We got up about 11:00, and went to the café (The Lounge) across the other side of the square that forms one side of the hotel. There we relaxed (some more) with a sunshiny open-air breakfast, before taking a stroll round Stone’s High St shops, and buying sugar-free sweets for Don (but no-one had diabetic Easter eggs).About midday, we drove north through the village of Tittensor (! It means, “Ridge of a man called Titten”) to the village of Trentham (the proximity of the River Trent gives a clue to the name …)—or at least, to the Trentham Estate.
The Trentham we already knew is a village three quarters of the way from Wellington to Upper Hutt, where Don lived for the first six months of his life in New Zealand (in Manor Park, across the river from Trentham itself). It took him quite a long time to learn to say “Trenth-um” in New Zealand; now it took quite a lot of effort for both of us to learn to say, “Trent-um”.
The Trentham Estate is a commercial venture built in the grounds of Trentham Hall, a former
home of the Dukes and (latterly) Earls of Sutherland (family seat: Dunrobin Castle, 50 miles north of Inverness. "Dun Robbin"; can you believe it?); in 1746, the then Duke was granted a subsidiary title (one of many!) as Viscount of Trentham. The hall was built in 1690 (before Trentham came into the possession of the Sutherlands); but the 4th Duke of Sutherland had it mostly demolished in 1911, ostensibly because of pollution in the River Trent, which runs through the northern part of the estate, close to what’s left of the Hall. In the mid-nineteenth century (according to White’s History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Staffordshire, 1851), “Trentham Hall [was] the principal residence of the Most Noble George Granville Leveson Gower, Duke of Sutherland, Marquis of Stafford, Earl Gower, Viscount Trentham, and Hereditary Sheriff of Sutherland. It is an elegant mansion, situated near the village in a park of 500 acres. It has been entirely rebuilt during the last 14 years, and now has an elegant stone front and a lofty square tower. The late hall was erected about 120 years ago, after the model of Buckingham House, in St James's Park, but it was considerably altered and improved by the first Marquis of Stafford, from designs by Holland, who gave a new and imposing feature to the whole. The present mansion is on a larger and more magnificent plan and the gardens rank 
amongst the finest in England.”Of course, we found all that out later; what we knew, from the brochure we’d picked up at the hotel, was that there was a serpentine park by Capability Jones (18th Century), an Italianate Gardens (19th Century), and a Monkey Forest, with real monkeys (obviously, very 21st Century). Oh, and a big London Eye-type wheel, very apparent from the road to Stoke.
We got there about midday or so, parked the car, and strolled past various “Retail Village” shops to the entrance. Reviewing options, we bought tickets on the steamboat that plies down the lake to the entrance to the monkey forest, then passed through into the gardens and down to the lakeside—where a gaggle of “geese” made of water plants sat on the water.
A short walk down by the lake—passing some suspiciously artificial-looking “fairy rings” on the lawn—took us past the ride-on railway station to the wharf, where a boat was waiting ready to
leave: the Miss Elizabeth. The leisurely water-borne trip southward passed a couple of tree-covered islands, where herons and cormorants sat in the branches, and terrapins sunned themselves on half-submerged fallen logs. There were various other boats on the lake, too—rowers, paddle-boats, and the like. We gave them, and people walking the shore, the odd wave as we passed them.
We disembarked at the south end of the lake, and had lunch at one of the tables outside. It was a fine day, somewhat cloudy, but very pleasant, sitting in the sun and looking around at the lake, the tree-clad shores, and the people enjoying their Easter weekend.
The entrance to the Monkey Forest was just behind the café, but the ground looked rather rough and hilly, so we decided not to walk through it this time. Instead, while we waited for the Miss Elizabeth to return, Margaret sat in the sun and read while Don wandered round the lake shore, admiring the spillway and the duckling family dabbling in the Trent at the foot of it. 
Back aboard the Miss E., we returned to the north end of the lake, and made our way round to the formal terrac
e at the head. About the first thing we went to see was the statue prominent on the terrace. It turned out to be a copy of Cellini’s 1550 Perseus and Medea, commissioned by the 2nd Duke of Sutherland, “on the reconstruction of Trentham Hall” in 1840. It is probably the single most striking feature of the estate (given the sad state of what’s left of the Hall), and now forms the estate emblem—featured, in fact, on the fridge magnet we bought on our way out.Above the terrace
(north), in front of where the Hall stood, are the Trentham Gardens (pictorial map here), with the Italian Garden the jewel in the centre. This is an amazing reconstruction project to restore, and update, the garden d
esigned by Charles Barry in 1840. Sadly, the gardens as a whole were not at their best in early April; but despite the still-wintry trees in the background, the photos give an impression, with a glimpse of what’s left of the Hall at the head, and one of the original loggias at the north-west corner. (We must return in Summer, to see the gardens in their full glory.)
Strolling up the west side of the gardens, towards the Loggia, we were amused by the inscription to a sculpture in the shape of a 50p coin with a man crouched inside it. It read: “The bankers’ clearing house was transferred to Trentham Gardens for the duration of the 1939/1945 war … [This commemorative statue] … presented on 24th February 1976 … symbolises the all-embracing concern of the clearing banks for the financial well-being of their customers.” We read the words in the light of the ongoing recession, blamed on greedy and incompetent bankers …
Reaching the top of the gardens, we mounted the wooden viewing platform that raised us to the height of the upper rooms of Trentham-Hall-as-was. The current owners of the Estate (St Modwen Properties, presumably named for St
Modwen-na, who supposedly lived on an island in the Trent in the seventh century) have received planning permission to recreate the Hall “in its original form” as a five-star hotel; until then, the platform gives all visitors the opportunity to view the gardens as they were designed to be seen. In the distance, beyond the lake, we could see the 1836 statue of the First Duke, standing on its pillar atop Monument Hill, looking out on what is now the Monkey Forest.
While Margaret enjoyed the view, Don went for a bit of an independent walk round the grassed area, partly covered by a large white marquee, where the Hall once 
stood. Behind the marquee still stands the Porte-Cochère (“A covered area at the entrance to a building into which vehicles can be driven”), all that remains of the grand entrance-hall to Trentham Hall. And there was also Trentham Parish Church, “The Church in the Gardens”—but that’s tomorrow’s story.
A walk past the remains of the Hall took us through an avenue in which the trees had been trained to meet above us. Between the wintery branches, a pair of buzzards circled overhead. (We confirmed their identity later, at an RSPB stand by the lake.) We turned down through the pergolaed Trellis Walk, past the marble statue of Hygeia and the (again, wintery) rose garden, and so out through the Gardens entrance-way, and into the Retail Village.
It wasn’t as ghastly as we’d feared. Most of the shops were proper shops (shoes, clothes, household goods, etc.), rather than just “tourist tat”, and not the usual high street brands. Margaret
bought an Ameribag "Healthy Back Bag", and we had “gourmet” pies for afternoon tea, then rode the Trentham Eye observation wheel (called the “Potters Wheel”). Unfortunately, the sun was behind cloud for most of the ride (and the plexiglass gondola distorted the view), so our photos were not so good as we’d hoped; but we did see, and photograph, deer in the Gardens.
We got back to the Crown about 17:30, and Margaret went up to our room to read while Don took the laptop down to the manager’s office to use the WiFi again. Margaret came back down about ten to seven, and Don went through to the bar to order dinner; but there was
a big game (soccer) on the wide-screen TV, and he had to wait his turn behind a long queue of drinkers. When he finally got to the front, he was told that dinner had stopped at 8:30 because of Easter. Fair enough; but there were no notices to say so, and we would have ordered earlier, had we been able to work in the lounge (“WiFi throughout the hotel,” the web site said) ... The barmaid listened courteously to his complaint, and fetched the manager, who most obligingly organised a meal and drinks—at no charge to us!
stood. Behind the marquee still stands the Porte-Cochère (“A covered area at the entrance to a building into which vehicles can be driven”), all that remains of the grand entrance-hall to Trentham Hall. And there was also Trentham Parish Church, “The Church in the Gardens”—but that’s tomorrow’s story.
A walk past the remains of the Hall took us through an avenue in which the trees had been trained to meet above us. Between the wintery branches, a pair of buzzards circled overhead. (We confirmed their identity later, at an RSPB stand by the lake.) We turned down through the pergolaed Trellis Walk, past the marble statue of Hygeia and the (again, wintery) rose garden, and so out through the Gardens entrance-way, and into the Retail Village.
It wasn’t as ghastly as we’d feared. Most of the shops were proper shops (shoes, clothes, household goods, etc.), rather than just “tourist tat”, and not the usual high street brands. Margaret
bought an Ameribag "Healthy Back Bag", and we had “gourmet” pies for afternoon tea, then rode the Trentham Eye observation wheel (called the “Potters Wheel”). Unfortunately, the sun was behind cloud for most of the ride (and the plexiglass gondola distorted the view), so our photos were not so good as we’d hoped; but we did see, and photograph, deer in the Gardens.We got back to the Crown about 17:30, and Margaret went up to our room to read while Don took the laptop down to the manager’s office to use the WiFi again. Margaret came back down about ten to seven, and Don went through to the bar to order dinner; but there was
a big game (soccer) on the wide-screen TV, and he had to wait his turn behind a long queue of drinkers. When he finally got to the front, he was told that dinner had stopped at 8:30 because of Easter. Fair enough; but there were no notices to say so, and we would have ordered earlier, had we been able to work in the lounge (“WiFi throughout the hotel,” the web site said) ... The barmaid listened courteously to his complaint, and fetched the manager, who most obligingly organised a meal and drinks—at no charge to us!You can see the full set of photos (many more!) here.
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