Fodor's Great Britain '99: The Complete Guide to England with the Best of Wales and Scotland

The complete guide to England, with the best of Wales and Scotland.

Pleasures and Pastimes
"Doing the Statelies": The Treasure Houses of Britain

Curiosity as to how the other half lives is undoubtedly one of the most deep-seated traits of human nature, and it's extremely pleasing to know you can satisfy your healthy desire to snoop through Great Britain's stately homes for the payment of a very small amount of conscience money. The fact that you will see some of the greatest of the world's treasures at the same time is a happy bonus. But even the most highly developed sense of curiosity isn't enough to explain the fact that millions of people have surged on to the stately home trail. They have been urged to move by a great deal of exposure -- the houses touched by the royal family upheavals, such as Althorp, the ancestral home of Princess Diana, and the Mountbatten home, Broadlands; the numerous television serials, which have brought new fame to such spectacular houses as Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace; the new spate of historical movies shot on location, including the numerous versions of Jane Austen's novels (Lyme Park played a starring role
in Pride and Prejudice ), The Madness of King George (the spectacular interiors of Wilton House dazzled here), Sense and Sensibility (partly shot at Saltram), or the over-the-top style of Charles II on view in Restoration. Today, thousands follow in the footsteps of Elizabeth Bennet and the Gardiners who paid a call on Mr. Darcy's regal Pemberely, one of the more fetching episodes penned by Miss Austen.

The reason for the pressing need for the owners of stately homes to throw them open is simply that they need the ready money. Spiritually rewarding as it must be to own vast tracts of countryside, paintings by Rembrandt and Gainsborough, a house designed by one of the Adam Brothers and furnished by Chippendale, tapestries by the mile and porcelain by the ton -- it is all a dead loss as far as cash flow (and death duties) are concerned.

What you get for your entrance fee differs enormously from one house to another. In some houses you are left completely free to wander at will, soaking up the atmosphere. In some you are organized into groups that then process through the house like bands of prisoners behind enemy lines. Occasionally you may find that your mentor is a member of the family, who will gleefully relate stories of uncles, aunts, and cousins back to the Crusades. Those are often the best.

Three facts should be kept in mind. Many houses are unreachable except by car. Hours are always subject to change, so it's always best to call the day before and inquire: At times, people arrive standing on the doorstep staring at a bolted door. Also, most houses are open only in the warm-weather seasons, from April to October. However, some of these have celebrated parks -- Blenheim Palace and Chatsworth come to mind -- that are utter delights in themselves and are open through much of the year. Everyone has his or her own top-10 list -- Knole, Longleat, Woburn, and so on -- but don't forget lesser known neoclassic abodes and those wonderful mock-medieval Victorian piles, such as Castle Drogo in Devon, designed for Sir Julius Drewe, the founder of a chain of grocery stores. There is something keenly appropriate about the fact that the last great castle built in Britain was created for a shopkeeper. Napoleon would have approved.
The Performing Arts: From the Boards to the Bard

One of the main reasons so many people want to visit Britain is its enviable reputation in the performing arts. The country is exactly what Shakespeare described, an "isle full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not." In music and drama, opera and ballet, there are endless opportunities for visitors to enjoy themselves to the hilt. Although the political dogmas of Thatcherism and the restraints of the recession hit the bank accounts of arts organizations badly, thanks to the new Labour Party regime, the performing arts scene is still surprisingly healthy.
Food, Glorious Food

One important piece of advice -- do not eat while in England. In the old days, this observation always got a laugh from a crowd. Today, comedians would have to eat their words, since London is spearheading a full-fledged restaurant boom, or rather, a restaurant atomic-bomb explosion. The city now ranks among the world's top dining scenes. A new generation of chefs has precipitated a fresh approach to food preparation, which you could call "London-style" though most refer to it as "Modern British." Everyone seems to have an opinion about it, and newspapers and magazines now devote columns if not pages to food and restaurant reviews.

This healthy scene rests on a solid foundation of ethnic cuisines. Thousands of (mostly northern) Indian restaurants have long ensured that Britishers view a tasty tandoori as a birthright. Chinese -- Cantonese, primarily -- outposts have been around a long time, as have Greek tavernas; now, Thai eateries are proliferating. Places serving Malaysian, Spanish, Russian, Korean, and a trace of Japanese (with more on the way?) are adding to the density of dining choices. After all this, traditional British food, lately revived from its deathbed, appears as one more exotic cuisine in the pantheon.