Montacute

After stopping at a surprisingly large Mega Super Tesco, in surprisingly large Yeovil (ever heard of Yeovil?), we drove on to our house of the day, Montacute, which hosts the National Portrait Gallery collection of Tudor and Stuart portraits. (Montacute: there are some very pointed ("acute") hills nearby.) The House is late Elizabethan, in the Phelips family (briefly, Robert Dudley) for centuries, then last occupied by Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy of India, who was living there with his mistress when he was told, alas, he was not going to be PM. 1920s or so. Very interesting old furniture. The “samplers” on display go back to 1604, lace, embroidery, etc., incredible detail and color preservation. The portraits themselves were of higher quality but less numerous than those at Knole. There was very helpful narrative with each, however. We drove on, as the sun set, toward our next house, Killerton, and parked in a nearby village, on the outskirts of Exeter, in a designated parking place near a school, seemingly quiet, residential. We have "camped" in such places half a dozen times in the UK, and I always wonder if the residents are watching at their windows, shotguns loaded and cocked. "Gypsies! From America! What is the world coming to?!"

Approach to the house, late Elizabethan

Heraldic windows and turret

View from garden

Main garden; the gardens and grounds are defiantly

Elizabethan, never having been visited by Culpability

Brown; but the plantings are 19th century

In the garden; late October, still blooming

away...