We chose Stoneleigh Abbey partly because I'm reading Pride and Prejudice for my course. Jane Austen's family owned the Abbey, and, although she only visited once, she was sufficiently inspired to include elements of the estate in her novels. On Sundays they actually run a Jane Austen tour so we got to hear all about her family and how they came to inherit the beautiful sandstone buildings and attendant grounds. Below is a picture of the Gatehouse which is where the Monks would "make merry":
The grounds were beautiful in that landscaped Renaissance way; complete with rolling hills and clumped woodland, there were even some sheep grazing in the distance:
We were shown around the newest addition to the Abbey: a huge neo-classical manor house which was added at some point in the 18th Century, and is where Jane Austen would have stayed when she visited. The ceiling in the first room we entered had some pretty unusual plasterwork: the sculpted limbs of the figures depicted actually protrude out of the ceiling, making the whole thing seem eerily three dimensional. I managed to get this shot before the guide informed me that photography was prohibited inside the Abbey:
After the tour we headed into nearby Kenilworth for a nice Sunday lunch and a few ales. We got chatting to some locals, and enquired about the large police presence we'd noticed on the way into town - they informed us that the annual Horse Trading Fair was on today, and that things got pretty rough after the show when they all hit the pubs. We were surprised to learn that those involved in the rearing and trading of horses would be predisposed to violence, and said as much. We were offered, by way of explanation: "They're all Gypos".
We managed to get home safely (avoiding the marauding horse traders, of course) and have decided to return to the area fairly soon to see Kenilworth Castle.
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