Welcome Home!

The first view you get of Leyland Manor is from down the grassy mound it was built on. You were already deep into the park, when the lane turned left and you looked up at the modern fascade framed with large old beech trees; or rather the house looked down at you. In the old days one was crossing the river via an ancient stone bridge. A cobblestone road leading the visitor directly from the village to the manor house. But the bridge was destroyed one winter and never rebuilt, as some pageant woman said it would be unwise to do so. The land left and right of the road was leased to two (quarreling) families owning farms near Leyland village. It became their border, overgrowing in time and unrecognizable to the stranger of Leyland's history. Nowadays you had to drive around the village and the Trevenor's farmland, crossing a newer bridge and entering the park from the southwest. This improved first view of the house let to the renovation of its fascade to modern standards in the first place, while the other two wings of it were still in its oldfashioned Tudor and Stuart glory, all including a tower, lead windows and ivy covered walls. But that part, the old courtyard and the tower, you only saw, if you took the right turn of the fork, also leading you to the stables and farm buildings of the manor. If you took the left turn and went up even higher, you found yourself facing the classical new front of the house (which used to be the back a very very long time ago). Looking back down the mound the park opened wide into the landscape of meadows, farms and valleys. To your right were steps down to the Baroque flower garden and going around the house, passing by the old tower and turning right again at the Tudor wing, you'll enter what used to be a formal Renaissance garden. One in shameful disorder, neglected and nearly distroyed. Once there has been a terrace overlooking that garden. Now there were only bushes and ferns. The path leading to an archway was blocked and impossible to trespass. There was no way to the courtyard or street outside. You had to go back all the way, as every door to the old wing was shut as well.