Blickling Hall

I'm in the beginning stages of researching for my dissertation, so I'm going a little crazy and decided I might as well post about my placement.

For our program we are expected to do a 14 day placement at a museum or heritage site of our choosing (with a very long management plan about the site to follow).  Because I couldn't afford to go to London for two weeks, I figure the next best thing was the National Trust Property Blickling Hall.  Blickling Hall is a 17th century property on roughly 5,000 acres of land.  The original building was in fact the site where Anne Boleyn was born and spent a few years so it's a famous site. In fact every 19 May(the day Anne Boleyn was executed) tons and tons of visitors show up to witness Anne Boleyn's headless ghost return to the site in a carriage pulled by a headless horseman.  Yeah, there are a lot of ghost stories about this site, but I sincerely doubt any of them are true.

  

 

The travelling to the site every day in March (when it was still freaking cold here in the UK) was difficult, I began by walking to the bus stop to take a 30 minute bus ride through the country.  The bus stopped at a small market town called Aylsham.  From there I then walked 25 minutes.  The walk began through a cemetery, then I walked along country roads with cars flying by and then for the majority of the journey I was on a dirt/grass horse path.  Sometimes along this journey pheasants (I'm terrified of birds in case you forgot) would randomly cross my path and I had to stop, walk away, until the bird wandered off.  So yes, that was my twice a day (unless one of the employees gave me a ride to Aylsham) daily commute. 

The Great Hall

Anyways, I greatly enjoyed my two weeks there, every day I was doing something different (from working with  marketing, to shadowing the house steward, dealing with volunteers, cleaning and configuring a 18th century dinning room setting, and dealing with daily conservation).  I also got to see rooms that the public doesn't view, learn little secrets and get really close to the beautiful objects.  The placement was probably the most useful (in a career aspect) part of my program.