Day 16 - Longborough to Sutton-in-Craven via Coventry Cathedral

We were rather sad to leave our home in Longborough.  It really is a lovely little village.  And it is little.  A lot of places are called villages, but seem rather big for such a title.  

One of the programs I like to watch on TV is Escape to the Country.  It's always fascinated me how close the houses/cottages are to the road, and how close major roads are to the houses.  Now we can see why.  Some houses have a wall on the street/road, then the village grows and the road gets used more.  I don't suppose the original builder/owner ever conceived of traffic as it is today.

Navigating the roads can be quite an experience, knowing who is going to give way, and then checking to make sure they have given way!  As with everything in life, some people are polite and helpful and some are not.

We had a longish journey in front of us, about 3 hours 40 mins and 285 kms according to the GPS taking the motorway.  I wanted to take Peter in to see Coventry Cathedral.  As the old cathedral was bombed in the Blitz in 1940 and a new cathedral has been built next to the bombed out shell of the old  cathedral.  It is a very moving memorial to the people who lost their lives and an amazing piece of architecture and design.  The stained glass is amazing as is the huge weaving above the altar.

For once travelling into a city was quite easy and we found the parking for the cathedral without too much trouble.  We went up to the cathedral and there, if you only wish to visit the ruins of the older cathedral it is free, and on Fridays, which it was, there is a short prayer service at Noon, in memory of the fallen.  If you wish to see inside the new cathedral you pay an entrance fee.  I fully recommend visiting the new cathedral.  I've included a picture of the major stained glass window, it is very hard to photograph because the centre of the window is very pale, radiating out to very dark red, greens, blues...  The contrast is hard and even the postcard the cathedral had available doesn't do it justice.  Another thing about the cathedral is there are lots of art works and other memorials to the devastation during WW2.

The last piece of stained glass I photographed on a whim because I liked it so much, it was the only detail photo I took!  Then went downstairs to the obligatory shop on the way out...  There they had some copies of stained glass details and one copied onto plastic film which could be attached to a window...  I thought, I'd like one of those, when we got back to the car, I realised it was this same detail!!!!  How amazing is that?

We then drove north.  We had lunch at one of the service stops, which had the food services on a bridge that went the whole way across four lanes of traffic each way.  There was KFC, Burger King, Starbucks and a carvery/bakery on the top floor, toilets, a newsagent and supermarket on the ground floor.  Sitting up on the bridge with the traffic going past underneath was an experience.  Some trucks could make the whole thing move a little.

GPS lady or we have trouble with the instructions when changing from one major road to another, so we were a bit longer getting there, especially because there seem to be very busy roads, and so many roundabouts, which don't work that well with the amount of traffic there is!  There are roundabouts which take you from motor ways to A roads or vice versa, which are so big you loose track of where you are on them and GPS lady says to take the roundabout to London and take the third exit for example, however, you don't WANT London, you want the third exit!  The other problem is, she is usually a bit behind, so, you get the turn left, just as you should be turning left or should have turned left!

Anyway, we got to Keighley and then followed the instructions from the owner of our next home away from home.  These included follow the road up over the crag and then down the other side.  The views were amazing! And it was just as the sun was setting.  We had stopped at a local shop and bought some milk and Indian for dinner - they had frozen homemade chicken madras and peas and potato and rice.  It was delicious but very spicy!

When we got to Banksfoot Farm, our host, Peter met us and showed us thru.  It is another lovely property.  He mentioned that the house is available until Thursday, as we had booed until Monday, and if we wished, we could stay longer.  Both Peter and I are very tired, so we have decided to stay here another two nights as we were going to go via the Lake District, but we can do that from here.  And also visit Hadrian's wall.

This house had a kitchen/diner, very large living room with two sitting areas, a laundry/utility room, so we've managed to get some washing done, and upstairs two bedrooms and the bathroom.  The location is lovely, and Ihope we get to do some walking in the local area as it is lovely.

This last photo is the view from our bedroom window the next morning!  Lovely North Yorkshire!

 

Day 15 - Chedworth Roman Villa, Bourton-on-Water and Chastleton House

We decided to have a look around the local area today.  We had seen a signpost to Chedworth Roman Villa when we drove from Cirenchester to Longborough where we are staying.  The National Trust guide book describes the site as one of the country's largest Roman villas with all weather access to the distinctive mosaics.

So, before we started off  we went for a walk to the local shop to buy some more milk and some stamps.  The milk was fine, but the post office is open on Monday and Friday mornings and Wednesday afternoon...  It turns out the shop has a tea room attached and free wi-fi!  Who knew!!!!  It is a lovely little shop and run by the community for the community.

So we walked back home to Dairy Cottage.  The cottage is delightful.  Two bedrooms upstairs with a bathroom, and another loo downstairs and a large lounge, and kitchen.  It is quite delightfully furnished and decorated.  

The toilet downstairs has a very interesting tap...

So we headed down the A429 towards Cirenchester.  Then turned off to go to the Roman villa.  We started seeing partridges on the side of the road, and then on the road!  I'm not sure how many, but over a hundred!

When we got to the villa they were In the garden there too!

There was a school group there, the children were probably 8 and 9 year olds.  They were learning about how the Romans lived, and were given a shift for each of them to wear!  The woman taking the class was excellent.  They were in the building which houses the mosaics.  The mosaics were worth visiting!

I didn't take any photos of the actual villa site, probably because the site was rediscovered in the 1800s and they built up the walls.  It is an impressive site, none the less, and in a lovely setting which used to be in a strategic situation.

As we were close to Bouton-on-Water, we decided to go there for lunch.  It is a lovely little village with a river running thru the centre of it, lovely, and touristy!  There are heaps of places to choose to eat at, however as there were a number of buses there, we were limited as to choice.  We ended up in a tea room, and I ordered the wild mushroom soup, which when it came out was really delicious, but the bread roll was very ordinary!!!  WhenDad took us to England in 1978, we visited Bourton, and I remembered it as a very charming village.  It still is, so long as you don't mind the crowds!!!

So after lunch, we went on to Chastleton House and Gardens.  This house was built between 1607 and 1612 and due to family history is largely unchanged as the family fortunes waxed and waned.  It stayed in the family until 1991 when it was bought by the National Heritage Memorial Fund including all the furniture and then transferred to the National Trust.  Because it had been in the same family for all that time, the house is an amazing time capsule, and the National Trust has decided to preserve the property rather than restore it.

There are some amazing rooms and furniture and furnishings...  The Great Hall has an amazing screen, and a lot of the rooms have their original wood panelling in place, there are some amazing ceilings and cornices.  The White Parlour has just has the wood panelling painted.  The good stair case is quite beautiful.  It is thought the family's parlous financial situation was also a result of them being on the wrong side of the Civil War and also for supporting the Jacobite cause...  There is a collection of Jacobite glass.

The bed in the above photo has a quilted bedspread on it which was hand made by Anne Whitmore which is said to have taken her 15 years to make.  In her will of 1739 she left it the first of her two daughters to have a child!  Neither daughter did...  So it has remained with the house.  There were also pillow slips to go with it.  It is amazing work.

And this is Anne Whitmore...

She must have been an amazing woman.  She was only married for seven years when in 1704 her husband died, leaving her with four children and a debt of £735.  She had this paid off by 1714.  I imagine this was an amazing amount of money at that time.

The house has an interesting topiary garden!  Not sure what the shapes are!  And espaliered trees against the garden walls.

The house doesn't have it's own tea tooms.  The local church, which ajoins the grounds, offers afternoon tea.  So we had a drink and a slice.  The church itself is older than the house as the oldest part of the church was built in the 1200s.

One thing I did forget was the tour of the house finishes in the basement, including the kitchen.  In the basement itself there is a really long ladder.  I bought a booklet about the house and in it it mentions the ladder is 20metres long!  I have no idea how many people it took to use it as what remains looks very heavy and of course, very long!

When we had finished, we drove back down past Bourton to Fosse Manor as they advertise that they have free wifi and it has been very annoying how bad Internet coverage is where we've been staying and visiting.  We went in and had a drink, and then decided to stay for dinner.  It is quite posh, I'm not really sure we were well enough dressed!!!!

Peter had guinea fowl and I had fish and chips.  The guinea fowl was quite nice.  So was my fish.  However the really nice thing was desert!!!!  I had a passionfruit parfait with brandy snap and fresh berries.  It was delicious!

Then it was home to bed, so we could get up tomorrow, pack and leave to move on north.

Day 14 - Blenheim Palace and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford

We had another full day planned for today...  Visiting Blenheim Palace in the morning, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, and home to Sir Winston Churchill for part of his childhood.  Then Oxford and the Ashmolean Museum in the afternoon.

Blenheim Palace is amazing.  It is a blend of grandeur and family touches.  In the long room there are family photos as well as more formal portraits.  There are invitations for the Duke and Duchess requiring their attendance at the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth.  It is actually a demand for them to attend, I should have taken a photo!   The language is very formal and archaic, so I am imagining it is a protocol/tradition that has gone on and on.  There are amazing portraits of the family and one is of the 9th Duchess Consuelo Vanderbilt Spencer-Churchill.  When I was a child we had a beautiful cat called Consuelo Vanderbilt Spencer-Churchill Brown - or Connie for short!  In 1978, when my dad took my mum and Kathryn and me to the UK, we did a number of day trips from London which started out by train and then we got on buses and went off to such places as the Cotswalds, Stratford and Blenheim Palace.  Dad has always been a great admire of Sir Winston Churchill and one of the stories he tells is of seeing Sir Winston in London during the war, while Dad was serving in the Navy.  There are quite a number of rooms dedicated to Sir Winston and his story.  All very interesting.

Then of course there are the lovely gardens...  The formal gardens include an Italian garden with lots of topiary including what look like sparrows, and water gardens.  Then there are the lawns and parklands...  My favourite part was the secret garden which was recreated in the 2000s.

We had a lovely time there and had lunch at the cafe which was lovely - a Mezze plate which had five different dips on it avocado, hummus, capsicum, lentil and beet root and an egg tagalatelli with courgettes, sundried tomatoes and pesto.  Delicious!  There is an excellent display of model soldiers in the corridor outside the loos at the cafe, and worth spending a little time checking them out.

We were having such a good time, it was hard to leave, however I have wanted to see the Ashmolean Museum since studying Archaeology.  A lot of the artefacts we studied came from this fine museum.

We drove to Oxford, where parking is a nightmare!!!!  We ended up in a car park where it cost £8.90 to park for up to 4 hours!  But it was just across the road from the museum.

They have some fantastic exhibits covering all periods of history's however their ancient and classical collections are world famous.

Perhaps the most famous piece is the Alfred jewel.

There are also lovely textiles...

After we had finished looking thru as much as we could take in, we had a little wander around the streets of Oxford.  As it was so late, after 5pm, we were too late to get into any of the colleges.  We did visit Blackwell's Music Shop and bought a book of 20th century piano duets including Lsnd of Hope and Glory, which seemed particularly appropriate.  Oxford also has a lot of old buildings and lovely streetscapes, so lovely to wander around, but heaps of people and lots of shops....

We headed back to the car and drove home via the other Coach and Horses pub and had dinner there.  Peter had a delicious pork belly dish and I had mushrooms with Brie and onion marmalade.  Much more up market than the first pub!