Time For Tea: Tea the Sixteenth

Just tea for two
And two for tea,
Just me for you
And you for me alone.

Irving Caesar - from 'No, No, Nanette'

Weetwood Hall Hotel, Leeds - Saturday, 8th July 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

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13th Wedding Anniversary Tea

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On a slightly less sunny 8th July in 2000, we came here to Weetwood Hall for our wedding reception. The key feature of said reception was that it should begin with afternoon tea and only once fortified by this important meal would we inflict speeches, cake cutting and the like upon the assembled throng, who would then later recover over dinner. I vaguely remember getting my first cup of tea as Mrs Ryan, and seeing the conservatory set out with scones and other necessaries, but in the excitement and sociability of the day, I didn't really have a chance to appreciate the tea provisions.

The Brasserie and conservatory were a pleasant, if undistinguished, setting and little has changed. Today we sat in the conservatory - it was either a choice of the garden, where we couldn't hear the piped drivel, or indoors, where the hum of the ring road was less audible, so we opted to suffer crooning, easy-listening pop.

Our relationship with this site of one of the most important celebrations of our life is not one of simple unalloyed romanticism - the fact that they threw away most of our wedding cake, and literally dropped the top tier in with a carrier bag of presents, has always lent a certain Fawlty Towers-esque charm to our memories of the place. They were not to disappoint today - having rung in advance (twice) to order plain scones they failed on this and the terrified waitress giggled hysterically at our request for ham sandwiches without mustard - I am assuming that the chef of whom she spoke with breathless anxiety is of the meat-cleaver-wielding disposition. Add to that a waiter who poured hot water all over the table and we were pleased to find that plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Note, on the picture below (taken in the selfsame Brasserie), not only the extreme youth and apparent mania of bride and groom, but the care with which the hotel have constructed the cake - I am quite sure that those two pillars (front left, both levels) are really meant to be upside down...

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It must be conceded, however, that today's tea was very generous. Two large cake stands presented scones, profiteroles, brownies, flapjack, the first appearance in the odyssey of Yorkshire parkin, and a vast amount of sandwich. The cakes were very good and the sandwiches also (although I could have been happier if there hadn't been prawns present).

The hotel had also made the (always flawed) decision to serve the scones ready split, jammed and creamed - partly, no doubt, out of embarrassment at the lack of clotted cream. This is a serious failing in the serving of afternoon tea, and I don't really feel that any type of cream worth its name should slice like this...

Nevertheless, Mr R declared them pleasing and we certainly both ate very well. We also had a very entertaining time, mostly making less than charitable jibes at the the continuing ineptness of the hotel staff.

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Weetwood Hall

The oldest part of the buildings that make up Weetwood Hall is mid-Sixteenth Century, but the core of the old Hall was built in 1625, and features an attractive and elaborate plasterwork ceiling that is exceptional of its period. During the First World War the house was requisitioned as a convalescent home for officers, then in 1919 was bought by Leeds University and became a hall of residence for women students. It remained a university hall until the 1990s, and indeed one of the guests at our wedding, Julia Elton, had lived here as a student (enticed, as she certainly would be, by the aforementioned Jacobean ceiling).

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Sixteenth Tea - Sixteenth Year

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Wedded Bliss

In response to the sentimental posed wedding ring photos beloved of many commercial photographers, we present our happy marital tribute of the clenched fists of experience: