Day Out at Erddig

Monday was a Bank Holiday, and luckily, a day of beautiful Spring weather.  Having not been to a National Trust property besides Attingham Park in quite a long time, it was due time to visit one we hadn't been to: Erddig, on the English-Welsh boarder, about an hour from our house.  Erddig, pronounced "Air-thig" in Welsh, is "widely acclaimed as one of Britian's finest historic houses... and is a fascinating yet unpretentious early 18th-century country house reflecting the upstairs downstairs life of a gentry family of 250 years."

Here we are entering the property from one of the car parks inside a walled orchard.

Entering the gardens through the workshop, there was very used stove and oven and LOADS of tools for woodworking. (Pictures taken for Grandad ;o)

Then we entered the stables where there were horses and old coaches.  I enjoyed explaining to Ellen that people had to use horses and coaches to travel before there were cars.

Then we entered the fantastic manicured garden at the back of the house.

 This was the best picture of me and the girls... as you can see, it didn't exactly turn out well.

Brenna really enjoyed looking at the beautiful flowers and touching.  Her little finger was always ready to touch... see it in the picture?  So cute.

Here are a few videos of our cutie pitootie 13-month-old toddler walking(!!!) around the garden.

Peek-a-boo!

The "Wolf's Den" was a fantastic area for the kiddies made out of logs outside the garden walls.  There were wooden tee pees, where Ellen pretended over and over that there were storms coming... evening making thunder sound effects!  I loved the fragrance of wild garlic that hung in the air and brought me back to walks through the Englisher Garten in Munich.

 Sitting pretty.

We were on our choo-choo train.

Hi Girls!  We played Three Little Pigs with this wood house.  The girls were safe from the Big Bad Wolf in this house made out of wood.

 And there were stumps to balance on.  We were pleasantly surprised when Ellen got herself up on this stump and stood up all by herself!

 Boo wanted to do everything her big sister was doing.

 The girls loved climbing up this wooden...uh, "thing".

 Brenna saw that Ellen got the top, so off she went, too!

 Brenna is such a determined girly.  Hi Ellen!

We had tear the girls away from the Wolf's Den to have our lunch before we were allowed into the house at 12:40.  We found a long bench beside one of the ponds with ducks to have our picnic on.I h

 The girls were so happy having her lunch on the bench next to Daddy.

Ellen and me at the front of the house, which was far less impressive than the back of the house.

After this, we went through the house, briefly ran through each room trying to find some hidden teddies to keep the girls entertained.  Each room had loads of original furniture.  In one bedroom, I pointed to a chair with a fold-down lid and a bowl in it and asked Ellen what she thought it was.  "A potty!" she correctly answered.  In the bathroom across the hall, I found the shower to be interesting - it was basically a free-standing stall with a metal bowl with holes at the top. The water was collected in a bowl below and a servant would pump the used water back up into the top metal bowl to be used again...eww.  

We had such a lovely day.  Sunshine, pretty scenery and a happy family.