Its always nice to discover parts of Kent I never knew about, and this one was one of the quirkiest…
I didn’t even know about it until two weeks ago when I was looking at options for a day out and the name ‘Quex house and gardens’ came up, when I looked online I thought it the ideal option to explore. Fortunately the weather was perfect sunny and dry as we arrived at Quex house near Birchington on sea on the northern coast of Kent. We parked and went into the gift shop to buy the tickets and decided on the house/gardens/museums option, very reasonable prices and because it was a quiet day when we did the guided house tour there was only my husband and me on it, which made it more personal and enjoyable. The manor house, going back generations is still owned by the Powell-Cotton family who own it today, and only half of it is open to the public. We leant that the family earned their money through renting properties for the workers during the industrial revolution, and still earn alot of their income from renting out parts of their land to businesses at Quex Park that the house sits in. Quex house is full of tasteful rich furnishings, wooden carvings, silk embroideries, with some of the furniture from England, some from Japan, some from China, some from India, and the thing I found fascinations was the workmanship and beauty of the artifacts, as an artist I could see the creative workmanship of it all, from the carved and painted plaster ceilings made from papier mache, the massive model wooden ship, the tasteful home of a rich man, happy to show his ability to purchase things to show his taste and wealth over the generations. We saw the wooden carvings in the entrance hall, and carved staircase, and i found it all fascinating.
After the house visit we decided to view the part of the tour that I expected to be the most boring but actually was one of the most interesting parts. It was the museum of natural history featuring the mostly African animals that had been shot by one of the Powell-Cotton family in Victorian times. Normally I wouldn’t be overly bothered about looking at a lot of dead animals that had died years ago, but these animals had died in Africa, and their skins shipped back to England, for the very skilled taxidermist to stuff them, and make them look alive and real again. They were put in Dioramas of natural history with glass rooms with painted walls to make them look like they were in the savannah again, with wood, rocks, grasses and grouped together to look realistic, and I found it fascinating how respectful it all was, bearing in mind it was done at a time when people in England wouldn’t know what African animals looked like, unless they’d seen them in a zoo, they could now see the animals as they were, in a marvellous celebration of their lives in death so to speak. There were hundreds of them, giraffe, zebra, gazelle, antelope, water buffalo, monkeys, gorilla, tiger, bear, hyena, cheetah, elephant, hippopotamus, crocodile, wolf, lion, eagle. It was all tastefully done, and I know a lot of school children go there for lessons on natural history and I could see why it was all so informative.
After the museum we then had chance to look in the gardens of Quex house, with water features, koi carp, a dove cote, and peacock, and the walled gardens with a large vegetable garden full of flowers, and herbs, with loads of greenhouses growing fruits and veg, vines, and figs, cacti green house, chicken pen with happy hens dusting themselves in the soil.
After we left Quex house I wanted to go to Birchington on sea as we were only about two miles from the coast, and I’m always happy if I can walk on a sandy beach as the tide came in, so it was the ideal day, I took loads of photos which is always a good sign if I’ve enjoyed a day out, and I’ve learnt a bit more about a place in Kent I knew nothing about until two weeks ago, Kent is still full of pleasant surprises.
