Mike Laycock and children visit a stately home packed with theme rooms...

As we entered the building, the unmistakable strains of the Wedding March boomed out from an organ. But this wasn't a church, nor were we attending a wedding.

We were visiting Sledmere House, a stately home in the heart of the Yorkshire Wolds, where the usual fine paintings, plasterwork, porcelain, furniture and chandeliers were - slightly bizarrely but pleasantly - accompanied by an organ in the staircase hall.

The instrument, with the pipes located high above in the dome, was brought to Sledmere from Scotland and it is played every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday between 1.30pm and 3.30pm, and it makes a splendid accompaniment to a visit.

My wife and I had come with our daughter, Gabrielle, and her little friend, Sarah, five.

We had known they would enjoy running around the grounds, laid out by Capability Brown, but wondered if they would find the interior a little boring.

We needn't have worried. The staff had devised an excellent way of keeping young children amused by supplying a prize quiz. There were a couple of questions to be answered as we entered each room, for example about the people featured in paintings or the sculptures of animals, and the children scurried from room to room in search of answers.

The house is both Georgian and Edwardian. The original building, constructed by Sir Christopher Sykes in the late-1700s, was gutted by fire in 1911. A careful restoration project then lasted until almost the end of the First World War.

The house is filled with works of art reflecting the very different tastes of different generations of the Sykes family. The Horse Room is full of paintings of... horses, reflecting the passion of Sir Tatton Sykes.

Throughout, there is decorative plasterwork, restored from original moulds after the fire.

The most startling room is The Turkish Room, full of blue and white tiles, and is a copy of one of the Sultan's apartments in the Yeni Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.

After completing our tour (with the children winning ball-point pens and posters of the house for getting all but one question right), it was time to explore the grounds.

Here, the girls found the terraced lawns in front of the house were great for "roly-poly" games. We also enjoyed seeing the ornate fountains, with ponds teeming with tadpoles, and the children enjoyed a spell in the play area before finishing off the day with a game of hide-and-seek amongst the trees.

We didn't have time to pay more than a quick visit to the shop or go for a drink in the cafe.

Fact file...

Sledmere House, Sledmere, near Driffield, East Yorkshire.

How to get there: take the A166 through Stamford Bridge, and then turn left on to B1251 at Fridaythorpe.

Admission: Adults £5, pensioners and children: £4.50.

Open: Daily except Saturdays and Mondays. 11.30am to 4pm.

Further information: 01377 236637.

Disabled access: yes.

Updated: 08:51 Saturday, May 24, 2003