Hampshire – 9 June 2012

After the wet Jubilee celebrations, with the Duke of Edinburgh ending up in hospital, no doubt due to the cold wet day for the River Pageant, Saturday was offering sunny skies. We set out for a circular drive starting in Bassingstoke.

We have never visited before, and would now see no reason to visit again, but did find their town museum really excellent, and a credit to the town. Normally we avoid such places, but were glad we visited.

From here, the drive took us through rural Hampshire, with several lovely towns. First of these was East Oakley. The village demanded a photo stop, and while photographing a lovely thatched cottage with a super garden, the owner came by and it was fascinating to hear how her husband was born in one of the rooms under the thatch. Then 20 years ago, they found it for sale in a derelict state, but now it is the picture of English perfection.

There were a number of lovely old churches on the route. One at Pamber was part of a Priory, at Wolverton, the church is a perfectly untouched original Georgian building, but our favourite was the church at Kingsclere, where King John paid for a weather vane in the shape of a bedbug, because he had suffered from bedbug bites when staying at a nearby monastery.

The town of Kingsclere is also lovely, with an interesting mix of old buildings. We enjoyed lunch at a cafe looking directly at the weather-vane. We were reminded of an article in the Metro recently, regarding a girl who has a dog trained to sniff out bed-bugs, and has been employed to go around London hotels this summer, as they are afraid the huge number of visitors from all around the world, may bring bedbugs with them.

The final stop was the lovely town of Aldermaston, where we had a bite to eat at the Hind's Head pub, From our table we could look along the High Street toward the handsome brick gate-lodge at the top of the High Street.

Village Jubilee – 4 June 2012

Having participated in some of the Jubilee celebrations in London, we set out to visit a small town, where they were also celebrating in small town fashion.

 Kathy Brown's Garden is open several times a year, and it opened this weekend to coincide with the Jubilee Weekend. The village was decorated with bunting, and to mark the occasion, they had a village well dressing.

 The well was a place of pilgrimage in medieval times; as the well beneath the church, which attracted pilgrims in the Middle Ages. John Bunyan also used the well as the place where Christain's burden fell away. This scene was depicted in the well dressing picture.

 We finished our small village celebration, with Victoria Sponge & tea in the village hall, having enjoyed the gardens and the well dressing.

Jubilee River Pageant - 3 June 2012

The Highlight of the Queen's Jubilee was the River Pageant. Sadly the day was col;d and overcast, with rain on and off all day. Nevertheless, we arrived in London at 9am, to get a riverside position, and had a great view of the boats as they came through a 3.15pm.

We chose a spot outside Tate Britain. This gave us a chance to take turns and have a break while waiting for the start, and enjoy the galleries.

Jubilee Weekend - 2 June 2012

While the Queen started her Jubilee Weekend at the Epsom Derby, we had a walk around the London docklands area, admiring the boats too large to travel upstream and participate in the River Pageant.

After walking along the Thames, we headed for Selfridges in Oxford Street, and enjoyed their Jubilee displays.

Standing Stones - 27 May 2012

On Sunday we continued the Shaftesbury tour. Two towns in particular were highlights, Blandford Forum is a sizeable market town, which owes its uniform Georgian good looks to two local builders who rebuilt the town in brick, after a fire raised the town in 1731.

Our other favourite spot was the tiny, remote hamlet of Ashmore – the highest village in Dorset, built around the duck pond.

After completing the tour, we were not far from Avebury, one of the prehistoric henge sites in Britain, and now a World Heritage site.

The BBC ran a series 'The Manor Reborn', where they followed the restoration of the Avebury Manor. As the house had had so many owners, and no real record of what it looked like, the restoration team had a free hand. 

The result now is a mixture of eras, reflecting significant periods for different owners and apart from the hand painted Chinese wallpaper, visitors are allowed to touch anything, sit in the chairs, play billiards or the piano. Quite different to the usual 'look but don't touch' museum piece type of property.

The library is now a lovely tearooms, with bone china tea-service and great cakes. A very nice touch.

Much of the village of Avebury (including the Manor) was probably built with some of the Standing Stones, before they were discovered by the outside world. Despite this, many of the stones still remain in their original locations, and are an impressive sight.

A real Corker of a day - 26 May 2012

This was the first weekend of summer weather, after all the cold and rain (we had been told it was, up to this week, the coldest May for 400 years). So we, and probably half of London, headed for the coast.

The particular place on the coast we planned to visit, was Abbotsbury, the only place in the world where you can walk amongst a colony of nesting mute swans. Originally an abbey, the swans were used for food but are, apparently, very unappetizing as they taste like mud. Today it is the only privately owned herd of swans in the country and the moulted feathers are sold to Lloyds of London to be made into quills for recording events in the Casualty Book of vessels that become total losses.

Between mid May and mid June, the signets are hatching, so it was the perfect time to visit. We hoped to be there for feeding time at mid-day, and timed it perfectly, despite taking the scenic route, which was half of two different circular tours.

The first tour was based around Shaftesbury, starting for us at Fonthill Bishop. The fascination of this part of the drive, is the gatehouse. This is a massive Gothic arch across the road, which is all that remains of a huge Gothic palace, built by William Beckford, who inherited his fortune age 10. He was too impatient to wait for his palace so corners were cut, and the lack of proper foundations caused the house to collapse (rather like a certain parable!).

Shaftesbury was the perfect morning tea stop, with lovely Tudor tearooms, abbey ruins, and picturesque cobbled Gold Hill.

We left this tour here, and travelled a few miles west to pick up another scenic tour based around Sherborne. We had visited this stunning town some years ago, but it is definitely worth another visit.

From here we went straight to the swannery, in time for feeding. There were lots of swans sitting on nests and family groups with plenty of newly hatched signets.

First stop on the new tour was Cerne Abbas. This is the second giant figure cut in a hill side near the south coast. Last year we visited the Long Man at Wilmington, about 120 miles (by road) east of here.

Just north of here was Mintern Gardens, worth a visit, as the rhododendrons were still looking good.

An amazing route along a collection of minor back country roads took us to another stunning stone house at Montacute. En route, we visited a castle-like church at Bradford Abbas, and the absolutely fabulous village of East Corker.

Montacute is also a lovely village, and the House was almost empty of visitors, they were obviously still at the coast! This Tudor house is wonderful, as are the large formal gardens.

It was time to enjoy the highlight of the tour, and visit Sherborne. We enjoyed walking around, and looking out unsuccessfully for a hotel with an available room. It was several villages later, before we found a hotel to stay in. The choice was good, The Talbot in Iwerne Minster had a comfortable room, and we enjoyed an excellent feast of tapas for dinner.