Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern – we have just returned from a brief visit to Ambleside in the Lake District; Thursday was typical weather for the area, heavy downpours interspersed with light showers for most of the day.  We are fair weather walkers so we looked for some dry alternatives to slopping around in Cumbrian mud and came across the 17th Century farmhouse at Townend, now in the hands of the National Trust.  Owned by the same farming family for 400 years it is a remarkably well preserved example of a rural life which has long since disappeared.  The first picture shows the refectory table where the family, staff and farm workers would gather as a group to eat next to a large open fire which was lit throughout the year.  The lasting impression is of darkness; the dark heavy oak furniture, the dark stone floors and the blackened fire surround; the straight chimney flues would be no barrier to back drafts on windy days, filling the dark room with gusts of smoke.  The view to the outside world is through tightly patterned windows which, on summer days, cast their patterned shadows on the dark floors and furniture:

There is a collection of family photographs, a unique library of books, carved furniture and canopied beds, the canopy serving to protect the occupants from anything that might fall from the rafters – nothing much romantic about four-posters in this context.

(click on images to enlarge)