Newstead

"An old, old monastery once, and now

Still older mansion, ~ of a rich and rare Mix'd Gothic."

 (Don Juan, Canto XIII)

The Newstead house where days of youthful innocence were spent. I stand alongside my mother.

Set within approximately thirty acres of Newstead Abbey Park, the house needed a guard dog.

My mother in the grounds of woodland surrounding the house. Tales of ghostly spectres abounded.

"... Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth...

A noble wreck in ruinous perfection...

And thou dids't shine, thou rolling moon, upon

All this, and cast a wide and tender light ..." 

(Manfred, Act III, Scene IV)