Holiday Photos #15

Instead of whining, I decided to do another holiday photo post. There are no corresponding artsy photos in my studio blog, this little section seemed to all fall in the tourist photo category to me. These pics were all taken on a tour at Plas Mawr Elizabethan Town House in Conwy. To quote from the link I just offered - "Possibly the best preserved Elizabethan townhouse in Great Britain." Or the term we heard used - a Tudor home.

It's one of those places that we walked by several times, didn't notice, and probably wouldn't have paid to get into if it wasn't for the British Heritage Passes that we purchased ahead of time that gave us free entrance. It ended up to be quite worth the time we took to tour it. We found quite a few hidden gems by looking at what was available with our passes. The passes also paid for a number of the large exhibits and places that we had already planned on seeing. I'm not sure if we went to enough of the locations to actually have saved money, but we undoubtedly got our money's worth out of the passes. Another advantage was that the passes usually allowed us to bypass long entrance lines.

As always, you can click on any of these photos to enlarge them for more details.

I really loved the quiet comfort in this home. It was very beautiful. I'm sure it was elegant in it's own way and time, but it seemed to be a beauty for it's own sake rather then beauty in order to impress visitors. Sorry this photo is a bit fuzzy. This is a fireplace mantel, wall, and ceiling.

This wasn't the kitchen. I accidentally showed a photo of the kitchen in an earlier post. Remember the pic that William took of me holding a broom, all the green herbs? This was a storage room just off the kitchen.


This was the backboard of a bed in one of the bedrooms. Believe it or not, my grandmother had a bed like this. Not exactly like this, but she had this amazing carved bedset. It was dark oak, intricately carved, I think my mom told me once it was from Germany. I used to love sleeping in that bed. It disappeared somewhere along the way, I think quietly given to another relative. Although, I was so young at the time that it was probably more a matter of no one bothered to ask my opinion on where it went. I wish I knew where it was now. I don't even think our family has any photos of it.


This very annoyed looking cat was part of an illustrated board display that discussed what life would have been like in the 16th century. I would have been annoyed too, if I could have read what it said about me in the text. If you click and enlarge it, you can read it. Basically it accused cats of having evil vapors or sucking the breath out of people while they slept or some such nonsense.

This is the attic. Look at those unbelievably beautiful rafters! Look at the time worn wood floor. It almost looks like water it rolls so unevenly.

This was a little courtyard inside the walls of the home. Everywhere we went we found doors of various sizes, even in buildings still in busy use today. I couldn't help but think of what we might do with buildings like this in the U.S. Not to code! Not accessible! A legal liability! Danger, danger Will Robinson! I wonder how many of these historical idiosyncracies would be lost in our attempt to make everything fit today's building standards? Of course 6'3" tall William made the size differences seem all the more dramatic.

Next holiday post - more castle! (why does that make me think - "More cowbell!"?)