The Dudley at Coombe Abbey

Barbados, as we’ve discovered since we’ve been here, is often called Little England. That’s not so surprising, though the architecture and decor are miles apart. You’ll know how much I’m a fan of and enjoy colour, well Barbados delivers on all of that. The bright colours though, don’t seem to work back home so much, just as the traditional decor from our relatively recent visit to Coombe Abbey in Warwickshire would look out of place in the Caribbean.

Both work, in their own environments. Here’s some more from our mediaeval banqueting weekend, mostly of our room - the Dudley.

The staircase in our room at Coombe Abbey

We’d left it later than we should have to book, and so ended up booking more than the basic room. Usually MOH would have known this wasn’t a good thing, but even if he did when we arrived in the room and were met with our own spiral staircase he just might have been forgiven.

We’ll come back to what’s at the top of the stairs later though. First, drink in the grandeur of the decor, the swags of the curtains and the mock canopy over the bed. They’re about as traditional as you can get…

a grand bed to match the feel of the room
velvet drapes and a grand setting

Upstairs was also traditional, and a tad extravagant. A roll top bath took pride of place, with a generous sized room to itself.

Up the spiral stairs we discovered the roll top bath

A pile of stones in one corner of the room was slightly odd though, or at least I thought so.

with a pile of pebbles in the corner

We were only there for one night, and there was a delay to our room being available, so we weren’t able to take full advantage of all it could offer. We spent the evening celebrating my BIL’s half-century birthday at the medieval banquet, and while they worked that out in the end, that too was disorganised and chaos for our party.

Personally I think the hotel had too much going on, with banquets and weddings, and just weren’t organised enough to cope. We may just have been unlucky, arriving at a particularly busy time, who knows.

Throughout the hotel the decor matched the ambience it promised, and with my gown with the never ending sleeves (seriously, they touched the floor) it was easy to believe we’d been transported back in time.

stained glass elsewhere in the hotel
IMG_6749.jpg

Perhaps, that is, until we encountered this:

And+something+not+quite+expected%2C+A+VW+beetle+nestled+amongst+the+yew+and+wisteria