BED OF ROSES

Beds and Beds of Roses!

I took a guided tour of the main house at Woolmers near Longford today and wondered, as I often do when I'm there, what those Archer ladies of long ago would make of things now? Clearly they would easily recognise the interior of the house because almost nothing there has changed - it's still just as it was - a microcosm of a bygone age.

Marjorie, who presided over the homestead in the 1930s and who was the last lady-of-long-ago to change anything, would most certainly have loved theNational Rose Garden, because roses were so obviously her passion. Indeed Marjorie managed to put roses on almost everything she touched. She introduced decorative roses (mostly in shades of pink) onto curtains, cushions and onto beds - the valances; the bedspreads, the pillows. Beds of roses were her thing!

Roses are to be found lurking on carpets and on china. This was not mere decorating, but serious decorating - with roses! And our long-ago Marjorie was able to indulge herself becase we know there was plenty of money at the time - it was the heyday of the wool industry and Woolmers did very indeed.

Fortunately, perhaps, there is much about the house that's clearly very masculine so she didn't manage to convert everything to her passion for decorating. And it's also probably fortunate for us that she didn't manage to change so very much, though she certainly put her stamp on some of the decor.

Fast-forwarding to the present day, and I notice that visitors were everywhere, and a large bus was bringing even more. And the National Rose Garden was looking absolutely wonderful. Every bit as wonderful as those long-ago ladies at Woolmers could possibly have wished for!