I Spy With My Little Eye Something Beginning With T

It was almost October and amazingly warm and sunny so the MG top was down as we drove along the leafy lanes towards the magnificent  Rushton Hall for our special treat, High Tea, a Christmas gift from our daughter Gemma.

The house was originally built in 1438 and lived in by the Tresham Family of the Gun Powder Plot fame (Guy Fawkes). After that it had a succession of owners up until the beginning of the last century where it fell into government hands who used it as a spy training centre during and between the two world wars. In the 1950's it was loaned to RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) who ran the Hall as a blind school up until the end of the last century. In 2002 it was sold to the present owners who turned it into a Hotel and Spa Resort. Historically it was a favourite place of Charles Dickens who often stayed there and the fictitious Haversham Hall in Great Expectations was conceived from the Rushton Hall.

We were taken to a splendid hall on the south side of the building over looking the gardens. Here we were served a "High Tea" to beat all high tea's.

It consisted of Finger Sandwiches with cucumber and cream cheese, oven baked ham, smoked salmon. Mature cheddar with smokey chilli, egg mayonnaise, cress and chives, then we had macaroons, pistachio cake, chocolate eclairs, fruit and plane scones with jam and clotted cream, black forest cake mousse and cherry cupcakes. All washed down with traditional English tea for me and lady grey for Sam ...very nice and very filling !

After tea we were, as they say, well and truly stuffed. We took a slow walk round the grounds and took some more pics to end a perfect afternoon for us, Rich and Sam

http://www.rushtonhall.com/