Cream Tea at Hardwick Hall NT, Derbyshire

Hardwick Hall is Guiness Premiership material. Fantastic.  I was on my way to the North East earlier this week and, having left in good time, I had a spare hour so darted off the M1 in the hope of some top notch cream tea action on the edge of Derbyshire.  I was wad up for it like a hungry dog for a bone, and I wasn't disappointed. This place had me barking all the way to Bolsover.

Mind you, we had our wobbly moments.  I didn't think much of my first glimpse of the Hall....

.. an Ayrton Senna to visit this burnt out shell I thought was a bit steep, but this photo is of the old hall.  The real deal is, however, still fully intact and a first rate place.

That's not a bad pad for somewhere built before the Mary Rose had sunk in the Solent is it?  This place has it all:  first rate herbaceous borders, top house, tapestries that would make the most ferocious 16th-century stitch-witch go weak at the knees, an astonishing collection of Tudor portraiture and last, but by no means least, the Great Barn Restaurant.

Awesome.  Let's take a moment to savour this architectural family-bucket-feast-super-deal that you just know is going to deliver a brilliant cream tea.

Genius

Mr Countrycreamtea is always looking for added value.  Here we get in by the bucket load.  Above the front door the architect of the cafe gives you three bits of extra value to add to the cream tea experience.
1) A weather vane to tell you which way is NSW or E. Brilliant.  So a Muslim customer would know which way to face to say his prayers. Religiously sensitive - I like it.
2) Said weather vane tells you from which direction the wind is coming so that you can sit up wind from the hideous stench of coffee or down wind from the wonderful tobacco smokers. Inspired.
3) They've also put a clock there so that you can tell the time.
Words fail me.

Let's go inside and see what's in store.

A great cacophony of styles and features.  The way the green chair on the right melts seamlessly into the beamed roof and the way in which the glass panels remind one of the vast areas of window of the main house provokes nothing but silent awe.

And being, as it is, one of the most prestigious places in the NT portfolio....

...it's a busy place - real gold mine - check that queue.
And take a look at this for some awesome cream tea action.

What a statement.  So let's get on with the review.

Review and Rating.

Location.

10/10 One of the best, hard to beat.

The Scone 15.5/20

Or should I say scones.  What a pair of beauties!

What structure! That scone on the right - you can see the face of a grumpy cat can't you?  And look how different the scone on the left is.  Immense skills in evidence here.  They're like faberge eggs these scones; each one perfectly made but unique.  Words, you may be glad to hear, fail me.  Unfortunately not baked on the day they were sold - a tragedy.  Hence the indifferent score.

The Jam 9/10
Great Jam

'Mr Pitchfork's Pantry' - forgive the photo's lack of focus.  'From the home of Robin Hood'. Proper Jam.  OK it's still a naff little jam jar, but the jam had that excellent balance of acid v fruit and was beautifully runny.  Hard to beat.  Well done.

The Cream 8/10
Clotted, not quite enough for two great big scones, but authentic.

The Tea 10/10
The critical question when evaluating a pot of tea is this "When you poured the second cup, was it hot enough, if poured directly onto human skin, to cause second degree burns?".  Answer yes - full marks

Service and miscellaneous 9/10
Just right.

Value for money 18/20

This is a tricky one.  At £5.25 this makes it dearer than the holy grail of a crisp blue deep sea diver.  I always get a bit twitchy when having to fork out more than five pounds.  On the other hand there were two huge scones, and I wasn't charged extra for a second pot of jam.  I think the score is right.

Prejudice Corner. 8/10

1) Is the local MP a Liberal Democrat?
No - it's that old windbag. But at least he's not yellow.  1 point scored.

2) Were you addressed by any of the staff as 'duck' rhyming with 'book'?
No I wasn't and this is a source of immense sadness to me, maybe a point for the staff to work on for my next visit; but they still get a point on this one because the staff in the cafe were just spot on.

3) The National Trust has been at the forefront of whingeing about planning laws.  Do they practice what they preach?
No they don't.  Look at this monstrosity.

A Visitors' Centre. What on earth?

And then look at this.

Straight in front of the house! Ruddy great big tent that'll be there all Summer ruining everything. Just so that people can get married.  Neither marriage nor marquees should be encouraged by the National Trust
No points here.

4) It looks as if the weather was fine.  Was it too busy?
No it wasn't (1 point) but it will be.  Wouldn't come here on a bank holiday or once the schools empty.  The one marvelous recent development is that the distance from the end of the new car park to the front door of the house is about 300 miles.  This should go some way do discouraging visitors. Excellent.

5) Any signs of abstinence?
No - not at all.  Local grog served in the Restaurant.  1 point.

6) Being an Elizabethan manor, one assumes that there is a chapel.  Please tell me there weren't flowers on the altar.
Yes there were.  Hideous.  For Guardian readers it's bankers' bonuses, for the BBC it's Murdoch, for idiots it's growth rather than austerity, but for Mr Countrycreamtea it's flowers on altars.  No, please, I beg you.....

7) Were there no smoking signs everywhere?
No - I saw plenty of people chugging away.  Nice to see that the greatest fruit of Elizabethan exploration is hallowed in these northern parts. 1 point.

8) Is the NT plug for this place quintessentially fatuous?
It is and I love it.  1 point.
Some background is needed to explain this one.   For each property in the NT catalogue you'll find a 'Don't Miss' section with a handful of bullet points.  In virtually every single case they're completely and hilariously stupid.  So - in the case of Hardwick Hall you've got one of the greatest 16-th century buildings in the world in fantastic surroundings but the poor old NT believe they've got to employ somebody to come up with extra reasons for visiting somewhere.  Here's the list for Hardwick - it's vintage stuff.

Don't Miss:
i) "New visitor facilities and car park opening this spring".
Don't miss the car park?  New visitor facilities? What - have they rebuilt the house? Who on earth dreams these up?

ii) "See Hardwick come to life on costumed days"
How on earth is Hardwick  lifeless if it doesn't have volunteers dressed up in Elizabethan dresses?

iii) "Get your 'Hands on Hardwick' with family activities"
The mind boggles.  What on earth does this mean. Yep - that'll really persuade us all to come in droves.

iv) "Experience sensory delight in the herb garden"
Brilliant.  Do they realise this sounds a bit rude?  Love it.

v) "Don't miss our new outdoors and garden shop (opening spring)"
I would crawl over broken glass to avoid most NT shops. Why on earth do they think this makes the place more attractive?

vi) "Explore the picturesque parkland on one of our circular walks"

Drivel.

9)  Did the shop stink of lavender?
No it didn't so 1 point.  But considering how many lavender products they sell this is something of a surprise.  What is it about Lavender and the National Trust? I don't get it.

10)  Would Granny like it?
She'd be all over this place like a tramp on chips.  1 point.

Total score and final remarks
87.5/100
Brilliant score.  This place should be in the 90s and it would have been if they threw out uneaten scones at the end of the day.  Don't let that put you off: I'm sure they'll get that squared soon.  Enjoy.

Bonus Summer Fashion Section.
The recent heatwave sees the annual epiphany of British flesh and the unveiling of the last century's summer clothing.  Some people aren't keen on this.  I think it's absolutely wondrous. Take a look at this.

Isn't that divine?

Asparagus Heaven at Rectory Farm, Stanton St John, Oxfordshire

(Nowt to do with cream tea though they do serve them in the cafe)

If there's food involved in combination with any hint of involvement by the One True Church (that'll be the word Rectory in the title) you know you're in for a treat.  A few days ago, when global warming finally came to Oxfordshire, la famille countrycreamtea headed down to Stanton St John to check out Rectory Farm.  What a brilliant place.

This may not look like much to the uneducated, but it's one of the best places on earth.  There's something about that green shed that you know is going to deliver.

What a fantastic sandwich board advertisement hoarding.  Nice choice of pastel colours with a bit of bird poo to add to the authenticity of it all (mind you - what the term Artisan adds to the description of local bread beats me).

The Rectory Farm is a combination of four things that are brilliant for a family which loves food.

1 Great farm shop.

(apologies for the rubbish photo which doesn't do it justice - trust me - great nosh at not-the-usual-ridiculous-prices-cos-it's-organic-and-covered-in-mud-so-it-must-be-worth-£15.95-a-kilo)

2 Free kids entertainment

Great bouncy castle action for which you're not obliged to shell out an orange drinks voucher for six and a half minutes of bouncing.

3 Great Little Cafe

Fantastic tukka on offer here. Top cake action, nice brew, not at giveaway prices but when countrycreamtea junior is bouncing away in seventh heaven it's a good deal. Nice furniture too.

4 Pick your own Asparagus.

Quality.

Now - I'm fully aware that the adjective 'heaven' is somewhat over-(ab)used. So - for some people it's watching a sky-plussed episode of Jeremy Kyle eating KFC; for others it'll be reading the latest idiocies to come from the pen of Will Hutton on how to get the world out of the economic mess we're in while drinking a latte in one of those hideous coffee chains; for others it'll be blaming the Police for the riots; but for me, and for all right-thinking and right-eating people, it's here in Oxfordshire.......

......An English Asparagus bed in mid May.  Let's zoom in.

Look at that trio of amazing specimens - with that cheeky one on the right who'll be wad up for it in a few days time.  What a sight - in the same league as these three.

The end result was this.

£2.40 for these bad boys - about a pound in weight.  I intended to take a photo of them cooked and plated (steamed for about 4 minutes since you ask) with a bit of melted butter and pepper on top, but Mrs Countrycreamtea started on her way down the stairs as I was dishing them up so I thought I'd better smash a few before she got in there so I forgot. Sorry about that.   The most delicious asparagus I've ever had. (I had a glass of slightly passed its best Minervois Rose with it - I've had worse combinations).

I would walk through fire to get to this place.  Brilliant.  If you live within 86,000 miles of this place and you don't go there you're obviously both 1) someone who watches too much television, and 2) someone who thinks the best way out of the current economic disaster is to borrow more money to pay the interest on the humungous national debt we've already amassed because you voted Labour in 1997.

Cream Tea at Charlecote Park NT, Warwickshire

Charlecote Park is absolutely marvelous.

Simply wonderful.

Despite being in the midst of the wettest drought since records began....

.....la famille countrycreamtea had a thoroughly capital day here which culminated in the most delicious cream tea.  But more of that in due course because I think an unlearned and jaundiced discourse on some matters historical is necessary prior to a discussion of scones and clotted cream.

One of the most wonderful members of the Lucy family of Charlecote Park was one Mary Elizabeth Lucy (1803-1890) nee Williams from somewhere in Flintshire. Now, when things are looking down for the average English family it always does better if one of its members marries a foreigner (cf Queen Victoria and Albert) and gets some decent genes into the blood pool (as they say).  Which is exactly what George Lucy (1789-1845) did by marrying young Mary Elizabeth.  Suffice to say that, essentially, she saved the family seat after his rather early death thanks to some hard graft and frugal living; she redesigned the house, destroyed the local church and put a hideous Victorian dump in its place,

and was an all round good egg.  Marrying a Welsh girl, therefore, became all the rage, as was subsequently demonstrated in the cases of Siegfried Wagner and Craig Revel Horwood.

Mary Elizabeth Lucy was loved by all who knew her and in order to show why this was the case a few anecdotes from her life as recorded in her journal are necessary.

On her wedding night, when her new husband left her for an hour or so, she spent the entire time reading the Book of Common Prayer.  Such behaviour is exactly what a gentleman should expect of a new wife.

In matters religious she was, as you would hope, an adherent of the One True Church and excellent in every way.  She also had exquisite taste.  In the following extract from a diary entry for December 1840 (during a two year long tour of Italy) one discerns a delicious combination of these two virtues.

"[The] Prince ..... sent us tickets for the Sistine Chapel.... [The] Ladies sat in boxes as at the opera.  Between us and the Pope were strong iron bars [on the other side of which] were 12 old Cardinals seated on benches, dressed in scarlet robes, muttering their prayers to some very unheavenly music.  It could not be called singing, it was more like the lowing of oxen.  His Holiness is a very old and ugly man, arrayed in apparel glittering with gold and silver and a mitre sparkling with jewels.
Such ceremonies are paid to him that you might fancy you were in the presence of some pagan God.  A Cardinal held his book, another turned over the leaves, a third took off his tiara, another put it on again, then a fifth held up some part of his robes and a sixth put on fresh ones.  What all the ceremonies were for I know not, but they combined the grand with the ridiculous." (pp 64-65)

Quite so.

She was also an excellent mother as is demonstrated by the following vignette about her approach to the rearing of daughters.  Of the aforementioned trip to Italy she wrote that she and her husband...

"undertook the tour in order ..... to show our children the wonders of the Renaissance, but I confess that more often than not I had to hurry the girls past statues of naked gods that their native innocence might not be impaired." (p 67)

Hear! Hear!  Parents would do well to protect their minors from disgusting Etruscan filth at all times as did the Mistress of Charlecote. She was almost a saint.


Enough of this.  What of the cream tea?

Location. 9.5/10
A great location. Top bananas.

Brilliant don't you think.  That's the front door. That bit above the porch - can't help wondering what went on in there from time to time.

If you look behind you you then get this cheeky look at the delights that await you in the cream tea department.

You just know from this view that what's hiding behind that Cedar is going to hit the spot.

And there it is in all its glory.  The Orangery Restaurant.  One slight query is that I wish they wouldn't give fancy modern French names to such places.  Far more preferable to give it the redundant plural of Tea Room.  Notice the chaotic cluster of potted plants, the hastily scribbled sandwich board saying "get in here quick" (or words to that effect), and the classic green garden furniture.  Michelin star joint this.

There's the inside.  This rather useless photograph doesn't do it justice.  Take my word for it - this is a top little place.

The Scone 16.5/20
What a little corker.

Chimes in beautifully with the current austere climate - a slightly minimalist look. Perfectly formed scone. If you do like your scones with raisins in them then this is just the right amount; i.e. not too many.  Look at that raisin trying to burst cheekily out of the top, and notice the one on the side who nearly made it.  Top scone. Nice and light.  Unfortunately not cooked the same day hence the slightly weaker scone.  Otherwise this would have been a 19+pointer.

Jam 7/10
Sick of these jars.

The Cream 8/10
Nice, lucious, a little bit on the louche side, not quite dark enough.

Tea 10/10
No problems.

Service and miscellaneous. 9/10
No fuss, no dramas.  All the way.

Value for money 18.5/20
£3.50's a great price for a cream tea.  Scone not enormous, but - look at this.

Only a Guardian reader's going to find a problem here.

 Prejudice corner 8.5/10

1) Is the local MP a Liberal Democrat?
Course not. 1 point.

2) From the picture you showed of the inside of the Tea Rooms it looked a bit naff.  Can you say or show more?

Indeed

OK - so I'll admit it's modern, and a bit white.  On the other hand, consider the subtle integration of the slightly bamboo looking furniture (very 1830s) to the plain but functional table and the absolute belting view out of the window.  Laurence Llewelyn Bowen couldn't hold a candle to this sort of vision.  1 point scored.

3)  What about Coffee,  I can't imagine a girl of quality from Bodelwyddan partaking of the vile bean.  Are her exquisite tastes upheld in this establishment?

Absolutely.  Not a single mention of a Macchiato all afternoon. 1 point.

4)   You mention the view.  I think I'm right in thinking that the view includes one of the great deer parks in the whole of Christendom.  What of hunting?

A sore subject on this blog.  Alas no hunting in evidence.  What rubs salt into the wound even more is the fact that the NT were at the forefront of the anti sports brigade. No points here I'm afraid.

5) You've mentioned religion and Lady Mary Elizabeth's entirely orthodox views on the subject.  I presume there's no hint of non-conformity anywhere on the estate?

LOL - you must be joking. No chapel in sight and a 19th-century brewery next to the stables.  Marvelous. 1 point.

6) What about smoking?

No worries here.  Check out the outside covered smoking area adjacent to the Orangery.

 1 Point. Quality. Those green brolly type things cost a mint.

7) What about the crowds?

Very well behaved.  OK - this was a wet Tuesday during school term, but I can only report as I find. 1 point.

8) One of the attractions of the house is a chance to try the queen of games, association croquet?  What about inside the house?

Billiards.  Fair enough - bar billiards would have been better, but a billiard room introduces just the right degree of shallowness so beloved of this blog.  1 point.

9) Elsewhere inside the house.  Tasteful or not?
Not too tasteful.  Remember Dean Inge's words:  He who marries the spirit of one age finds himself a divorcee in the next (I think he said something like this).  But certainly not vulgar?  On the other hand, I'm informed that Antiques Roadshow filmed here - not a good sign.  Let's say half a point.

10) Could the place be described as 'with it'?
Certainly not. 1 point.

Total and Summary
87/100
What a great score; but then twas a great cream tea! Great house. Great visit. Great Topiary.