Inquisitiveness

Lound Hall, Nottinghamshire yesterday

After my various rambles, I often find matters to research and niggling questions to answer. After yesterday's walk, I wanted to find out who lives in Lound Hall, what the tomb of The Duke Of Newcastle's wife looks like, how much oil lies below the surface of those nodding donkeys and something of the history of Bevercotes Colliery. If you are an inquisitive soul, there is always something more to discover.

This is the  marble tomb of  Georgiana, The Duchess of Newcastle, who died in 1822 during childbirth and the principal reason why Milton Museum was built. Sculpted by Richard Westmacott, you can see that Georgiana is holding her twin babies. The girl died at birth and the boy survived for just ten days. At that point, Georgiana was already dead and the fourth Duke of Newcastle was grief-stricken.

Of course, All Saints Church in West Markham is altogether a much more humble ecclesiastical building. Yesterday, I mentioned its amazing limestone font. Crudely carved, it is over a thousand years old. My own photo of it was too blurry  to share so instead I will show you this picture from the Tate Collection:-

Finally Lound Hall. It was built in the 1930s for a coal mining magnate called Sir Harald Peake. During World War II it served as an orthopaedic hospital and after the war it became a training centre for The National Coal Board. Later still it was to become The National Mining Museum for a few years. Around fourteen years ago the hall reverted to private ownership - purchased by the entrepreneurial Mills family.

One of the sons of that family is called Charlie Mills and he appeared in the TV reality series "Made In Chelsea". Back in 2019, he was arrested and charged with drink driving down in London. He received a hefty fine and an eighteenth month ban. I guess he is a proper Charlie - well maybe to be fair the experience taught him a lesson. I hope so:-