Arley Hall, Cheshire

Arley Hall is a country house in the village of Arley, Cheshire, England, about 4 miles (6 km) south of Lymm and 5 miles (8 km) north of Northwich. It is home to the owner, Viscount Ashbrook, and his family. The house is a Grade II* listed building, as is its adjacent chapel. Formal gardens to the southwest of the hall are also listed as Grade II* on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. In the grounds are more listed buildings, a cruck barn being listed as Grade I, and the other buildings as Grade II.

I have only been to Arley once before and that was to see the house decorated for Christmas, but as a post birthday trip out, I decided it would be nice to see the hall in it’s normal state without all the decorations.

These places are always a pain to photograph due to people wandering around, so I decided to get their early, for opening time to ensure as much time before it got too busy.

So, I paid my entrance fee for the gardens then headed over to the house and paid my additional fee to get in there (I still have no idea why it’s an extra cost!) and that is when the woman behind the desk said to me “oh, it’s no photographs in the house”….

She could not tell me why it’s no photographs during the year, but fine when it’s Christmas, it makes no sense to me as it’s the same place with the same bits and bobs around, but with some extra Christmas decorations. Sometimes these places are picky about flash on a camera (which I can understand), but to totally ban photos is absolutely beyond me!

So, that really put a dampener on my main reason for getting there nice and early and in the end I did not stay very long (and certainly won’t be going back again).

After my wasted trip around the house, I did manage to make the most of the garden and even managed to stay dry despite the constant threat of rain.