The Travel Documents: November 2013

Hello All!
Another wonderful week has come and gone and we were lucky enough to have a few more adventures. Last week when we went to the Tattershall Castle we decided to become members of the National Trust which is an organization that manages many of the historic properties throughout England. The National Trust was founded in 1895 with the mission of saving the nation's heritage and open spaces, and they have succeed as far as I am concerned. The National Trust is the largest voluntary conservation organization in Europe. There are many old homes and estates, 65 pubs and inns, 49 churches, nine monasteries and many parks and gardens. With our membership we have access to all of the properties, and we hope to see a large majority of them! Every time we are leaving town, we check our guide book to see if we can stop at a National Trust along the way.
This weekend we decided to go to Nottingham to stop by an Ikea for new dining chairs. Along the way we found the Belton House, which is a beautiful 17th-century English country house set amongst beautiful gardens and a magnificent deer park! We stopped and stretched our legs while we toured this beauty!Due to it being so late in the year, most of the houses have gone to winter hours and the actual house was not open but we could still tour the grounds.

The leaves are starting to change!

Em says hello from the garden.


The first of the gardens. The large building in the back is called an "orangery" which we just learned, is not actually a place to grow oranges (who would have guessed) but another term for a greenhouse or conservatory type of building. Silly us, we were looking for the orange trees!