Historic buildings and Victorian gowns

Today we have more of my Wales adventure, although actually all of these holiday images were taken in England. Never mind.

On my trip, I made time to meet up with two friends, and we found fun interesting places partway between our locations. First, I met my friend Zoe, who I went to primary school with in England, some *mumble mumble* years ago. We met at the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, in Worcestershire. It was only a bit over an hour from my base in North Wales, and it is a delightful place.

Basically it is a large plot of land full of relocated historic buildings (and bits of them, like a collection of chimneys and a church spire) that could only be saved from demolition by moving them, mostly out of the path of motorways. Along with the windmill and toll house you see here, were an Elizabethan cottage, a dovecote, a counting house, and an Edwardian building that was now the tea rooms. It was St. George's Day, so we also got to encounter the knight himself, and a dragon on stilts. Teacup wasn't quite sure at first, but then all she wanted to do was find the dragon and stare at him. Oh and pick daisies, of course.

The museum also houses a collection of telephone kiosks. Some of them are connected by their own little exchange, so for 2p you could call your friends in the other phone boxes, which is pretty cute. And sadly this was the least stupid face I made in the Police box, but I had to include it anyway.

The second meet up was with an online friend who you may be familiar with. I got a bit brave for my shy self and contacted Kate-Em to ask if she wanted to hang out, and we spent the day at Dunham Massey, a lovely National Trust Estate in Cheshire. The current exhibition related to the scandal surrounding the marriage of the 7th Earl to a circus performer in the Victorian Era, so there were some pretty clothes. In fact, most of the photos I took were of the pretty clothes. I'm sure you won't object.

It was the details I was obsessed with, like these fabric roses along the shoulder here. Aren't they so charming? And lace. Lots of lace. The Victorian ladies knew what they were doing. Which was mostly shunning circus performers who had the audacity to marry wealthy single earls. The reception from the locals was so chilly that the Earl and his wife left Dunham Massey, and it was down to a later Earl to bring it back into order. Which the 10th (or 9th? I'm not sure) Earl did in the 1920s, including buying back at auction as much of the artwork, silverware and so on that had been sold off in the meantime. I wish I could buy back all the family treasures that have been gotten rid of by my ancestors! Where is that hat pin collection...?

I had a super time with Kate-Em, who is not only incredibly lovely but has some almost-eerily similar experiences in life, and career in particular, which led to us talking on and on until they started to pack up the cafe around us and Teacup fell asleep in my arms. We didn't even get to the gift shop! And you can tell we are neither of us fashion bloggers because even though we were both wearing things we had made ourselves, we didn't get any photos of either of us.

But I got a photo of this outfit, which is actually a 1920s fancy dress costume based on the painting shown. That's probably better.

I can only think of one important question to close on here. Those shoulder roses, right? Right? Who wants shoulder roses?

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