I volunteer at a local heritage property and the other week lots of folk were in the house using their discounted house entry tickets with an event in the grounds. You can always guess car club event – the male partners reluctantly toddling around with their much more animated ‘wags’. The lasses as always, showing patience and forebearance during a weekend of car talk ….! However, there was a lot of interest drawn from many of the chaps as they approached the ‘below stairs’ element of the tour. The servants’ working and living quarters have been patched up and made safe but not modernised or decorated – so much of the original build is still visible, with the many layers of paint and wall covering, going back to the 1700s. The old tunnel down to the laundry area is always of interest as are the strange new fangled attempts at eco heating from the 1800s! Obviously any dangerous materials would have been removed before the public opening of the property, but it serves as a very interesting feature for the mechanical minded chap and chapess.
