Be prepared to be scared!

                HALLOWEEEEEEEEN!

When you have a mock gothic castle with spooky towers, creaking doors, dark passages and a clattering* of jackdaws it is not hard to get into the halloween spirit. With the nights drawing in and a crescent moon rising over the castle it is certainly a creepy place to be. So, what could be scarier than ghost stories, told as night falls around Wray Castle? Anyone with a nervous disposition (me!) may want to avoid this, but if you are over 12 and think you are brave enough then come and join us for our spine-chilling story sessions on Monday the 29th, Wednesday the 31st and Friday the 2nd. Starting at 5.30 pm. To get you in the mood, listen to one of our special 'Halloween sounds' on Audioboo.

Keep your eyes peeled for witches and wizards!

For the whole week from Saturday the 27th of October until the 4th of November, we will also have a variety of craft activities for all the family to get involved with. You can try your hand at broom stick making, witch/wizard hat making, spider making or simply enjoy dressing up in our scary halloween costumes.

You may spot some bats flying around the castle as dusk approaches.

There's also lots happening out in the grounds at Wray Castle too, you can join a guided walk around the estate, try out our giant rope swing or build yourself a den in our activity area. On Monday the 29th we are also hosting Apple Pressing Day, so come and see fresh apple juice being made before your very eyes!

For more information on any of our activities, please see our website
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/wray-castle/things-to-see-and-do/events/ or email wraycastle@nationaltrust.org.uk or go to our Wray Castle Facebook page

(*that's the official collective noun for Jackdaws!)

Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

It didn't seem much like John Keats' 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' this morning as I stood in the pouring rain with my leaf blower on my back, blowing leaves off the car park at Hill Top; but autumn is definitely here.

Different tree species lose their leaves at different times and it's always the horse chestnuts that go first after a rather half-hearted display of autumn colour. Sycamores are next and they don't even try to put on a show, their leaves turning from an unremarkable green to a sludgy brown before they drop ( I don't like sycamore trees, except in my log-pile). Beech trees do much better and their leaves are starting to colour up nicely with the oaks not far behind. A good frost usually speeds things up but we've been spared that so far.

Hill Top garden has a few good autumn colour candidates including the Eucryphia I mentioned in an earlier post, some deciduous azaleas and a Crimson Glory Vine (Vitis cognetiae) which covers the wall of the pub next door.

Crimson Glory vine

Autumn is the time of year for planting bulbs which will flower next spring, and with that in mind, assisted by my hardy group of volunteers, we planted 900 crocus bulbs and 150 wild daffodils in the walled garden at Monk Coniston (one of the other gardens I look after).
Hopefully by March next year we'll have a fantastic display to brighten up the start of the new season.

Sore knees anyone?

And finally this month, I spent an exhausting but enjoyable day with my colleague Neil, manning the apple shy at the Acorn Bank Apple Day. The stall involved throwing small hard pears at an Aunt sally scarecrow and tring to get a pear into one of her buckets or knock the apple off her head. A steady stream of customers both young and old tried their luck and those with enough skill (or perseverance) were rewarded with a nice juicy apple as a prize.


Tiny ones were encouraged to cheat!

 Other attractions included apple tastings, a Punch and Judy show, live drummers, morris dancing, pruning demonstrations, a local food market, craft demonstrations, archery and Acorn Bank's working watermill. Make a date in your diary for next year.

 Oh well, back to those leaves.....

Post and photos by Pete the Gardener.

Step back in time...

If you're the sort of person who loves old photos then there's a treat available at Wray Castle as wonderful photos of the Lake District taken in the 1930s, 40s and 50s are on show until Xmas.

A 'lumber-jill' getting stuck in; don't like the look of that tree though!

This is a wonderfully evocative view of the Lakes in days gone by

 They are the work of one very talented man Kenneth Shepherd who recorded a way of life now all but gone. He wanted his photographic record to be looked after for the future and gifted his original glass plates to us here at the National Trust.

Harriet carefully dusts of the glass plate, you can see her at work in the video too

The project we're working on currently at Wray Castle, which visitors can see, has two aspects: to conserve the original glass plates for posterity (they are an invaluable resource for any future Lake District historian) and to make Kenneth Shepherd's photos available to the public - initially with our display at Wray Castle and in time on-line at our National Trust collections website.

And we'd like your help... If you knew the Lake District in days gone by or have a family or other connection with the area then you might just be able to give us information to help identify people and places in the photos. The photos which we've already scanned are up on the walls inside Wray Castle with the opportunity for you to add your information.

Wray Castle is open every day until Sunday 4th November and then weekends until Xmas so do come and see the photos for yourself.

Here's a short video about Kenneth and our conservation project, narrated by Kenneth's daughter, Rosemary and our curator Sarah.


Photos by Ken Shepherd (not to be used without permission).
Post by Linda
Video | photography by ward
Conservation photo | Jo Hudson

Look what was under the paint!

A couple of weeks ago Rose from Wray Castle highlighted here on our blog some conservation work that was going to be done inside Wray Castle. It all went really well with some fantastic results.

Here's a short video made during the tile restoration work done in the Morning Room at Wray Castle - visitors loved seeing the tiles being revealed.



The final results were better than anyone could have imagined from the tiny fragment that was peeking through at the start to the fantastic tile pictures revealed.

Before the tile panels were revealed...

The fireplace with restored tile panels



A closer view of the wonderful tile panel

As Conservation in Action is the theme today we're also very pleased to say that work to conserve and digitise Kenneth Shepherd's wonderful glass photographic plates showing the Lake District in the 1930s and 1940s is going very well. We've also got a short video of that to share with you but you'll have to wait until next week's blog for that one!

post by Linda
thanks to Dayve at Photography by Ward for the video & 'finished' photos