Brighton

Shopping on High Street, Brighton, Jamie Oliver's; interesting concept, but the back 
jacket of his book on America, touting "the big sky of Wyoming," absolutely turned 
me off; I hope his recipes are better

George IV--waited a long time to become king, secretly married, 
built the crazy Royal Pavilion, made "Hindoo" architecture 
famous, made Brighton famous...

The Royal Pavilion, part of it; we were feeling opulented-out, so didn't go in

Brighton Pier; about 1/3 a mile long, part amusement park, part casino, part 
eateries

Kid trampoline/bungy

Like Miami Beach

Except for the white cliffs, and the English Channel, and it's not so warm you 
really want to take your clothes off...

Beach...fully clothed; it's a pebble beach

At the pier's amusement park

Residential street...like a pre-Art Deco Miami Beach? Maybe not...

I should add we had the obligatory fish and chips at a restaurant on the pier; well, fried shellfish and some fish for me, and fried sausages and chips for Vicki; and John Smith bitter, which was...bitter

Hastings and Beachy Head

Sunday we drove the short distance to Battle, where the Battle of Hastings occurred. The pope directed William (the Conqueror) to build an abbey on the site of the famous battle, penance for the sin of spilling blood. It was a small battle, by 20th century standards, but perhaps 10,0000 were killed. Since the pope had directly authorized the invasion, I am sure William probably considered suggesting that the pope himself build the abbey. Oh well. William's brother, Odo, was a bishop, and therefore carried only a club into the battle so as not to commit the sin of spilling blood. OK to bash skulls, but don't spill blood.

Anyhow, Vicki and I toured the exhibits and gift store and then walked the battlefield listening to the audio guide. It was quite good, actually. Best of all was the video introduction in the visitor center, a mixture of narration-over, stills, video from re-enactments, and animated extracts from the Bayeaux tapestry, the last being extremely cool. William and Harold would not have recognized the place, the hill mostly obliterated by the abbey and its grounds. But the basics are still there. We think Harold was rash and over-confident. He should have collected more troops, rested those who had just repelled the major Danish invasion in York, and let William's communications get further (over-) extended. Maybe also call in an air-strike.

From Battle we drove on south and west to Beachy Head, taking a few pix, and then on to Brighton. We have been driving the rural bits mostly now for months, so it is interesting to get back into urban congestion and density. Brighton is 55 miles south of London and has long been known as London Beach. The Brighton holiday park was full--the first time on our travels that there was no room at the inn--and so we rough-camped a half mile down the road in a huge public park (18 soccer fields).

Later: no, there was one other time the inn was full, at Loboche, on the Everest trek, just about a year ago. The inn there was full--floor space, benches, rooms, everything, rented. All they could offer us was a tent out in the corral. By our standards, the tent was fairly opulent, and warm, for 16,000 feet in October in Nepal, but the yaks' bells kept ringing all through the night. Those animals never bed down.

Fortunately, England is yak-free.

The hill, where the abbey is now, occupied by Harold's

English; William's Normans had to charge up-hill

Battle Abbey ruins

Beachy Head

On Beachy Head

Bodiam Castle, 2009

We drove on, in brightening weather, to Bodiam Castle, still in Kent. If you were to call central casting and order up an archetypical medieval castle, they would send Bodiam. It was built rather late for such a thing, 1385-88, and for that reason, many think it was a "show" castle rather than a serious attempt at defense. It was built by a knight/adventurer, Edward Dallingridge, who spent much of his time in France, during the Hundred Years' War, plundering. But the French were plundering back at this time, and Sir Edward may well have had defense in mind. It is a ruin, but a pretty good one, only the interior structures really destroyed in the Civil War. Evidently, the Parliamentarians in southern England were not quite as bent on destruction as elsewhere. They hardly touched Knole. We spent the night at a Forestry Commission carpark.

Bodiam Castle

Gate tower and portcullis

Murder holes; if you somehow got into the tower, the first portcullis, another 
would fall, and then they would pour stones, boiling oil, and other vile hings 
on you

Interior

Spray paint has really taken the fun out of graffitti

1940 pillbox; just in case Operation Sea Lion might include some sightseeing

Knole Castle

Knole Castle; sorry, no interior pix, but there's probably a

website...

Knole Castle was built originally as a palace for the archbishops of Canterbury (the meek shall inherit the earth, etc.) until Henry VIII "persuaded" them to hand it over, c. 1535. Sometime later, it came to the Sackville family, in whose hands it remains, along with the National Trust. In the 17th-18th century, one of the Sackvilles was Lord Chamberlain or somesuch...anyhow, the guy in charge of royal possessions, furniture, etc., who had first call on whatever the monarch did not want. The monarch at the time was William of Orange, who did not want to be reminded of the Stuarts, and so thousands of items of Stuart possessions went to Knole and remain there, now on display. It is, indeed, the largest collection of Stuart stuff there is, and includes some Tudor stuff as well. The three galleries of portraits, pretty much all Tudor and Stuart personages, are incredible, as are all the other royal-quality stuff from the age. The most stunning pieces, however, are the items of silver furniture in the King's apartment. Louis XIV initiated the fashion of having furniture made from silver (not solid, I assume...). All the French pieces eventually were melted down to finance wars, revolutions, 1947 Lafite-Rothschild, chateaubriand, etc. But a few pieces in England survive, and they are on display at Knole. Stunning.

Shoreham: Sex and Violence on the Allotments

The Brits are just endlessly interesting. After Chartwell, we parked over-night at a public carpark in the hamlet of Shoreham, in Kent. There are a few score houses and buildings here, many dating from centuries ago. But there is always plenty to see, learn, and enjoy.

The Brits are all over allotments--community gardens, sort 
of, though more established and legal--and here we saw a 
shocking advert on "sex and violence on the allotments"--
but then remembered the great old Peter Cook routine...
"So I've re-written it a bit. I've given it a new title. I've 
called it, 'Sex and Violence Down the Mine.' And chapter 
one begins with these three nude ladies; Beryl, Stella and

Margaret, and they are completely nude, and they are 
wandering around the desert...Violently."

Shoreham parish church--Norman in shape, but younger, 
the brick work alternating with flint; flint...there must 
have been a paleolithic axe factory nearby

At a Shoreham pub in a building dating from the 16th century 
(another flatly states 1500, AD), a re-creation of the ostler's 
station; the ostler was the guy who cared for your horse while 
you were at the pub; not too many of these left

Beautiful Kent countryside

Chartwell

We had planned on visiting Windsor, but a state visit (or rehearsal for a state visit; we're not sure) changed our plans, and, on another beautiful fall day, we drove east and south to Kent, and Chartwell, the home of Winston Churchill. With my interest in 20th century history, WWII, literature, and so on, it was an important visit for me. I can think of only a few authors of whom I have read more than Churchill (Samuel Eliot Morison; Douglas Southall Freeman...). Churchill wrote some 51 books, supported himself most of his life as a journalist and author, and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. He was elected to Parliament in the early 1900s, had 3 or 4 distinct political careers, and became PM when he was 65.  The house is largely Clemmie's work, I think, and it is a wonderful, real place, not quite a mansion, but beautiful and radiating comfort and grace both inside and out. The exhibits are very good, indeed, although, in fairness, they might include just a bit of stuff on the negative side of Churchill. (I have been amused that none of the Churchill shrine bookstores we have seen have carried Charmley's Churchill and the End of Empire.  I can still quote the NY Times August, 1944, assessment, that he was "a 19th century man fighting a twentieth century war for 18th century purposes." But still a great man, perhaps as great as they get.)

Chartwell, from the garden below

The pool and pond, among many water features leading the eyes to the view 
down the valley to the weald

The fish pond, where Churchill sat and fed his koi

In the larger garden, the Golden Walk, which the children planted with 50 
varieties of yellow rose, on the occasion of the Churchills' 50th anniversary

Part of the wall around the lower garden; from reading Churchill, I had imagined 
something, oh, chest high, and enclosing perhaps 1,000 square feet; rather, it is 
8 feet high and encloses probably 2 acres of vegetable garden, rose garden, 
cutting garden, and so on

He built the wall, "by his own hand," in the years 1925-32, 
when he was in the political wilderness

The studio; Churchill took up painting when he was 41, during the first world 
war; he was quite a serious painter, producing some 500 works in his long 
life-time; anonymously, he won several awards and prizes; the house and 
studio contain scores of his paintings

The inner studio and the unfinished painting

Snowshill and the Cotwolds

Next (this is all Thursday, I think), we drove into the Cotwolds and to Snowshill Manor. Snowshill is something a bit different. Actually, it is quite different. I was going to entitled this post "and now for something completely different."

It is an old manor house, somewhat renovated, but populated by the collections of one Charles Wade, a turn-of-the-century architect, and, if I may, eccentric, who collected hand-made things. He thought of himself as part of the Arts and Crafts movement, but was largely a collector...of anything hand-made, beautiful, in need of a home. The house contains 22,000 such items...cabinets, furniture, armor, swords, china, paintings, ship models, early bicycles, glassware, musical instruments (three hurdy-gurdies and three oboes!), and on and on and on and on. You name it, there's one there. Probably three.

Personally, I think it's important to visit quirky things now and then. England has much to offer in this regard.

After Snowshill, we meandered through the beautiful Cotwolds and then back south toward Windsor, where we stayed overnight  at a quiet farm campground.

Bad apples still life; does it take only one good apple to spoil the bunch?

Snowshill Manor; from the outside, you can only guess what weirdness lurks 
within; and the National Trust does not permit photography

View form the garden; Wade wasn't entirely daft

Free? Can you take just an animal and not a child?

Cotswold house

Another

Main street, Chirping Wonkton on-the-Bum

Rollright Stones

The circle, or "army," about 100 feet in diameter, limestone,

heavily worn

The King

The Knights

With improving weather--actually, the day in Oxford was beautiful--we drove back north toward the Cotswolds, detouring along the so-called Jurassic Way to see another stone circle. The Jurassic Way is another ancient pathway, akin to the Ridgeway further south. The Rollright Stones are quite famous, for the "energy" they are said to generate, the various Druid/witch/New Age festivities they attract, their location on an old thoroughfare, and so on. Actually, in addition to the circle (the "army"), there is an outlying menhir (the "king"), and a fallen dolmen (the "knights"), all several hundred yards apart. Obviously, this was a megalitic center of some sort, but centuries of picking over, plowing, and other rough handling, have obliterated most of it. One can only imagine...

Eagle and Child

The Eagle and Child; or, the Bird and Baby,

as Lewis called it.

The Rabbit Room, where they gathered

Us, there, having a pint (well, half a pint and some OJ)

The famous signatures, commending the

proprietor; Tolkien's at the very bottom

Oxford

Bodleian court

Metaphysician, heal thyself; I am quite sure we have pix

(35mm) of me in roughly this pose, and exactly this place,

from 1979, 1989, and 1998

Hall at Bodleian; note fan vaulting; I understand some of

the Harry Poppins series was shot here

The Ashmolean was closed for renovations

Evidently, they punt here too, just as in upstart Cambridge

Magdalen College

All Souls

Sheldonian Theatre

Radcliffe Camera

Lincoln College

With rain forecast, we decided to forego/postpone the Cotswolds, and drove on to Oxford, camping, as it were in Kidlington, and taking the bus, next day, into town. I have been to Oxford three times, Vicki four or maybe even five, so it is somewhat familiar ground. We did the tour of the Bodleian Library--something Vicki had never managed in her previous visits--walked about the old town and university, and did the two things highest on my list: Blackwell's (bookstore) and the Eagle and Child (pub), where the "Inklings," C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and others met Tuesday mornings for a couple of decades for readings, discussion, and pints. Oxford's a glorious place, even to outsiders. That evening, we watched Shadowlands, just for reinforcement. Anthony Hopkins is incredible.

Vicki adds:

Oxford, England October 21, 2009

We had a wonderful day in Oxford today with temps in the 50s and some sun. The place was very busy even when not tourist season because, of course, all the students are there. We went on the tour of the Bodelian Library, which was very exciting for me since this is my fourth trip to Oxford and the library has always been closed before for special events. Our guide was an elderly, very British chap who bored everyone to death but me. The introductory lecture before the tour lasted about 25 minutes, followed by a 35 minute tour! The gift shop had some wonderful new things (it had been open in the past and I had availed myself of it.) Unfortunately, what I decided I wanted was the "Silence Please" jug but they sold their last one yesterday! Oh well.

Then we went to 4 used book stores and bought about 10 books--which we should not have as our camper is already overweight. Mark and I are not very good at resisting books, even with the ebook. We have been completely spoiled by UK--being able to buy books, read directions on food packages, read the labels in the museums, ask directions (lost 3 times today in Oxford, etc. If it wasn't getting so cold, we would definitely stay longer. As it is we are changing the next couple of weeks around. We had planned to go from Oxford over to the southwest, then back through the middle south, a week or so in London, and then finish in the southeast. However, the National Trust closes almost all its properties on Nov. for the winter. There are 3-4, including Churchil's home, that we don't want to miss, so tomorrow we are driving straight around London to the south and southeast. Then we will double back to the southwest and finish in London in November.