To Ham

A visit from some Belgian relations: the weather wasn't good enough for a group cycle ride, yet some exercise was felt, on the whole, to be a good thing, so we headed down to Richmond for a walk along the Thames to Ham House:

My first visit to Ham House and, very likely, my last. It may be a "unique 17th-century house with sumptuous interiors, original collections and restored formal gardens", but on a chilly March day, with a stiff breeze blowing down the corridors and across the bare floorboards, the puritan ethic was a little too much in evidence for my tastes.

It's not cheap to get in – £9 – and then they expect you to pay out again for a guide book. Shouldn't £9 include a guide book?

Every room has its attendant. They used to be silent unobtrusive figures, these attendants, who'd gaze endlessly out of the window, barely acknowledging your presence. What happened to those worthy men and women, who modestly kept themselves to themselves? They were part of the timelessness of the whole stately home experience - endless afternoons of ennui, echoing the efforts at passing the time that the aristocracy would engage in on rainy days within the confines of the Red Drawing Room, or the Green Drawing Room, or the Yellow Drawing Room (at Ham it's all Brown, of course). Nowadays they're all trained up, and keen to enhance your experience round every corner. It's essential to avoid eye contact, otherwise they'll start pointing out features of especial interest, at tedious length – "This picture is believed to be of the Second Earl when he was a boy, though it's possible that it may be of his younger brother Cedric. It's a little hard to make out, but that's a dead hare at the bottom left. The hare was a symbol of courage in Stuart times, as well as being a part of the Lauderdale coat of arms. The painter is believed to be Anton van den Meuyck, a Flemish apprentice of Van Dyck who moved to London in the 1630s as a result of his failing to make a living in his native Utrecht and his aversion to clogs. This room was used as the breakfast room in the recent BBC series of Sense and Sensibility. You may remember the scene where Marianne opens the letter from… You didn't see it? Oh. It's very good, you know. Very good. Now that pot up there…" Ah yes, most interesting, thank you.

A definite improvement when the sun comes out:

Though the gardens, supposedly "formal", seemed to me, in keeping with the house, to be a little on the austere side:

Bare squares – "plats" – of grass. Not even a croquet hoop, not even a daisy, to spoil the geometry. Some trees over in the corner, though, as a concession to a more decadent sensibility: