Summer pursuits - 28 June 2008

Summer is a great time to visit gardens and see them at their very best and today was a beautiful summer day for doing just that. We recently became aware of a garden that is in the top 50 in the UK and although the National Trust owns it, it is not strictly an NT property. Nevertheless, free entry was available to NT members on Saturdays and, as NZ Historic Places members, that included us - so off we went. West Green Garden is really quite a delightful setting with many different “rooms” and some interesting water features.

As we were “in the area” we called by and re-visited The Vyne. We were last there in September 2001 and had forgotten many of the lovely features of this fine example of an English Country House.

Also nearby is the site of Roman town of Silchester. All that remains now are the town walls, of varying heights (up to 4m) and the gaps for the gates. The walk around the walls is, from memory, 2.8km and just outside the walls are the remains of the amphitheatre.

Inside the walls we came across the Reading University Archaeology Dept Summer Dig. For six weeks every summer since 1999 a small area of the old town is turned into a hive of activity as students and others, dig, scrape, sieve, sort, wash, measure and document.

While walking around the walls we picked a few elderflowers to indulge in the very English pursuit of making our own elderflower cordial, and very nice it is too. One can’t help wondering how many casualties there were along the way as people discovered that all the green parts of the plant are poisonous but the flowers can be eaten or turned into a drink.

On our way home we stopped for a short walk around Watlington, a delightful little Oxfordshire village at the foot of the Chilterns.

Nuffield Place - 22 June 2008

Nuffield Place was the home of Lord and Lady Nuffield, formerly Mrs & Mrs William Morris. Not the William Morris of interior design but the man behind the Morris motorcar. Ultimately it was not only Morris but Riley, Wolseley, M.G. and Austin that entered the Morris fold.

In his lifetime Morris gave away over £30 million (the equivalent of several billion today) and, as he had no children, intended to divest himself of his entire fortune. He eschewed pretension and the house is comfortably but not ostentatiously furnished for the home of one of the richest men of his generation.

An interesting insight into his lifestyle is a workshop built into a cupboard in William’s bedroom: a place where he would repair his own shoes or tinker with other mechanical bits and pieces.

The future of Nuffield Place is under a cloud as the college that Morris gave it to has decided to sell the property. This would be a great shame as the house is a unique example of a complete furnished 1930s home of a great industrialist and philanthropist.

We had started the day with a walk along the Thames near the village of Goring and ended the day overlooking the Thames from the gardens around Taplow Court. Once the site of a monastery, it is now a Buddhist centre.

It was a dark and stormy day - 21 June 2008

For the past 6 years we have driven up the A1 past the signs to Knebworth House so we decided that it really was time that we took Exit 7 to see what was there. As with many of the stately homes in England, it has been passed down through a range of descendants, unusually mostly female members, but is still in the ‘same’ family after 500 years.

Possibly the most famous owner, Edward Bulwer Lytton, penned the oft quoted words, “The pen is mightier than the sword”. Perversely, he was also the first to start a novel (Paul Clifford) with the words, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

The beautiful formal gardens at Knebworth House are complimented by a more wilderness area that is home to just under 70 life-size dinosaurs, many familiar species and a few not so familiar. It is most interesting to walk amongst these imposing models.

Not far away is Shaw’s Corner, the home of the author GB Shaw. Because of another evening event the house closed early and we missed the chance to visit again so contented ourselves with a walk through the garden past his writing shed mounted on a turntable to allow Shaw to catch the maximum daylight.

The ‘new’ (1778) local village church was built as a ‘garden ornament’ by the Lord of the Manor to provide a classical, Palladian, view from the big house.

Home of the Morgans - 15 June 2008

Our weekend accommodation was near Bridgend which, sadly, features in the news on a regular basis due to the, statistically disproportionately, high number of local young people who commit suicide. At the top of the town is another impressive castle ruin, with a very deep but now dry moat; all that remains of Coity Castle. We also checked out the cute hump-backed bridge, after which the town is named. Pilgrims used to pass over this bridge on the way to St David's church further west in Wales.

Llantwit Major is a picturesque town; with a number of interesting buildings and from there we toured nearer to the coast, and drove through Barry for a look at their “island” seaside resort. In true British fashion it is wall-to-wall arcade and fast food: we did not bother to get out of the car. Far nicer was Penarth; this Victorian seaside town has a colourful pier, and did appeal to us.

Tredegar House was the main focus of the day. Newport Council now runs this, the former estate of the Morgan family. They have done an excellent job in restoring the huge mansion, and we went on a conducted tour, made interesting and amusing by our excellent guide. The house has many beautifully decorated rooms; the best would have to be the oak room. Completely panelled in intricately carved oak, and with wide oak floorboards, the longest of which is 14m long. Although built in 1670’s, it still looks very beautiful today, a room anyone would love to spend time in.

The gardens are also pleasant to walk around. They have very successfully recreated a parterre, using shells, coloured sand, grass and coal chips. Coal gave a very different look, and was appropriate, as the family made their fortune from coal mining.

Vale of Glamorgan - 14 June 2008

The crescent shaped area west of Cardiff, goes by the enticing name of the Vale of Glamorgan. Although we have visited Wales several times we had not been to this area so we finally made a weekend trip to explore the Vale. It's only a little over 2 hours from London, providing you get a good run on the M4.

Dyffryn Garden is a Grade 1 listed garden, and this was our first stop. To be honest, it wouldn't rate as the best English garden we've seen, but nevertheless, was very pleasant to stroll around in the sunshine.

Just up the road from the gardens is the Tinkinswood Burial Chamber. Built around 4000BC it has the largest capstone of any such burial chamber in Britain, estimated at weighing 40 tons, it was pretty impressive. The logistics of early civilizations moving and placing this slab are incredible.

The road through the centre of the Vale was pretty uneventful, but the fascinating thing about Wales is old abbeys and castles dotted regularly around the countryside. We felt obliged to check out the Heritage sign to Ewenny Priory; marvellous walls left behind in the middle of nowhere.

Then it was time for our walk of the day: combining one from the Country Walking magazine, with one in a Walking Wales publication, we ended up with a very picturesque 8.5 mile ramble starting from Dunraven Bay. Wonderful stacked cliff faces line the beach along the coast here. At the start there was the remnants of a castle on the headland, and half way round the walk were the ruins of Ogmore Castle; set on the banks of a river with a fun set of stepping-stones.


The final leg of the walk took in a few miles of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast trail, a very pleasant way to end a lovely sunny June day.

Heritage and History - 8 June 2008

The Luton Festival of Transport bills itself as one of the largest collections of historic vehicles in the area so we thought we should pay it a visit and take the MG.

It was one of the best days of summer so far and really far too good to “waste” on a car show. One of the attractions offered was a visit to the nearby Vauxhall Heritage Centre but transport failures meant that this side trip was not readily available so we skipped out early and went to nearby Hatfield House instead.

This is a grand Elizabethan mansion that remains much as it was when built. It is a most impressive stately home and well worth a visit. It is amazing that we have taken so long to visit as it is so close to London.

As we wandered through the small, publicly accessible section of the amazing garden we were serenaded by the Welwyn Garden City Brass Band, making it both an aural and visual treat.

Aya Sofya - 31 May 2008

There was one main attraction that we had yet to visit: Aya Sofya, so it was the focus of our tourist-beating early start this morning. Built in the 6th century by, possibly, 10,000 men it was, for over 1000 years, the largest enclosed space in the world. The dome spans 30m and rises to nearly 57m above the floor, approximately equivalent to a 17-storey building, a truly amazing feat of design and engineering for the time.

Like the Blue Mosque, the main dome rests on semi-domes but the significant difference is that the Blue Mosque has four huge pillars supporting the dome whereas the Aya Sofya appears to have none.

Built as the greatest church in Christendom, it was converted to a mosque when the Turks took the city in 1453 then deconsecrated and classified as a museum by Ataturk in 1934.

Although it has suffered a chequered history some magnificent mosaic works remain.

The remaining ‘must-do’ was a Bosphorus Cruise so we headed back down to the waterfront. The first boat we came across had a man intercepting likely punters and offering a 2-hour cruise to the second bridge, with a half-hour stop for YTL30; we pressed on. The next boat salesman offered the same deal for YTL20, but we pressed on as we had done our research the day before and knew that just past the bridge was a boat offering a 1½-hour cruise for YTL7.50

So we paid our fare and enjoyed the ride out of the Golden Horn, across the Bosphorus to the Asian side, up under the two huge suspension bridges and back again. I would not class it as unmissable if you were short of time in Istanbul but it was a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of hours.

Since we were at the bridge that crossed the Golden Horn, we walked across to the far side, the Beyoglu area, then caught a tram and funicular to Taksim Square and wandered back downhill to the bridge with a detour to the Galata Tower.

There has been a tower on this site since 528, the current one being constructed in 1348 and repaired and restored a few times since. The views from the top are worth the YTL10 charge.

Up until this point we had managed to avoid the entreaties of the carpet salesmen and on the walk back to the hotel wandered through the Cifte Hamam (Double Bath) that sits by the square between the Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque.

It is home to a government run display of carpets from the various regions of Turkey and, unlike the carpet shops in the city, the carpets are all displayed for you to wander through and inspect. From what we can work out, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has scoured the museums of Turkey and the world for the best examples of Turkish carpets and kilms and then commissioned copies of these culturally important works. Fatal mistake! One of the carpets leapt off the rack and said, “Buy me.” The next day before we left Istanbul, we went back for another look, only to find all the racks bare and to hear that they were packing up and leaving. So we pointed to the empty space the carpet had occupied and said that we wanted that one. A few seconds later it appeared from a pile and we had done the proper tourist thing, visited Turkey and purchased a Turkish carpet.