Tourist Tuesday - Wormsley Estate and Library

Hi everyone!
Who would have known I've been away all week? ;) Pics of my trip will follow, but in the mean time let me share this amazing experience of visiting the Wormsley estate with you. It is an enormous estate with its own cricket ground and an amazing library. We went here to watch the cricket (a first for me, had to learn the rules first. I still don't understand it but the bf does!). 

First order of the day, and in true English fashion: a lovely glass of Pimms :)

Check out the cricket pitch, isn't the scenery amazing?!

It was a wonderful day, and luckily the weather really played along nicely and stayed dry.

We were also allowed to visit the library, full of stunning books. In front of the library there was this original Banksy!

The library itself was beyond amazing. It was so impressive that we took the tour twice!

There were so many amazing books, here a First Edition of Utopia (1516).

And some pages of the Gutenberg bible! There were many other books, but I can only share so much really. These two were the most impressive for me. At least regarding what I know about them. 

I came across this charming little book which am sure has a meaning, but I was intrigued by this image of The Crystal Palace. This building house the Great Exhibition of 1851, and was sadly destroyed by fire in 1936. I would have loved to visit this!

I even saw this pistol book in the library. And I thought this stuff only happened in westerns or so!

This 3D sundial caught my eye as well, it shows the estates and the wind direction. I think it's linked to the weather vane on the roof but I can't be sure.

There were so many amazing books in so many languages!

This one is hilarious. The picture on the right is of an elephant, drawn based only on a verbal description given to the artist. I can understand how this came to be, but it's still so funny :)

There were of course a lot of bibles as that was the most common written word in the early days, and some of them came in little pouches that were even still intact! The book on the right is a tiny version of the New Testament with embroidered binding from 1626. The condition of it was remarkable, so much detail!

We were not allowed to touch any of the books which is fair enough considering their age and value. But when I saw this book on medieval dresses and decorations, my fingers were itching. I would have loved to have a peek inside!

And finally this book, it is exactly the same as the one above (at least I think so, it has the same title and author) but this actually won a medal in the 1862 International Exhibition in Kensington for its binding. I can understand why... 

It was an amazing day, and so much to see! This was definitely not something one has the chance to visit a lot. I thoroughly appreciate having had the chance to see all this :)