Winterthur, Delaware USA  | - Click on the image above to view gallery
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 Estate Gardens
It’s not a very large museum and I had seen just about everything in about an hour before I walked the short distance to Winterthur. It was a really hot day although overcast so I was extremely grateful when someone who worked on the estate took pity on me when they saw me walking and gave me a lift along the long and winding drive to the entrance. What a really kind thing to do.
The Winterthur in Delaware is very different to the city in Switzerland although the original twelve room mansion house built in 1837 is named after the ancestral home in Switzerland of the family who built it. Today it is an American country estate, the former home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), an avid antiques collector and horticulturist. In the early 20th century, H. F. du Pont and his father, Henry Algernon du Pont, designed Winterthur in the spirit of 18th- and 19th-century European country houses, gradually extending the mansion to house their ever-growing collection.
 Du Pont Dining Room  Soup Tureens
The exhibition galleries and 175 period rooms in the mansion showcase an amazing collection of furniture and decorative arts objects from all over the world. I enjoyed a guided tour around just a few of the many period rooms. Something I’m not used to in any house like this I visit in England is being allowed to take pictures, so that was a pleasant surprise.
After my tour I enjoyed walking around the magnificent 1,000 acre estate. I would have loved the day to have been brighter for the pictures taken in the garden. Visiting in June was sadly a bit late for the displays of flowering azaleas but I can imagine it would be stunning with the number of plants I saw in the woodland setting. One absolutely charming area of the garden was the enchanted woods. An area designed especially for children of all ages but I seemed to be the only one there so I had to have a go on the swinging seats all by myself. It really was a lot of fun to see the woods as a child would however. I felt like I was six years old again!
 Faerie Cottage  Frog Hollow
A really enjoyable day once more and the highlight of the day for me was watching a wee chipmunk trying to hide from me. I just sat quietly for a while until it came back out: what cute creatures they are. I also saw a Cardinal, the only one I saw during my visit to America, but sadly it was just a brief view and there was no chance to get a picture of it.
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I will be in touch before you go. Angela x