Tudor Birthday
We’ve been to Kentwell Hall for their Tudor Recreation - thought it would be something interesting to do for my birthday and I really enjoyed it. We arrived about 11.30am and had some sandwiches in the car before going in - no picnics in the grounds (to stop food envy among the Tudors who were only getting bread and pottage??) Then we went through the time tunnel back to 1578 and explored the hall and grounds, chatting to Tudors.
It was fascinating. I loved to see all the crafts/skills - the wool dyeing, pot making, bell casting.
I really enjoyed looking at the clothing in detail and just seeing how people were spending their time and keeping their children occupied or how they were slinging them in Tudor costume was interesting. We were questioned about whether we were an evil family in league with the devil or something since all of us (barring L of course) tried this game using our left hands!
We looked round the estate and crafts for a while and then walked over towards the house and gardens. The veggie garden was gorgeous! There was also a huge herb garden (they were big on herbs and they featured heavily in all the pottage cooking that was going on and the dyers were using garden plants too) and a Tudor told us all about which plants were used for what.
These fish were mind-boggling. They swam from all corners of the moat when someone got the fish food out and they were flapping out of the water and on top of each other. Really odd to watch.
We swapped some money for Tudor groats and bought some souvenirs. M was so pleased to get a wooden sword.
On the way home we stopped at an Indian restaurant where the food was lovely but L had to sit on my knee, which impeded eating somewhat. He had a taste of most things and seemed to be enjoying it all. I let him have his after dinner mint which was a mistake - part way through eating it he suddenly started to be sick. The tablecoth caught most of it (good job they just go off to the laudry and we’d already dropped curry all over it) and L didn’t seem perturbed, but it did have a certain yuck factor.
