Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens

We visited belasy Hall, Castle and Gardens last Monday, which is in Greek ancient, classical country house designed by Sir Charles. All of the buildings were made of stones. Belasy Hall is a 19th century country mansion. Picture 1 is the map of this group of buildings
Stable Block is NO.1 in the map. There is a introductory exhibition at the gate.
After visiting Stable Block, we went to the Main Hall(NO.2 in the map), which is two-story Greek style. The Main Hall was built in 19th century. The columns at the gate are Doric order. However, the columsn in the hall are form Ionic order, the columns on the first are Tuscan. On the ground floor, there are some dinning rooms, library, rooms for relaxing or playing. There are still some romms for servants and nurseries. On the first floor, all of the rooms were used for sleeping. The windows are towards the Southeast to absorb more sunlight.
On the way to the castle, we enjoyed the magnificent gardens. Personally, I think the plants can make the environment more quiet, interesting, especially there are some monolith and spring in the gardens. In the gardens, unaltered for two hundred years, thousands of exotic species can be discovered. Sir Charles Monck designed the dramaticly romantic Quarry garden-a series of ravines, corridors and pinnacles, and his grandson, Sir Arthur Middleton, enriched it with all manner of rare and exotic plants. Picturesque landscaping covers thirty acres, which includes magnificent rhodedendorons, and see forever changing seasonal delights. For instance, snowdrops, gorgeous summer blooms or golden feay hues.
Finally, we reached the dramatic, well-preserved medieval castle(No.3 in the map) with rare wall-paintings. The right of castle was built in 14th century, the rest of them was built later. Now the entire castle is unfurnished and maintained in a condition of benign decay, with only necessary structural maintenance undertaken. Althouth there are no ceilings, floors, roofs in the left castle, you still can see the mark that people left such as cooking area.After entering the older castle, the strong stone construction is still in good condition . The stairs are very thin to spare more space to the rooms. There is a sculpture in on the second floor, called Lucky Spot that made by Stella Mccartney in 2003. Made form 8000 swarovski glass crystals, the work was painstaking and intricate, as each wire had to be numbered and carefully positioned on the stainless steel panel above. It forms an ethereal, yet solid mass and as light floods in through the castle’s medieval windows, the crystals produce brilliant prismatic patterns across the walls.