Samuel’s half-term inspiration

There's only a few days left until half-term so I've tracked down three of the best fun, family things to do at Petworth next week!

(And good news for parents - did you know, while the house is closed and until the 13th March you can come into the Pleasure Grounds, Coffee Shop and Gift Shop for free?)

1. Become an artist

We are nearly sold out of tickets to our Turner’s Sussex exhibition but Land, Sea and Sky an exhibition by Petworth Primary School is free and you can even create your own masterpiece in our ‘Creative Corner’ afterwards. I’d be honoured if you included me in your picture, I do spend a lot of time in the land around Petworth, not so much in the sea though as it’s a bit wet for my liking and reminds me too much of bath time.

2. Be a nature explorer

Even with only two legs you humans seem to make pretty good explorers, so why not walk around the lake in the park – at around 1.5 miles it’s just the right length and there’s plenty of wildlife to spot. Look out for geese, ducks and other birds, frogs and of course our herd of fallow deer! Top tip - don't forget to look up in the sky, you could spot a hunting bird of prey like this one...

3. Forest of Enchantment, Monday 18th - Wednesday 20th February, 

11am–12.30pm or 2pm-3.30pm

I was very surprised to find a forest inside our Learning studio this week; the Petworth fairies have been hard at work decorating the room with leaves and sparkly things! Apparently young fairies and pixies can come along to make fairy wings, wands and mini woodland houses. As it's a special workshop you'll need to book on 01798 342207, £5 per child. Don't forget to come dressed up, for a spaniel I look surprisingly good in fairy wings.

Volunteer with us

Have you ever thought about volunteering? Whether it's to gain experience in a particular field, learn something new, make new friends or even all of these put together; one thing all our volunteers agree on is that you'll never look back. And with our main season just around the corner we’ve currently got lots of opportunities for you to get involved…

Costumed Interpreters
Help us bring the past to life. Every weekend from 16th March – 6th November we’ll be holding ‘Stirring up the past’ and with your tailor made costume you’ll explain various aspects of ‘life below stairs’ from laying the Dining Room table to the proper way to take tea in the Servants’ Quarters.

Time for tea? Two volunteers in the Historic Kitchens

Visitor Experience Volunteers
You’ll provide a warm welcome for all visitors, answering any immediate questions, and helping them to orientate themselves while generally offering the information they need to ensure they have an enjoyable visit.


Learning Volunteers
Working as part of a small team, Volunteer Learning Assistants help to bring Petworth House and its collection to life for our young people and ensure that their visit is an engaging and memorable experience. Using a variety of teaching methods, Volunteer Learning Assistants help to make each visit part of a shared learning experience and encourage group discussion and debate.

We love a good party - there's lots of social events throughout the year

Have a look at do-it.org for more information or email Sue Rhodes, Volunteer Development Manager at susan.rhodes@nationaltrust.org.uk to find out more.

Petworth House closed on Monday 21st January

Due to the continuing bad weather we will be closed on Monday 21st January. If you have booked tickets to our Turner exhibition we’ll be calling you today and you will receive an automatic refund. If you would then like to reschedule please call the National Trust booking office on Tuesday. We apologise for any inconvenience.

The park however continues to be open for pedestrian access and the steep hills are perfect for sledging! Here's a few pictures taken over the weekend.

 Have fun and stay safe in the snow.

 

It's snow joke - Petworth House closed this weekend

Sadly we’ve just had to make the difficult decision to close this weekend, Saturday 19^th and Sunday 20^th January due to the adverse weather forecast. If you have booked tickets to our Turner exhibition we’ll be calling you today and you will receive an automatic refund. If you would then like to reschedule please call the booking office after the weekend. We apologise for any inconvenience and hope you enjoy the snow.

Let us know if you make any Samuel the spaniel shaped snowdogs for your snowmen!

A sneak peek at 2013…

Hi all, Samuel the spaniel here. I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year! I was lucky enough to receive a few presents and managed to get my paws on some leftover turkey. It was a very good few days.

It’s great to be back at work and so far I’ve been doing a bit of detective work for you lovely readers by finding out what Petworth House has in store for 2013.

Everything is a bit hush, hush, but we dogs have very good hearing and I’ve managed to pick up a few clues for the year ahead…

*There’ll be lots of young ‘bunnies’ hopping around at Easter*
*Mrs Brown will be cooking up more treats in the Historic Kitchens*
*We’re opening some closed doors in the Servants’ Quarters*
*The return of my favourite event. Clue - it has lots of spaniels!*
*August will be a drama-tic month for the Pleasure Grounds*
*Note to self: in October beware of the haunted woods*

Here’s a picture from my favourite event in 2012, can you spot me?

Getting technical - Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) in Petworth Park

As part of the Petworth Park Archaeology Project we have been looking at a range of different images of the park in order to identify archaeological features.  This has included historic maps and aerial photography, and also LiDAR data.

LiDAR is a form of airborne laser scanning which allows us to build up a 3D model of the landscape. Pulses of infra-red light are scanned across the landscape from an aircraft – the pulses reflect off the ground and are received by sensors on the plane which calculate how long it took for the pulses to return.  Using this information, and knowing the precise location of the plane from GPS we can calculate the position in the world where the pulse hit the ground (±15cm) and represent it as a point in three dimensional space - the sensors can collect up to 100,000 of these points every second.

This gives us millions of point measurements across the landscape – like a blanket of snow.  We can then stitch these points together to create an accurate 3D model of the landscape which we can manipulate and interrogate in all sorts of ways to identify and measure the humps and bumps which might represent archaeological features.

The video below shows a form of processing called Polynomial Texture Mapping.  This allows us to place an artificial light source (a virtual sun) above the landscape and move it around to draw out features through the play of light and shadow.

Often these features are very difficult to see on the ground because they are so slight, or due to vegetation cover. The dense beams of infrared light used for LiDAR data, however, are able to penetrate through vegetation, allowing us to ‘filter’ out the trees and taller plants to look at the landscape underneath.

An aerial photo (left), ‘unfiltered’ lidar (centre) and ‘filtered’ lidar (right) for Arbour Hill in Petworth Park, possibly the site of Henry VIII’s banqueting house.  By filtering out the vegetation, the lidar allows us to see the square earthwork enclosure and central mound (circled in red)

As part of the Petworth Park Archaeology Project, throughout December and January we will be ‘ground-truthing’ the sites we identify in the LiDAR data, historic maps and aerial images, photographing and recording them.  This will help to inform the later stages of the project in 2013 which will see volunteer Assistant Archaeologists undertaking geophysics and excavation of specific features.

If you’re interested in volunteering with the project, or want to find out more, get in touch with susan.rhodes@nationaltrust.org.uk or call 01798345525, and keep an eye out for more posts in the future.

Servants' stories

So far we’ve heard form Phyllis, an under-maid who worked at Petworth in the 1930s and Dorothy whose father was a scullery man and this week we’ve found an extract from Horace Arnold remembering his time as a Junior Footman.

‘I started work for Lord Leconfield in 1929 at his London home in Bryanston Square. He did have another house in London but like many people of his social set he rented a house for the ‘season’. The salary was £30 a year and after nine months in London, I came down to Petworth. I was junior footman, sometimes referred to as stewards’ room boy. My basic task was to attend to the senior staff, an elite among the servants, Mr Wickham the butler, Mrs Cownley the housekeeper, Mr Coddington, his lordship’s valet and Florence Roper the head housemaid. Whether in London or Petworth my job was to take care of their meals and their dining room. I was only sixteen or seventeen. I’d be up at 7.30am to start the fire; I wore clerical grey morning suite but for this early part of the day an old worn one, my ‘scruffs’ as I called it. The breakfast was always cooked and I collected from the kitchen, the food was excellent.’

‘The chef was a woman at this time but I also seem to recall a Belgian chef but maybe he was only brought in for special occasions. The senior staff had a set menu, which I would need to know in advance so I could lay up the table, I would serve in formal manner at table, over the left shoulder. Dinner for the steward’s room would be eaten before dinner in the main house. When there were guests in any number I would go over to the house to help. The meal would be served in the Square Dining Room or if it were a very large party it would be in the Carved Room. Full livery uniform was worn by the footmen, - a yellow and blue stripped waistcoat, white shirt front, jacket of navy blue with silver buttons, smooth ‘doe-skin’ trousers and black patent leather shoes with a buckle.’

Here’s a ‘servant’ ready to serve dinner at our The 3rd Earl’s Christmas event last year.