Every Day is Unique at Renishaw

There’s no such thing as a typical day here at Renishaw Hall. Honestly, no two days are ever the same.

Take the last few weeks, for example. To start with the snow set us a fair few challenges. While most of us faced the hassle of clearing our drives of snow to get out and about, spare a thought for our estate team. They not only had to clear the estate roads and pathways of ice and snow every time we had a snowfall but also took to the hall roof in temperatures well below freezing to keep the roof free of the heavy white stuff. Snow, you see, left for too long on the roof can make a large amount of damage to the fabric of the 400-year-old historic building…. so it had to be moved pretty quickly.

Over the past month we’ve also hosted a film crew from the television show, Flog It Trade Secrets, and we eagerly await the end result. We’ve also been visited by a BBC news team. And in the meantime, while all this goes on our day to day work continues. With less than two months now before we re-open again for the season we’re pretty busy taking bookings and getting everything back in place.  The gardeners, meanwhile, are working hard to keep the garden in shape and are adding a few changes that are set to inspire us in the spring.

We’re also working hard to put together new displays in our museum and adding new exhibits for the new season. This year the Sitwell Museum will house yet more documents, letters and photographs all providing a real insight into the interesting world of the Sitwell trio, Osbert, Edith and Sacheverell. The siblings, of course, were famed for their writing in the early part of the 20^th century and played a huge part in the artistic and literary circle.

You’ll perhaps not be surprised that, as well as their numerous published books and poems, they were also prolific letter writers. As our archivist continues to make her way through reams of letters, documents and photographs, there are regular discoveries of new information about the trio and their life as well as other pieces of material to help us fill in the gaps in Renishaw’s long history. We’ve found it both amazing and interesting and so some of that information will find its way into the museum and we hope to share some of it within our new literary tours too. The new findings are almost a daily occurrence, but as we keep saying no two days at Renishaw are ever the same.