Stourhead Gardens

The great lawn behind the house leads to the valley below, in which are several ponds and a lake, around which the lake walk goes, passing by half a dozen temples, cottages, grottoes, and the like, all of it beautifully landscaped with exotics and other plants. We spent nearly the whole afternoon on the walk.

In addition to his other pursuits, Colt Hoare was a skilled gardener and especially
collected pelargonia; not only collected them but created new varieties through
cross-pollination, some 600; his collection dissipated after his death, but the Trust
is attempting to restore the collection to at least a fraction of its former extent;
pelargonia are of the same genus as geraniums; about 230 varieties exist in the
world today, mostly in South Africa

Out on the lake walk now, looking across the lake's outlet to the Temple of Apollo 

A fairy ring of trees (all in a circle); that's what we'd call them in California

Exotic species department

The floor of a rhododendron wood

In the Grotto

Looking back across the lake to the Temple of Flora

The Gothic Cottage

In another rhododendron wood--reminded me of Nepal, where it's the national tree

The Pantheon

Mama Swan and babies

Another handkerchief tree

A Medieval Gothic cross Henry the Magnificent bought
from the City of Bristol in the 1760s

The beautiful little parish church on the estate; the only bummer of the day was
learning that thieves had stolen the lead roofing off this building...

Stourhead House, 2013

The work of two grandsons. Henry ("the Magnificent") Hoare was the grandson of Richard Hoare, the founder of the great bank, and it was Henry who originally purchased the estate from the Stourtons--who had lived there perhaps since Anglo-Saxon times--and then built a great neo-classical mansion in the early 1700s. It was he too who more or less personally designed and built the gardens. His grandson, Richard Colt Hoare, added the library and picture wings flanking the older house, and also added much in books and art. He was a humanist, an artist, a traveller, and something of an archaeologist too, having been among the first to dig carefully at Stonehenge as well as at some 300 other nearby sites. (I'm about a mile from Silbury Hill as I write and am looking in its direction). The house at Stourhead is impressive, but the gardens are stunningly beautiful. We were there at just the right time, at the height of the bloom for the rhodos and all those other acid-loving plants.

Henry the Magnificent, obviously very
excited to be riding

Entry gate, all that remains of the original Stourton estate

Vicki poses by a pollarded Sweet Chestnut;
regular pruning leads to more vigorous growth

Stourhead House, left wing the library, right wing the picture
room, between the original mansion

Richard Colt Hoare and ? (grandson?)

In the library, a beautiful painted glass depiction of portions
of Rafael's School of Athens, which Colt Hoare no doubt saw
on his two extended grand tours

Still in the library, a Chippendale library ladder; lots of
Chippendale in this house; made by Thomas Chippendale
the Younger

Music room, set up for concerts as Colt Hoare would have
presented for guests

Game room

Looking out back toward the real obelisk

The famous "Pope's Cabinet, a 17th century
ebony and bronze piece, studded with precious
stones, crammed with secret chambers, drawers,
etc., acquired on a trip to Rome

Detail

Much British art and copies in the house; this a Jan Provost
Adoration

Poussin's The Choice of Hercules

And Murillo's Old Woman with a Distaff

Wells Cathedral, 2013

Wells is my favorite English cathedral. We visited it at some length in 2009, and were certain to return on this visit. And we might well go see it again if it suits. It is Gothic through and through, if English Gothic and early, and it has so many interesting and fun features--beginning with the massive, unbelieveable, "scissors" arches and their story--it is hard not to love. The west facade has more Medieval sculpture than any other comparable English church. And then there are all those fun features, enumerated in my two posts of 2009: http://roadeveron.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/wells-cathedral.html, and http://roadeveron.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/wells-cathedral-ii.html.

To them I would add these few thoughts and pix. Do look at the west facade; probably the best on this island. The Wells clock really is the oldest still-working, fully-functional, clock in the world. We were just at Salisbury and carefully examined its putatively older clock, which does not have a face and which does not do minutes, and is not therefore in my opinion a real contender to Wells'. Besides, Salisbury's clock does not have jousting knights and Jack Blandiver kicking the bells (every fifteen minutes for 600+ years now). Do visit the chapter house and its marvelous vaulting and interesting little sculptures. Wells is one of the few free admission cathedrals in England, so do donate generously and freely (unlike at Salisbury) for its considerable upkeep costs. Marvel and marvel again at the scissors arches. And walk and shop Wells' pretty little old town, England's smallest cathedral city.

Wells' west facade is home to a flock of crebain
out of Dunland

The Van Gogh sculpture in the Chapter
House 

Southwest view from the cloister

Scenes On The Road To Wells

Our drive back east through Devon took the better part of two days, including the long stop at Knightshayes and several shorter ones, not to mention several misadventures looking for obscure stone circles, rows, dolmens, menhirs, and the like. Somehow we are a little less adventurous than in 2009. Or perhaps a bit more discriminating in what we we're willing to drive to. My current criterion is that if a menhir is not taller than I am, forget it. Unless richly carved. Anyhow, there is much beautiful countryside in the west, particularly if you get off the dual carriage-way.

Two-seat (chopped-down) Mini outside a pub; the color is
"harvest gold," right, Rebecca?

The Bickleigh Bridge, near Bickleigh Castle, Devon

The River Exe, now way upstream

Thus

At length,we got into Somerset and spent the night on
Walton Hill (Walton Mountain was booked up), at the
National Trust carpark

It was a bit noisy (evening (dog) walkies), but the signage was
good

Thus

Beautiful pastoral countryside, out the front window

And Glastonbury Tor out the back; we drove
into Glastonbury the next day for some
provisioning, marveling once again at the
weirdness, now approaching a crescendo as the
Festival is only a week or so away; we hope
to be far, far away

Knightshayes

The fortune behind Knighthayes, a 19th century curiosity, came from one John Heathcoate, who in the early 1800s invented the first lace-making machine. A Luddite mob destroyed his Midlands factory--interestingly, Paul Krugman just wrote a NYT column called "Sympathy for the Luddites"--so he moved production to Tiverton, in Devon, and grew to become the world's largest lace manufacturer. (Are you with me, Tawana?) And a man of some means. He was an inventor and businessman, however, and lived in the village with his family, in relative modesty. The grandson, John Heathcoate-Amory, was not content to be a business magnate. So, in order to flaunt his great wealth and status, he purchased the Knightshayes property and had built on it a neo-Gothic great house and adjoining gardens and grounds. For interiors, his opium-eating architects produced some stunning arts and crafts things, the sort one sees at the V&A, but these were too adventurous for Sir Grandson, and he later covered them up with more typical Victorian colors and designs. As it renovates the house, the Trust is restoring the original bold decors, which are decidedly more interesting than what's presently there. The outside is definitely domestic/neo-Gothic, with Gothic arches, tracery, even a few gargoyles. And much stained glass. Alas, this is a "no fotos!" property, inside, so I have little to show. But the gardens are fairly spectacular. We spent several hours walking all of them.

Knightshayes, full frontal

Gargoyle

In the lady's bedroom; we had expected to see lots of lace
at Knightshayes, but, alas, just about all of it was on the
wedding dress in the corner

Another of the restored bedrooms

Gorgeous embroidery of the county and its various properties

View from the house down to the valley and the original
factory buildings, no longer owned by the family, but still
in the textile business

Grounds view

In the terraced formal gardens

My camera loves poppies

Still in the formal gardens, a topiary "chase"

And a lily pond

And it also loves water lilies

And dragon flies on water lily pads

All in a row 

The meadows are covered in wildflowers, daisies, forget-me-nots,
buttercups; but no dandelions! How do they do this? 

The rhodos are still doing quite well here

And the camellias

The grounds and gardens are covered by scores of huge
old trees like this one; oaks, mainly, but all manner of others
too