Burghley House at Stamford

Everyone slept well and made it to breakfast before class. We had class in the Morning Room, mainly to go over the expectations of the course syllabus and explain the two types of assignments students will complete most days. The first is a business and economic survey of the towns we are visiting. It has students look at various characteristics of the towns' shopping districts to understand how each town is different and similar to other US towns. Some of the suggested cues include shopper diversity, shopping for necessity or luxury, tourists or locals, classifying business types, pedestrian friendly and access to public transportation. The second assignment is associated with the tours we have scheduled. Students are to have at least three main take-aways from each tour. These two assignment types are the backbone of the reflective essay the students will write at the end of the course. Overall, the students seemed to be excited about the course structure.

After the class, we all loaded up and headed to Stamford, located about 23 miles to the south of Harlaxton.

We first toured Burghley House. A brief history: it was designed and built by William Cecil, 1st Lord of Burghley, who was Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I, between 1558 and 1587. The house was inherited by his descendants, the Earls and Marquesses of Exeter.

Since 1981 the house and all its contents have been owned by a charitable trust established by the family. Below are a few of the more unusually features of this amazing house. This was used in numerous movies including The Da Vinci Code and Pride and Prejudice.

One way the family makes enough money to cover the cost of the House is to collect rent on over 300 properties that the House still owns which included houses, restaurants, pubs, stores and the like. Typically, the historic houses never sold the land but allowed people to build houses and stores on the land and receive rent from the land use. This picture is of the House collecting rent from all of their lands.

 This ivory chess set is unusually because some tourist decided to steal the white queen. A local craftsman recreated the queen but added a feature to ensure that everyone knew it was a recreation and not the original. The white queen is carrying a cell phone.

Here are the private family gardens that are not open to the public except from mid-March to Easter Sunday and again in July for a film festival.

This room is known as the Hell staircase forming a powerful contrast to the Heaven waiting room above.











The next two pictures are from the 6th Marquess of Exeter who participated in the Olympics in 1924 and 1928. His running was renowned and his feat of running around the Great Court at Trinity College in Cambridge in the time it took the college clock to toll 12 o'clock, inspiring the scene in the film Chariots of Fire.
The left is his first hip replacement that he turned into a hood ornament for his Rolls Royce. The second is of his Olympic metals, running shoes and other awards.

 We had about a hour of free time around Burghley House and I stopped in for a cup of tea and chocolate croissant in a side garden.

We then went into Stamford and had two hours to wander around town. Most everyone went to a pub for a pint or two. In addition, some when shopping and some looked inside two local churches. I tried to get a tour of All Saints Brewery which brews all of Samuel Smiths fruit beers. Unfortunately, they were brewing today and would not give a tour. Interestingly, they still use manual steam powered brewing equipment.












We got back to Harlaxton near 4pm and everyone had free-time for the rest of the day. Harlaxton does have 10 mountain bikes to borrow and I took one out for a short ride.
This is the Canal tow path near Harlaxton. It runs from Grantham to Nottingham (approximately 30 miles). I did not see another bicyclist on the path.

 Here is another view of Harlaxton. The Manor is in the background and the carriage house is the smaller structure on the left. All of the students and professors in our class are staying in the carriage house. Currently we are the only people in the building.