Part of the grand Victorian mansion near Bodmin has been re-designed for 2022. The nursery has been welcoming children and adults alike to experience life growing up in a Victorian nursery, but now after a re-design and organisation of collections on display, the rooms will give families a chance to interact and live history for themselves.
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Over the last 12 months the Victorian children’s nursery at Lanhydrock has been through an extensive re-presentation programme, co-ordinated by Senior House and Collections Manager, Charlie Newman. Months of research has gone into the nursery suite to make it as historically accurate as possible. Charlie says: “It was really important to us that visitors are able to explore an authentic space, enabling them to discover what is was like as a child living in a Cornish country house.”
Children can gain a hands-on historical experience in this newly designed space and see where the Agar-Robartes children would have learnt, slept and played. After the fire that destroyed much of the house at Lanhydrock in 1881 and with a growing family, Thomas Charles Agar-Robartes was provided with an opportunity to add a self-contained nursery suite to the house. Perfectly situated between the service rooms above and below, the nursery gives visitors not only a glimpse into the country house way of life but offers a chance for play and interaction.
Undergoing a complete refurbishment, the rooms have been restored to an authentic colour scheme of the era, chosen by the Agar-Robartes family and recently revealed by an architectural paint conservator. Charlie says: “The day I found out about the original colour scheme of the nursery suite was when I could see it all coming together.” The brand-new carpets are also based on original Lanhydrock samples, as well as archives from Axminister carpets. The re-presentation of these rooms has been created by the house and collections team, who worked with advisors, including conservators to ensure that the space was as close to the original Victorian rooms as possible.
Over the summer of 2021, visitors were able to view this space as it went ‘under construction’ whilst the team carefully prepared the rooms for winter conservation work. The six nursery rooms are peppered with interpretation, that encourages play and interaction including traditional children’s games, a theatre with costume to dress up in and a rocking horse. Some favourite collection items, owned and used by the family, are also on display.
Amongst these items are the toy soldiers that were donated to the National Trust by the Agar-Robartes family along with the house in 1953. An impressive dolls house is also on display, dating from 1902 and rooms of the house light up in turn, to reveal the rooms inside. Visitors can enjoy the nursery suite as part of the three routes at Lanhydrock house: the family route ‘From toys to travels,’ the kitchen route ‘The hidden workforce’ and Lady R’s bazaar, showing Lanhydrock’s best rooms. To plan your visit to Lanhydrock head to www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lanhydrock