Cattle, Castle and Crooked House - 16 February 2008

Over the years we have visited many country estates, looked at many fine English houses and explored many ruined castles. This weekend we were invited to stay on a country shooting estate and had the opportunity to explore their privately owned ruined castle.

Ngaire and Stuart have changed lifestyles and now work on the Chartley Hall Estate and accommodation in the Mews Cottage is provided.

The estate is in Staffordshire and the current dwelling is the fourth moated manor house to occupy the site after the castle was abandoned in the mid 1500s. Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in the Hall shortly before her execution in 1587.

The estate is home to a rare breed of cattle that are said to date from Roman times and that were recorded in the Doomsday book. Chartley Cattle are one of a few herds of Old English White Park Cattle and are descendants of what is reportedly the oldest breed in the country.

On Saturday we were taken to see The Crooked House pub built in a semi-collapsed building that is situated over a collapsed mine shaft. After the ground subsidence left one end of the pub 4 ft lower than the other the building was condemned in the 1940s before the Banks pub chain took it over, strengthened and stabilised the building and reopened it as a popular tourist destination.

The Indie Travel Podcast might give me Lonely Planet books for writing this!