Croft Castle

Next up, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, was Croft Castle and Parkland, a 1660s vanity castle built by the Bishop of Hereford, who had apparently tired of his urban digs. The lands had already been in the Croft family for some ages. The decor is mixed--in a style future generations may come to call National Trustic--reflecting the many centuries of Croft habitation.

Approaching the castle and chapel

The castle; this was well into the Age of Artillery, and no one
would have regarded a castle as of much defensive use

The Bishop

He had Ties, since one of his ancestors had been
one of Her close officials from early on

Moving right along, Vicki checks out the library circulation
system

Others check out an 18th century pinball machine

Thus; sort of

While I check out the 20th century Victrola

Paul Robeson sings "Plantation Songs"; probably of greater
historical import than anything else in the room...

Another room; and...

Elizabeth Cowper, a cousin of the poet, married Sir Archer
Croft, 3rd Baronet, becoming Lady Elizabeth Croft; the
portrait by Gainsborough

Another drawing room

The dining hall set up for a 1930 Ludlow Hunt Club Ball;
notably, the 1925 Mouton Rothschild would have been way to
young to open...

The adjacent family chapel

Resting place of earlier Crofts

Part of the grounds not taken

Gardener's hut, astride the walled garden wall

We'll take it, assuming it includes the wisteria

We're seeing more and more bug hotels in
National Trust gardens

Of particular note is that the Croft walled garden contains the
only working vineyard in the National Trust's 500 different
sites; a promising, fruity white, reminiscent of some Marlborough
sauvignon blancs I have tried

A flink on the grounds

A proper and effective Ha Ha

In the children's area...the Trust's sites are always family-friendly

Leominster's Priory Church of Saints Peter and Paul

The Priory Church of SS Peter and Paul is quite old and quite well preserved. The original building is Romanesque and the add-on, Perpendicular. The windows are mostly 15th century but very attractive. There is evidence of the Herefordshire School in some of the older bits. And there is an artifact that really belongs in the museum but which I suspect the church will never relinquish...a real ducking stool of yore...

Thus, again, the Priory Church

In the add-on; the original church walls to the left

In the old building; enormous old piers

Elevation

Nice windows in the new building

Thus

Nice carving on the furniture

"Give me that old time religion..."

Thus

Thus

And thus

Entry to new building

Thus

West door to the original building

Thus

And thus

And now, what you've all been waiting for...

There it is...off to the side of the old building, hardly given the
pride of place it deserves...you could be paraded around town
in the chair and/or dunked in the river in it; was finally retired
in Leominster in 1809, with a service of penitence in the
church! Used to be required by law for all manors, hamlets,
villages, towns

Helpful illustration from the town museum...used primarily to
punish women guilty of nagging or gossiping, but also merchants,
including men, at variance with the office of weights and
measures or guilty of public brawling; sort of an 18th century
water-boarding...Cheney/Trump would love it

Leominster

Our navigatrix and her sophisticated software (wildcamping.co.uk) took us to the town of Leominster ("Lemster") about 10 miles north of Hereford, where a large, centrally-located, long-stay car-park, welcoming motorhome tourists (L2.50/24h) like us, awaited. We decided to use it as a short-term base of operations, staying in Leominster two nights, and thus stimulating the local economy (grocery, newsagent, pub, gas station, charity shops, barber). Our only complaint is that they need to turn off the bells at the priory next door during quiet hours.

There we are; plus we also dumped ("shitter was full") and
watered...

Beautiful old house facing the Grange, i.e., the commons

Plant market on the Grange

In Leominster's excellent little town museum

The downtown maintains its medieval lay-out,
the medieval alleys and streets retaining their
names; this is Drapers Lane

The priory church of SS Peter and Paul was a short stone's throw
from the car-park and was sufficiently interesting to warrant its
own post

Brockhampton: Moated Medieval Manor House

Next we drove the few miles on to Brockhampton, a moated medieval manor house maintained by the Trust. It has been lived in by the manorial lords or their tenants since the 1300s. The main building is quite intact and credible, and there is much apparent period furniture. How to make a narrative out of such a thing, even a small structure, is an interesting question. Do everything medieval? Elizabethan? Jacobean? The Trust's answer this time was to select several actual families that lived at Brockhampton over the centuries, and do a room or rooms featuring them and their epochs. It is quite well done, I think.

The moat and gatehouse were purely for looks

Ruins of a chapel next door...it was a "chapel of ease," not the
parish church...this evidenced by the fact there are no burials
on the site (according to the archaeologists)

The gatehouse; one of the more photographed buildings hereabouts

Vaulting/roofing in the gatehouse

Moat/water feature

Main hall

Vaulting, looking up to the second floor, where the bedrooms are

Master suite, so to speak

Note that when John married into the Brockhampton family,
he took their name

Another bed-chamber, another chapter in the story

Thus: stitched-in above are the instructions to a new servant;
note especially the next-to-last paragraph: "Be aware that I
customarily awake from my first sleep at about 12 midnight,
and may require hot drink as I bide my time until my second
sleep"...a rare reference to the bi-modal sleep pattern of our
ancestors

Moving on a century or two...in a crowded household, the little
kiddies slept in the same room with their parents...and this in
a relatively well-to-do household

Thus

"Mind your head"--at the top of a low staircase

Kitchen/dining; 19th century now

Thus (note built-in microwave)

Finally, the 20th century family room/office...neat place to visit;
the grounds are loaded with interesting trails and hikes, but we
had to move on in search of a place to park for the night...