A Visit to Dunham Massey

One rainy morning on our way out of Manchester, Polar and Grizzly took us to visit a big country house at a place called Dunham Massey.

Th house has a long and interesting history, being passed through many generations and even used as a military hospital in the First World War, but eventually it was left to the National Trust by a kind old gentleman who had no children.

We were good bears and stayed in our bag while Polar and Grizzly were touring the house, although we were allowed out to explore a couple of times.

The house was very grand and there were paintings of some of the people who had lived their over the centuries on the walls of a lovely sitting room up on the first floor.  

From the window, we could see all the way back to the canal.  We thought we would enjoy exploring the gardens, if the rain stopped!

Our favourite room was the kitchen, which was full of shiny copper pots and jelly moulds and would always have been warm and cosy, with the big iron range lit and fresh bread baking.

Outside the house is a huge park full of fallow deer.  They are not as wary of humans as wild deer and will let you get quite close to take photographs, if you don't make too much noise or startle them.  We stayed in our bag to watch them, in case they thought we were fierce wild bears rather than their friends.

Polar let us out to play in the gardens, however.  We loved the lake and the bog garden, with its streams and little bridge.

There is also a very beautiful rose garden.  Having bear senses, we could smell the roses long before we reached the garden where they were.  Endon wanted to climb the central arches but Hanley and I talked him out of it, as we warned him he would get thorns in his paws.

Although they smell all oniony, we like the big drumstick heads of alliums and think they look excellent in between roses.  We want Polar to buy some more for our garden at home.

There was a huge garden to explore and, even with occasional lifts in our bag, we got very tired.  Polar sat us up on a seat in the winter garden for a rest.  There weren't many flowers to see in June but Polar says it is full of colourful early spring flowers and we should come again in March to see them.

After a nice dinner, it was time to go back to Uppie for the next stage of our journey, along the canal to the town of Lymm.  Grizzly loves it here, partly because there is a very good bakery where they make delicious cakes and bread.

We stayed here overnight and, the next morning, we were off on more small bear adventures, which I will tell you about another day.