Gavin McDermott

I’d visited the outside gardens before (like 10 years ago), but never been in the house, so was curious to see the Rothschild stash

The house itself is massive, and I was really excited to skip through the first couple of rooms, even though I wasn’t allowed up close to the Gainsboroughs and Reynolds (although the curator did share that one of them couldn’t ‘do’ hands, which made them easy to tell apart …but I can’t remember which way round!).

And then it just started to feel a bit ‘samey’, and like there were too many rooms than the owners even knew what do do with. And that there was too much money somehow, and too many choices didn’t emerge as particularly ‘joyous’. Very provocative, anyway.