including events in the Park.  It is a great way to use the house and bring in a different group of visitors.          JH-B

The house is now closed to public visitors after a season where we have faced the challenges of so much bad weather. Several of our special events, but fortunately not the Big Chill in the Park, were badly affected. It was not a great year either for ice cream sales, even though we had a new outlet conveniently placed between our gift shop and the tearoom.

But the comments of the brave who risked getting wet and visited the house were  encouraging. They enjoyed themselves, found the rooms on display interesting and the guides welcoming. Some of the comments were written in foreign languages, mostly central European, I think, and I hope I am right to assume that they too were happy.

The rain has been good for the recently-planted trees, however. Land Rover, who have been using our tracks for developing and demonstrating their vehicles for nearly 40 years, generously decided to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the company by planting 60 oak trees in the Park. They have had a good start. Meanwhile, in the Grounds where we are replanting the Victorian arboretum under the expert guidance of Tom Stewart-Smith, we saw most of this year’s new planting flourish-some sort of silver lining from all the cloud, but we would like it drier next year!     JH-B                         �