Upstairs/downstairs

Duncombe Park was holding a craft fair - an opportunity to see the inside of the stately home whose grounds I had previously walked in. What intrigued me most (and I requested permission to photograph) were the bells...

Very decorative.

These were only a small proportion of the total. One rang while I was close by. Certainly very audible! The reason for my interest is because my Aunt Nora worked as housekeeper for the Cracroft-Wilson family in Christchurch from the late 1950s - 1980s and their house, constructed post-1945, also had a built-in system for summoning household help. So a system more closely associated with the landed English gentry of past centuries was alive and well in twentieth century New Zealand! Enough said.