Wimpole Estate, National Trust |

Over the summer we spent a weekend in Bedford, and as part of our time there, we visited Wimpole Estate, which is a National Trust property located in Cambridgeshire.

Wimpole Estate has been occupied for over 2,000 years. However, it wasn’t until the 1930s that Elsie Bambridge, who with her husband were the last private owners of Wimpole Estate, filled the house with artwork and contents, turning it into the house that it is today.

Elsie was able to refurbish the house (Wimpole Hall) using royalties from her father’s books. Her father was Rudyard Kipling, an English journalist, short story writer, poet, and novelist, who wrote The Jungle Book and The Man Who Would be King, amongst other works.

In order to view Wimpole Hall we had to walk up a long pathway from the entrance, which was a really enjoyable experience.

There were signposts along the pathway with activities for children, some asking them to say what bugs they could see, challenging them to find things of a certain colour, and providing them with information on the types of insects and animals that they may see during different seasons.

Only the ground floor of Wimpole Hall was open, which still provided us with a lot of rooms to see, which included The Entrance Hall, which had large columns in it, as well as decorative tiles on the floor.

We also got to see The Yellow Drawing Room, which was used for concerts and entertaining, and had an intricate canopy on the ceiling, giving the room some impressive height.

We also saw the Chapel, which was used for morning prayers and had some artwork in it, which took three years to finish.

We saw The Library and Book Room, which had over 10,000 books making it one of the most significant book collections The National Trust owns.

Lastly we saw The Long Gallery, which had pictures hanging in it of Wimpole Hall’s previous owners, The Dining Room, Staircase Hall, The Butler’s Pantry, and The Housekeeper’s Room, which led us through the Basement Corridor and then outside.

One of the rooms that I would have loved to have seen but wasn’t open was The Soane Bath House, it has a sunken bath in it, which is thought to have been used for group bathing.

After seeing Wimpole Hall we walked through the formal Parterre, which was restored in 1996 and was full of trees, flowerbeds, and patterns that were planted to create a Union Jack effect.

We were at Wimpole Estate for a couple of hours, but didn’t get to see the Walled Garden, Dutch Garden, Pleasure Grounds, Parklands, or Home Farm, which Ryan would have loved as he loves farm animals.

Wimpole Estate was really big and had a lot of things for families of any stage to enjoy. As soon as Wimpole Hall is fully opened I’d love to come back and see it all, as well as visit the areas we missed this time.