Royal Afternoon Tea @ Goldsborough Hall
It was sweet of J to take me to Goldsborough Hall for their Royal Afternoon Tea to celebrate a New Year. It was our first time to visit Goldsborough Hall. It's a Jacobean styled home located in a small village near Knaresborough, built in the early 1600s. The hall may be well-known as Princess Mary's first family home in the 1920s while a much earlier resident, Robert Byerley, who was an English soldier and politician, fought at the Battle of Buda (1686) and captured a dark brown horse. It was the Byerley Turk, the earliest of three stallions that were the founders of the modern Thoroughbred horse racing bloodstock. I don't follow horse racing but I thought the story was interesting. Byerley Turk was kept at Goldsborough Hall after his retirement from 1697 and died there in 1706. It is said that he was buried close to the hall. In fact, there was a small pet cemetery in the woods near the house and one of the stone had a name "Turk." Was it the Byerley Turk? Maybe?
The highlights of the 12 acres of landscaped gardens include the collection of snowdrops (over 60 varieties of snowdrop!), spring bulbs (over 50,000 daffodils!), the quarter-mile long Lime Tree, the Rose Garden planted with old roses, the beech hedges planted in Princess Mary's time, and the two Gertrude Jekyll-style herbaceous borders. We missed them this time. At the beginning of January, the gardens were simply bleak without flowers blooming or fresh green leaves growing.
On the other hand, we were able to enjoy the spirit of Christmas that still remained inside of the house. Each room and corridor had a lovely Christmas tree that welcomed us!
Afternoon Tea was served at the Orangery. It was a sunroom-like space that was relatively newly added to the house and had large windows, skylights and doors which open out onto the terrace and gardens. We both chose Tea room blend, a mix of Indian and African teas. It was a strong tea, suitable for milk tea.
The bottom layer was collection of five kinds of savory sandwiches - Yorkshire free range egg and cress, Smoked salmon wrap, Brioche bun with cucumber and some kind of creamy cream (cream cheese?), something like turkey cranberry sandwiches, and Fennel and apple sausage roll. They were ok. J kept saying our homemade sandwiches were much flavorful and better. Well, I can't deny it.
The middle layer was two kinds of scones (plain and with currants) served with strawberry jam and clotted cream. The scones were lighter and slightly drier than Bettys, which is fine and I like to meet a new scone with a different texture. I wished the scones were served warm, though.
We quickly reached the top layer. We must have been hungry. There were three kinds of sweets - millionaire shortbread tarts, carrot cakes, and little parfait. We started with millionaire shortbread tarts. They were super sweet and rich, which suddenly slowed us down. We somehow finished the parfait up too but decided to take the carrot cakes home.
Although the price tag could provide a little bit better quality of foods and services, the venue was lovely and we met a couple of friendly staff there. Especially it was nice to discover the hall's interesting historical background. Thank you J!
