THROUGH MY LENS Mount Stewart's Grand Opening of the Restored Stone Floor in Entrance Hall

The day of the Grand opening of the Restored Stone Floor was upon on 13 April and we were greeted by hearing Amy McAllister playing delightful music on her Irish harp.  This is a long post but a very special day in the life of Mount Stewart House, near Newtownards, N.Ireland and I am linking to Through My Lens.

Mayor of Ards and North Down is Alderman Deborah Girvan, Peter Lauritzen (husband of Lady Rose and granddaughter of Edith) and Dr Bob Brown OBE,

Regional Chairman of National Trust in Northern Ireland (right) who are all standing beside the new display cabinet containing the Coronation roles and crown which Lady Edith, the 7th Marchioness of Londonderry wore at King George V's Coronation.

The kitchen/restaurant staff at Mount Stewart excelled themselves at the reception, before the official opening ceremony, by supplying those invited guests with Champagne and a wonderful variety of canapes.

 Lady Rose and her husband Peter Lauritzen as chief guests.

A few images of the invited guests enjoying the delicious refreshments. 

 Jon Kerr, General Manager of East Down National Trust, Northern Ireland introduced all the guest speakers and I will only mention one here and that is (left) Simon Murray, Senior Director of Strategy, Curatorship and External Affairs, National Trust, UK, who had made a bet with Jon and his team, that they would not finish this project either on time or within budget.  He lost on both counts as it came in under budget and on time so Jon was delighted to receive 2 bottles of champagne on behalf of his team from Simon.

After Lady Rose made a very eloquent speech, she cut the official blue ribbon and stepped into the restored floor of the Entrance Hall accompanied by Jon Kerr.

 I hurried in to try and get photographs before all the guests entered and directly below is the East side where you see the statue of Venus and below that is the West side of the Entrance Hall where Eurydice is standing.

Below, in the centre of the Entrance Hall, the stone is set in a radiating pattern while on the East and West side, it is laid in a design of octagons and squares.

I quickly decided a better plan was to photograph it from the Gallery above where they were holding an exhibiton of art from artists that were asked to show what Mount Stewart meant to them.  Although I am not showing you this now, they were really wonderful and creative works of art.

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I leave you with part of the Gallery which is directly above the main Entrance Halll and where I was photographing from, and you can see some of the art work displayed in the distance.

I hope you enjoyed this post and many thanks for visiting as well as leaving any comments on this post.