Liverpool

Hello friends, I was in Liverpool over the recent bank holiday weekend. I visited the Picton Reading Room at the Central Library, the Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight, Speke Hall, and the coast at Crosby Beach. The Lady Lever currently has a small but well-presented exhibit on the textile artist May Morris that is open until November. On Sunday, I visited Gustaf Adolfs Kyrka in the Baltic Triangle, which holds services in English and Swedish, and celebrated the installation of the new pastor there. As always, I really enjoyed my time in this friendly city!

Isabella by J.E. Millais

Railing detail at Walker Art Gallery

Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight

Westward Ho! designed by May Morris and
stitched by Jane Morris

Dress embroidered by May Morris

An embroidery by May Morris

May's sketchbook

The Beguiling of Merlin by Edward Burne-Jones

The Annunciation by Edward Burne-Jones

Spring (Apple Blossoms) by J.E. Millais

Port Sunlight

Speke Hall

A mantle at Speke Hall

Table setting at Speke Hall

Wallpaper at Speke Hall (original Morris!)

Bells at Speke Hall

A haze of bluebells in May

Woodland path at Speke Hall

Crosby Beach

Cotton bonnet in progress

Thanks for reading!

Cotswolds

Hello friends, I've just spent my spring break in the village of Cam in the Cotswolds. It feels like spring here with more and more birdsong from chiffchaffs, blackbirds, goldfinches, sparrows, titmice, magpies and jackdaws. The leaves seem to have popped out overnight, too. They are all unfurling in their soft, velvety freshness. During the month of April, the daylight increases by almost two hours in England. 

The cottage I stayed in had two long-haired cats named Freya and Siggy and a spacious private garden for sitting out on nice days. My reading list included Bröd och mjölk by Karolina Ramqvist, Kometen kommer by Tove Jansson, the books on the Carnegie Medal for Writing shortlist, and Mansfield Park as an audiobook: 'If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.' –Fanny Price in Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Cam is nearby the villages of Dursley and Wotton-under-Edge, where I found a stash of vintage knitting patterns—a lot of Aran ones, for some reason. There's also a sweet bookshop and a natural foods shop in Wotton. I went on a couple of rambles during my visit as well as to Gloucester Cathedral for a performance of Bach's St John Passion by the cathedral choir and La Serenissima.  

Cottage home

Walled garden

Spring blossoms

Snail patio

in the garden

Siggy

Freya

Beginning a cardigan

Vintage Aran patterns

Easter Sunday dandelion pancakes

On the way to Cam Peak

The view from Cam Peak

Early spring woods

Cotswolds sheep

Illustration from The Tailor of Gloucester

The tailor's house, Gloucester

Gloucester Cathedral

Cloisters at Gloucester Cathedral

Floor tiling in the cloisters

Old pub in Gloucester

The path up Stinchcombe Hill

View towards the Severn River

View from Stinchcombe Hill

Walking near Stinchcombe

Cotswold Book Room, Wotton-under-Edge

Crooked house in Wotton-under-edge

Thank you for reading!

Stately Homes near Birmingham

The last two weekends, I have taken day trips to see a few stately homes near Birmingham now owned by the National Trust. First is Wightwick Manor near Wolverhampton, a Tudor-style house built in the 1800s after the House Beautiful ideal and owned by a family who collected Pre-Raphaelite art. The current exhibition at the house is about the Rossetti family. I like how it emphasises the talents of all the siblings, comparing them to other genius families like the Brontës and Morrises, and that it puts their lives into context. It also features Elizabeth Siddal and Lucy Madox Brown, who were married to the Rossetti brothers.

The other two houses are not very far away from Lapworth in Warwickshire and I was able to walk to them both in a day. Packwood House has a famous yew garden with topiary trimmed apparently to represent the Sermon on the Mount. Baddesley Clinton, surrounded by a moat, was a Catholic stronghold in the 1590s. There is a historic priest hole and the house now contains a chapel and sacristy.

Wightwick Manor

Drawing by D.G. Rossetti

Love Among The Ruins by Edward Burne-Jones

The Acanthus Room

Christina in a Rage by D.G. Rossetti

Tiles designed by William De Morgan

Packwood House

The Lookout Room

The Yew Garden at Packwood House

Baddesley Clinton

Inner Courtyard at Baddesley

Thanks for reading!