Our annual family pilgrimage to the Dukeries of Nottinghamshire took place on a day so bitterly cold it felt as if the wind was personally attacking us. Two years since our last visit to Clumber Park, and it seems the National Trust has turned the festive season into a commercial extraganza. Extra off-road parking, a forest of Christmas trees, and miles of fairy lights now adorn the place. How quaint but a bit gaudy for my taste.
The lawns were overrun with gaggles of geese, while others circled the lake, causing great confusion among the dogs who had been expecting a peaceful stroll. Then it dawned on me—it was feeding time. Quite why the National Trust feels the need to cater to these birds is beyond me, but there we are.
For those who care about history, Clumber, Welbeck, and Thoresby make up the Dukeries, once the playgrounds of the aristocracy. Clumber was the Duke of Newcastle’s domain, a slice of Sherwood Forest until he had it “improved” in the 18th century. With an estate stretching a mere eleven miles in circumference, he landscaped it into deer parks, woodland, gardens, and a serpentine lake of nearly 100 acres, because apparently that is what one does with money and power. The grand house, built in 1770, once had four wings, until a fire in the 19th century did away with most of it. The remainder was demolished in 1938, leaving only the stables and the Duke’s personal church. The National Trust scooped up the remnants in 1946, and here we are today, tripping over geese and fairy lights.
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