Freedoms and rights - 7 April 2007

We made an early start this morning in order to beat the long queues at Anne Frank’s house. We felt rather pleased with ourselves as within 5 minutes of our joining a 6m queue at 8:40, the queue suddenly increased to the length we had observed the previous morning. We still stood for 20 minutes waiting for the doors to open but, somehow, it felt better that we had determined the length of the wait rather than a standing in a slow moving queue, which, for all we knew, may not have taken any longer.

The house is definitely worth a visit. Although larger than we expected, it is remarkable to think of two families surviving so long in such a compact area and having to be totally silent while the workday world went on around them.

At the end of the tour, there is a very thought provoking interactive series of scenarios presented discussing various ‘freedoms’ and 'rights': freedom of the press; freedom of speech; freedom to demonstrate; freedom to burn flags; freedom to oppose homosexuality, right to privacy, etc After each scenario is presented using ‘news’ footage from around the world, a question is posed and the audience is invited to vote Yes or No. The results are immediately displayed – Current Visitors and All Visitors; mostly the two graphs were very similar. What was disturbing was the ‘slant’, on some of the Yes/No options: for some of the scenarios the questions asked were not quite what the situation was discussing and one felt ‘trapped’ into voting a particular way by the way the question was framed.

Back in the real world we exercised our freedom to hop-on the canal boat and complete the hop-on-hop-off boat tour as our tickets gave us the right to ride until noon the day after purchase.

Amsterdam - 6 April 2007

Amsterdam is a city of many different faces. (Many of them on angry cyclists that kept silently sneaking up on us from the 'wrong' side on cycle lanes that we kept mistaking for footpaths!)

We started our first day with a walk that ended at Anne Frank’s house. Despite the fact that we were there before 10 a.m. the queue was around 50-60m long. So, instead, we bought a hop-on-hop off canal boat ticket: excellent value; a great way to have an introduction to the City as they provide a commentary on their 3 routes exploring the canals.

After a 90-minute trip around the outermost of the three concentric canals we walked to Dam Square, and then wandered around the old Jewish quarter.

Sitting at a street café looking across to the Waag we enjoyed a delicious salad lunch, and then wandered off to visit the museum in the house Rembrandt owned and worked in for 20 years. Sadly, he went bankrupt, but from the detailed inventories made at the time of the forced sale the museum has been able to restore and furnish the house as it was when Rembrandt lived and worked there. We saw his living areas, as well as the reception entry where he received potential clients, from all over the world, as an art dealer selling his works as well as those of other Masters. We also saw his studio, the area where his students worked and the room where he kept his extensive collection of items from the natural world or antiquity that he used as inspiration. In the modern wing alongside the house was an extensive collection of Rembrandt’s sketches and etchings.

In the Rembrandt theme, after a ride on another canal loop, we visited the restricted display at the Rijksmuseum. It is undergoing an extensive re-development and the cream of the exhibits is displayed in a temporary area. They have a good collection of Rembrandt's paintings, including ‘The Night Watch’ and some of the ‘famous’ Vermeer’s.

Since it was now well after 7 p.m. we thought that the Anne Frank queue might have shortened so detoured in that direction. The queue was at least twice as long as in the morning: looks like an early morning start is the answer.

With nothing else to achieve in the day we meandered our way back our hotel via the Red Light district. This is a very different face of Amsterdam. The available girls are sitting/standing in windows or behind glass doors, even in the daytime. Under the red neon lights are rows of curtained glass doors where it all takes place, just an easy step inside the door from the footpath.

The guide books warn of the consequences of taking photos, so you just have to imagine a beauty pageant with all the contestants in their bikinis, but instead of standing in a row on a stage, they are all behind glass doors in every house along particular streets, often looking totally bored. Perhaps one needed to show a bit of interest in what they were offering to solicit some sort reciprocal response.

The footpaths were crowed with groups of curious tourists. (Clearly this did not include us – we were simply returning to our hotel!)

7, 24 or 9 Arches - 1 April 2007

Summer seemed to arrive with the 1st of April. After a quick look at Kettering we headed to Thrapston to do a walk around the canal and lake system there. We finished the walk at the Nine Arches Bridge over the River Nene. A seven arch bridge was built in medieval times and replaced in 1795 with a 24 arch bridge. This was reduced to the current structure in the 1840s after the arrival of the railways.

Higham Ferrers was the next stop: the main feature of this attractive town is a medieval chapel and gatehouse, which is all that remain of Chichele College, a lay institution set up, around 1425, to pray for the souls of the founder and the King.


We had picked up a walking trail around the town of Kimbolton so we headed over to Kimbolton to check it out. The town is well worth a visit: highlights were the Castle, now a school, but- formally the residence off the Duke of Manchester; the other highlight was the Tiffany window in the local church, which the Duchess commissioned in 1900 from Tiffany of America, to commemorate the early deaths of her two daughters.

82 Arches - 31 March 2007

We decided to check out Northampton, for our family canal boat cruise, later this year. The town has a very fine Guildhall, and a great pedestrianised shopping area. Somehow, it encouraged us to spend money rather than time and we spent rather a lot!

The recently restored early Art Deco house, 78 Derngate, was the highlight of our day. In particular the entranceway and guest bedroom were stunning.

A must-visit historical site in Northampton is the Eleanor Cross, one of only three original crosses remaining from the 10 Edward I built to mark the resting places of Queen Eleanor’s cortege on her journey from Lincoln, where she died, to London, where she was buried.

In the afternoon, we travelled north to Harringworth, to do a walk based on the Welland Viaduct. The viaduct is a stunning railway bridge comprised of 82 arches striding across the valley. It took 20 million bricks to build the viaduct, the first brick being laid in 1876 and took 2 years to complete.

During the walk, we crossed a paddock of sheep with their new spring lambs. Each mother was painted with a number, and her lambs (they all seemed to have had twins) had the same number. As we walked through, number 65’s lamb ran off with family number 23. It wasn't long before 65 realised its mistake, and its cries reminded us of the children's book, “Are you my Mother?'

An excellent dinner in The White Swan at Harringworth ended the day in fine style.

The day was ruined - 25 March 2007

Sunday started with our second visit to Witley Court, a romantic ruin of a grand house built in the 19th century, by the then richest man in England, whose wealth came from coal. In a strange irony, this mansion, built from the profits of fuelling fires, was ruined by a fire that destroyed part of the house in 1937. Uneconomical to repair, the rest was stripped and the result today is a picturesque ruin. In it's day, this mansion was a real showpiece.

The interior of the attached chapel was purchased from a bankrupt aristocrat and is an amazingly unexpected celebration of Baroque architecture. However, these places are not really seen at their best on a grey overcast morning and it was not long before the low temperature hinted that it was time to press on.

Our lunch stop was the picturesque village of Henley-in-Arden: the long main street has, apparently, examples of nearly every period of English architecture and is well worth a visit.

Then it was on to the ruins of Kenilworth Castle. The original keep was built in the time of the Norman Conquest. (They certainly were an industrious bunch, the conquering Normans: they scattered castles all over the land.) A variety of owners added to it and ultimately Elizabeth I gave the Castle to Robert Dudley, her childhood sweetheart and Court favourite. She visited the property 4 times, although she stayed with Dudley a total of 23 times, at his various houses. The only currently inhabitable building is the original gatehouse, built as an impressive gateway by Dudley for one of her visits.

The final stop of the day was the attractive village of Berkswell, named after a well (actually a spring) in the village. The church is picturesque outside and inside and has a rare vaulted crypt, open for visitors. The half-timbered porch was the original priest’s lodging. It is the second Church we have seen with mice carved into the woodwork: we only found one of the 17 in the time we had available.

Hartlebury, Harvington, Holes & Hills - 24 March 2007

Saturday began in Hartlebury with a visit to Hartlebury Castle, which is actually a Bishop’s Palace. We were fascinated to find a time-line chart there that showed that a likely (but as yet unproven) ancestor, Bishop John Hooper, was the resident Bishop from 1552-4.

After lunch at the canal town of Stourport-on-Severn we visited the very interesting medieval and Elizabethan house, Harvington Hall. The Hall has survived largely untouched since the 1580s because in 1696 it passed, by marriage, to the Throckmortons who had other grand estates and did not need this home. Consequently, although occupied by Estate Managers and Clergy, it was never ‘modernised’. While not that far from Hartlebury, it would be most unlikely that Bishop Hooper ever visited the Hall as this was the home of a staunch Catholic family: evidenced by the seven Priest Holes; apparently the most priest holes in any English house.



Now you see him, now you don't



Kinver Edge is very nearby and at the foot of the escarpment is Holy Austin Rock that has several very interesting cave houses built into the rock. Unfortunately they were not open, but we did the walk around the top of the ‘Edge’, which looks out over the surrounding countryside.

In Kidderminster we saw the statue of Sir Rowland Hill who invented the Penny Post and about whom William Gladstone said, “His great plan ran like wild-fire through the civilised world: never, perhaps, was a local invention and improvement applied in the lifetime of its author to the advantages of such multitudes of his fellow creatures.” As we read the plaques on the statue we were entertained by a father and four small children in the bus shelter singing:
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
round and round, round and round.
The wheels on the bus go round and round
except when waiting for the 269.

Never in the course of history .... - 18 March 2007

... have so many owed so much to so few.
... have so many been upset by one theory.

It may have been Mothering Sunday but we focused on a couple of famous fathers. One of the houses that has been on the list for a visit for quite some time is Down House, home of Charles Darwin.

While in the area we re-visited Chartwell, home of Winston Churchill. Both houses were very much focused on the owner’s Study, where their books were researched and written. Churchill said that a day away from Chartwell was a day wasted and Darwin was largely confined to home by ill health, such was the significance of these rooms to these two great men that were nationally mourned at their deaths.

The other place of significance at Down House was the glasshouse where Darwin conducted experiments on plant propagation.