Killerton and Saltram

We got an early start Saturday morning, the 31st, and were able to do two great houses, Killereton, near Exeter, and Saltram, near Plymouth. Killerton is late Elizabethan. The building is not very interesting; relatively small, flat-roofed. However, it houses a national garment and costume collection so large that they exhibit only a fraction of it each year, in accordance with a theme. This year's was "working women," so there were all sorts of womens' uniforms, in addition to the evening gowns, undergarments, etc. Of greatest interest to me was one of Queen Victoria's black day dresses. Did you know that she was only four feet eleven inches tall? That in her more advanced years, only four foot eight? Also at Killerton, in the library, was a false-front bookcase--titles like Books Not Worth Reading, Getting Your Words Worth, etc., all in leather-bound, goldleaf, etc.

But the most interesting thing about Killerton was the back-story, how it came to the National Trust. In fact, it was one of the largest gifts ever, the house, grounds, 6,000 acres, including 20 farms and 4 villages. Most of the properties are donated when there is no heir, or no heir the donor likes; or when the owners can't afford the upkeep. Inheritance taxes in the UK in the 1950s reached 80% and are still quite high, compared with the US (what isn't?), and with a low threshold. Anyhow, the Baronet Aclund was a leading socialist, an MP, fell in with JB Priestly and others such, and he and his wife, the Baronetess (?), decided it was immoral for so much wealth to be in so few hands. So they gave it all to the National Trust, retaining only a modest apartment.

At Killerton, a dragon chain-saw sculpture in front of a

beautiful 300 year-old Sweet Chesnut

Killerton House

Killerton grounds

Summer hut, beatiful rustic woodwork

Hut interior

Saltram is a late 18th century house and grounds, best known

for its original furnishings and paintings; its reputation, among

all the great houses, is for its "homey" feel; I guess you have

to be British...

Chinese wallpaper in one of the Saltram rooms

"The Best 1,000 Houses"...why it's so difficult

to see them all...

Vicki adds:

Plymouth, England October 31, 2009
We have decided to spend tonight in a campground to be sure we aren't the victims of any tricks. Today we managed two great houses in one day only because they were only 1 hr apart and the campground was 2 miles from the second one. It is so strange for it to be getting dark at 4:30 in the afternoon and today was overcast so really even earlier. So far no one has come through the campground trick or treating which is good since we could only given them pence.

We have been trying to get our flu jabs without much luck as the chemists each do them a different day and want appointments. I swear the British have a different term for almost everything—yes, it is easy to figure out that jab means shot and a chemists is a pharmacy, but after a while you get the feeling that they do it on purpose—that whatever the Yanks are calling something, the Brits decide to call it something else!

Tomorrow we have one more great house and that will be the end as the National Trust closes almost all their houses on November 1. It has been great fun and very educational going through them—we will have to make a count, but I would think at least 25—so that only leaves 275 for our next trip.

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...

Roman Road

The carpark near Hardy's cottage was ample, remote, and un-signed, so we pitched our camp there. Several trails in Thorncombe Park take off from the carpark, and we decided to follow one. It was another bright autumn afternoon.

We got a few hundred yards before encountering this sign

The newly re-cleared Roman road; I visited with some of

the rangers later and learned the road linked present-day

Dorchester with the Bradbury Rings and Exeter; ultimately

with London; the Roman roads are easily identifiable,

they said, pitched, with drainage ditches; "wide enough

for two chariots to pass?" I wanted to ask

Note the pit on the left; the area is largely limestone and subject to what 
Floridians call "sink-holes"; some here were sufficiently old that 
the Romans had to run the road around them, deviating from their normal 
"straight line" approach to the world

Hardy Cottage

We drove on to near Dorchester, stopping, at Thorncombe Park, to visit the Thomas Hardy cottage. It is where he was born and grew up and where he returned to write his first few novels. To be candid, Hardy is Vicki's thing. I have never read a word of Hardy; not one word (although I did once watch the Tess movie years ago). Vicki actually re-read Tess in advance of this visit. She has been doing this sort of thing all the way through. Absolutely all I know about Hardy is from the Monty Python "Novel Writing" sketch, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogPZ5CY9KoM. You must listen to it before proceeding.

Hardy memorial

Hardy cottage, built c. 1800

Vicki at the cottage

Hardy's bedroom

Cultural Treasures of Winchester Cathedral

"Winchester Cathedral
You're bringing me down
You stood and you watched as
My baby left town"

The grand patriarch of all fishing guide books is Isaac Walton's mid-17th century tome The Compleat Angler. If you fish, thoughtfully, you know this book. One of the chapels at Winchester contains Walton's tomb, and the fly-fishing federation of Great Britain (whatever it is called), has endowed and decorated it.

"Oh-bo-de-o-do oh-bo-de-o-do
Oh-bo-de-o-do de-do-duh"

Altar in the "Walton" chapel: nice neolithic water symbol,

tying (!) things together for us; the pews are carved in
beautifully rippled surfaces

Walton's tomb

Stained glass piece from the Walton chapel 

Especially for lunkers; actually the caption is,

"I swear, he was THAT big!"

Oh, yes, Winchester also contains the tomb of Jane Austen

(please, no comments about my prejudices or sensibilities)

(nyuk-nyuk-nyuk)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Winchester Cathedral II

"You could have done something
But you didn't try
You didn't do nothing
You let her walk by

"Now everyone knows just how much I needed that gal
She wouldn't have gone far away
If only you'd started ringing your bell"

We did both the general cathedral tour and the crypt tour at Winchester, both very fine presentations.

Everything you see in the nave and choir

areas is perpendicular or Gothic; but when

you get to the transepts, here, the north one,

it is still the original 12th century Norman

Romanesque; not "updated"; the reason

being that the central tower fell down in

the 13th century, and there were,

consequently, higher priorities....

In the crypt, here, you begin to get some insight: every

spring, the crypt floods, knee-deep; it turns out the whole

thing has serious foundation problems; really serious

foundation problems

Consequently, and unlike most cathedrals, the crypt at

Winchester is used only for spare parts

In the first several years of the 20th century, this man,

William Walker, a diver, spent six hours a day beneath

the foundations of Winchester Cathedral, replacing

rotted oak and heather with cement, saving the great

cathedral; "by his hand alone"

Still, in the south aisle, the floor and wall

don't look exactly perpendicular; I was glad

to get to the gift shoppe...

Winchester Cathedral

"Winchester Cathedral

You're bringing me down
You stood and you watched as
My baby left town"

We drove into Winchester, the Saxons' ancient capital, and where William was first crowned, to see the cathedral and a bit of the town. Somehow, Winchester cathedral gets two Michelin stars. In most any respect--size, history, art, relics, architecture--it is of secondary importance, if that. Yet, it has great appeal, particularly if one is awed by these great monuments, how they are put together, what keeps them together and still up. Winchester was of interest to me for just these reasons. And it will take two or three posts to explain it all, so bear with me.

Winchester Cathedral; 2/3 of it; only St. Pete's at the Vatican

is of greater length

All white (just once I'd like to see one painted,

in bright colors, as they originally were)

Choir, looking back to nave

West window, destroyed in the Civil War;

shards collected and put back together by

townspeople

Screen; similarly destroyed in the Civil War,

rebuilt in the 19th century

Screen through choir from nave

St. Swithun's tomb; hey, you got to have a saint and relics if

you want tourists, I mean, pilgrims...

North aisle, incredible 12th century tile work

on the floor

A green man misericord in the choir

Winchester is so long (the lady hall was an add-on) that the

townspeople would short-cut through it; whereupon, the

clergy erected this 13th century sign: pray, this way; walk,

that way.

Petworth House

I think this is extremely photo-shoppped

I'd love to claim this as mine

Actually, this is pretty close to what I took

[Note: in a rare computer/camera screw-up, I managed to lose even the few pix I took of Petworth (none on the inside). So I have borrowed a few from the web.]

You wouldn't think anything called Petworth would be all that great. Petworth R Us. But it was great, one of the best we have seen, and a reminder that all these properties are like individuals, so different, but each with interesting features or histories. Sometimes exceptional features or histories. At Petworth, it was the art. The building was not of great interest, although old in parts and going back to the Percy family of Northumberland ("Hotspur"); and the grounds, although another Capability Brown job and nearly 1,000 acres, were just OK. (Maybe we're getting a bit jaded). The art is stunning, however. 20 Turners, 20 van Dyke's, all sorts of Gainsboroughs and Reynolds, and of others of interest, and Breughel, Bosch, and on and on. And those were just the paintings. Then there was the Gibbons wood carving (the "Carved" room, said to be the best in all England), an entire gallery of marvelous sculpture, etc. I imagine only the Tate has more Turners. He stayed at Petworth for some time and painted the place. ("Two coats!"). There are not many museums that can match what is here. And unlike most urban museums, the paintings are not under glass, and you can walk right up and eye-ball the brush-strokes if you want (except in Turner's case...it is so smooth...). Of particular interest was the oldest known English globe, acquired by the family from Sir Walter Raleigh, early 1600s. Geez. And, not least at Petworth were the kitchens. Nearly all the great houses have some sort of kitchen display or representation. At Petworth, the whole thing is on display, 1,000 items of copper cookery, stoves, ovens, pastry molds, room after room, the evolution of cooking from the 18th to the 20th centuries, the best we have yet seen in this regard. Anyhow, we spent way too long, gawking and following the guides around and asking questions, and then spent a while on the grounds too.

Another gorgeous if short day. Summer Time (as the Brits call it) is over ("fall back"), and you better have found a place to land by 4PM, because, by 5, it's pitch dark. We drove on toward Winchester, but stopped short at a nice bucolic lay-by, just in time for the sunset.

Arundel Castle

Arundel is famous for a variety of reasons--it is one of the older castles that is still fairly intact, it has excellent collections of furnishings and historical materials, it was the stronghold of the Dukes of Norfolk, the most Catholic and generally most senior among dukes outside the royal family. The 4th Duke actually challenged Elizabeth the Queen; and lost his head for it. The death warrant, with her seal and signature, is in the library.  Anyhow, we toured Arundel on another brilliant, sunny and dry October day and enjoyed it thoroughly. It is only five miles from the sea, on a hill with a commanding view.

Approaching the castle

Another view--it really is a beautiful, fairytale-like structure

The old keep--built by Henry II

Interior of the chapel

The chapel adjoins Arundel's (city) cathedral

Curtain and tower

Interior of the newer (13th century) bailey; the present Duke

and his family reside in the buildings to the left