Newstead Abbey and gardens or how to spend a wet weekend

I’m in the UK at the moment, and spent a very wet and grey afternoon exploring Newstead Abbey. I’ve been round the gardens several times but never made it into the house, and I have to say it was worth the effort. It’s on a smaller scale than many stately homes, but in many ways that makes it nicer — it’s actually possible to imagine a family living there.

For those people who don’t know — and I didn’t — Newstead was the home of the Byron family until Lord Byron finally ran out of money and sold it. Byron is one of those historical characters that I knew vague facts about, and I learned a lot from the exhibition, to the extent that I’ve now added a biography and poems of Byron to the list of things I’m going to read when I run out of books about the Peninsular War and Lord Wellington.

Newstead is beautiful in any weather, but go there on a sunny day if you can. The gardens are huge and truly beautiful, and there are a great selection of events held there through the year. Take good shoes as it can be muddy even in good weather, and enjoy the gardens, the lake, the ducks, geese and swans, the superb views of the house, and of course the house itself, which has great exhibitions about Byron and his world.