No running or cricket practice allowed!

This is the Long Gallery at Montacute House in Somerset -the longest surviving long gallery in England.  If you look at the far end, you will see that I have included a person standing at the window, to give you a sense of scale.  

Back in the day, if you were wealthy enough, your house would have a long gallery to enable you and your family to take some gentle exercise indoors when the weather was inclement outside.  Rather like a precursor to the basement pools beloved by the super rich today.  On a grey overcast day an indoor shot somehow seemed rather appropriate.  

The House is currently showing the Tournai Tapestry which I've added as an extra as Cathy was much taken with it.  This large tapestry is in fact just 5% (and all that remains) of the original larger set woven in the Flemish town of Tournai between 1477 and 1481. It depicts a knight on horseback carrying a standard with arms of Jean de Daillon. It’s one of the few surviving tapestries from the fifteenth century and was commissioned by de Daillon himself, but it was eventually gifted to him by the city of Tournai. Inevitably de Daillon died before the tapestry was completed ....

I am feeling quite full now, as a I did have a National Trust fruit scone with clotted cream and jam as a treat this afternoon ....