Turvey & Turville - 5 & 6 August 2006

The weekend was spent exploring small and attractive villages (now's there's an original idea for this country!!)

Saturday was spent in Northamptonshire / Bedfordshire border, cruising around villages on the River Great Ouse. Our favourite was Turvey, where we did a walk from the village, and ended up having a late lunch at the pub alongside the river - excellent value.

Sunday was spent in the Chiltern hills. Neither of our destination villages were on a riverbank, but very appealing non the less. Ewelme has escaped being modernised, and they think the church escaped because even Cromwell's troops could not find it. The church, almshouses and school are like another film set.

We finished up at Turville, apparently used as a village base for the Midsomer Murders TV series. Most attractive architecture, and even has a windmill on the hilltop beside the village, with wonderful views over the entire village. The pub is very popular, but having sampled its wares we decided that its popularity is because of the charm of the surroundings, not the excellent value of its food.

Garden getaways - 29 & 30 July 2006

An idyllic summer outing is a visit to a beautiful English country garden, so we spent the whole weekend in Dorset around this theme.

Saturday started with Longleat: an amazing statement of wealth and power. Many of the features in this stately home were inspired by the Doge’s Palace in Venice and although we have seen the original, we were still impressed.

In the afternoon we visited Sherborne Castle, older, but more tranquil, on the banks of a 'Capability’ Brown lake. The house was originally built and owned by Sir Walter Raleigh.
The adjacent town of Sherborne as another 'film set' town, centered around the church and almshouses

Sunday was a series of different gardens. First Minterne: a lazy winding path threading through gardens built around a stream, that had been transformed into a series of lakes and cascades. The owner apparently rode over to Sherborne to get ideas from Mr Brown, as he supervised the garden alterations there.

Next was Mapperton. These were remodelled in the 1920's as Italian gardens and are a series of 4 terraces stepping down a wonderfully sheltered valley: a real treat to wander through. Equally lovely is their cafe - well worth a visit.

Forde Abbey was to be our final stop. It has an impressive house remodelled from the old Abbey. The gardens are also lovely for a summer's afternoon with fabulous flower borders, and the highest powered fountain in the UK. The vegetable garden in depressingly impressive. Impressive because of the neatness and size of the vegetables and depressing because there is not a weed in sight, unlike any vegetable garden we have ever had – really discourages one from ever trying again.

On the way home we decided to slip in one more – Heale House Garden. It was like slipping back in a time warp and we loved it. Apparently King Charles II hid there, and one almost expected to see him pop around the corner at any time!! Surprisingly, the Summer House in the picture has two streams running under it, the one pictured and another at right-angles that does not show in the photo.

The new and the old - 23 July 2006

Broughton Grange garden is a private garden of some 25 acres that is only open to the public on a few occasions per year. Having seen features about the garden, it took us quite a while to locate opening time information and, having finally prevailed in that quest, we were not going to pass up the opportunity to visit when we could.

It is hard to believe that this inspiring garden was bare land in 2000.

The next stop is also one with limited access, Stowe House. It is the centrepiece of the Stowe Landscape Gardens (National Trust) but is now a school – the one Christopher Robin, A A Milne’s son attended.

It is a place with a salutary tale of the rise from sheep farmers to aristocracy and then from the peak of opulence and wealth, two generations bankrupted the family resulting in a grand sale as the place was stripped. Fortunately, unlike some other grand estates, the house was spared, rescued by a benefactor, so once again; we took advantage of one of the few open days.

Farnborough Air Show - 22 July 2006

After a stiflingly hot morning, the rain and thunder clouds arrived on cue with the Red Arrows.

There was time to see the new Airbus A340 and then the giant of the piece, the A380,

the VTOL Osprey and the Apache helicopter doing acrobatics normally only associated with fixed wing aircraft before the rain set in properly and the temperature dropped dramatically. We had gone completely unprepared for such weather so, regretfully, beat a very soggy retreat home.

Thames Trips - 15 & 16 July 2006

Summer is always pleasant beside the Thames. We spent Saturday walking from Putney Bridge to Chelsea Harbour. Then moved away to explore the shops and markets of Fulham.




Sunday was another lovely day, so we did a hop-on hop-off boat trip from Westminster to the St Katherine docks. The dock area is so pleasant, almost another world within London.

Ironstone Villages - 8 & 9 July 2006

Great Tew is a wonderful little collection of ironstone and thatch cottages spilling down a valley below “the big house” belonging to the Great Tew Estate.

We walked around the village, checked out the Falkland Arms, the church with some rather lovely brasses and a beautiful marble monument, and the remains of an old engine house.

Next unusual spot was Aynho. Unusual in that many houses have espalier apricot trees on their street frontage walls as rent to the Lord of the Manor used to be paid in apricots.

The church is very different, looking more like a grand house than a church. Unfortunately it was locked but given the size of the windows must be quite stunning inside.






The National Trust property for the weekend was Farnborough Hall, reasonably unremarkable from the outside but with the most fantastic plasterwork ceilings and wall panels in some of the rooms. It also boasts a great terrace walk with wonderful views over the valley.

Sunday saw us at Broughton Castle, the set for quite a number of movies and deservedly so. A full moat surrounds the site and some “castle” bits remain around the site of the old drawbridge but the house is from the 1300’s onwards.


We were captivated by an amazing bed in the Kings Chamber, you can see a little of it on the web page. It is a fabulous piece of the modern wood-worker’s art.

Entertaining Family- 1 & 2 July 2006

The visiting family requested Stonehenge, a Cotswold village and Cambridge so that was the weekend plan. After being delayed an hour taking delivery of the people-carrier from the car renter we got off to a late start and headed for Stonehenge.

Once they had done the audio tour we left Stonehenge to the tourist throngs and headed north to Devizes. One of the visitors had done a Uni project on canals and locks so we stopped at the Caen Hill Locks, an amazing flight of 16 locks in a row (apparently the largest climb in Europe) and part of an overall set of 29 locks moving barge traffic up and down 73m.

From there we stopped briefly at Sandy Lane, before heading to Lacock. This “film set” village is truly delightful, not even a TV aerial to be seen, presumably the custodians, the National Trust, have banned them.


The last stop of the day was to provide a taste of the Cotswolds with a stop at Castle Combe. It was deserted as all the locals we clustered around TV screens in homes or pubs watching England drop out of the (soccer) World Cup: a great chance to get some shots uncluttered by people.

Sunday was the chance for our visitors to re-visit old haunts in and around Cambridge, ending the day with a punt on the Cam.