The Road Goes Ever On

Monday, July 8, 2019

Wimpole: Garden

Assorted views inside the great walled garden...

Across the great ha-ha divide

We visited the Wimpole Estate in 2009. It was our first great house and our first National Trust property. We were impressed. This was nearly 10 years ago. In 2019 we thought we might visit again, knowing that earlier we had little of the context and experience we now have for visiting these magnificent places. We were ever more impressed.

Wimpole, full frontal

Known for its great (artificial) vistas

Assorted interior views

One of a large number of Wooton horse paintings, 18th century; Wooton was to
horses as Avercamp was to winter scenes; this one is huge, life-size

Read on...

Ditto

Who knows what fun...

Chapel...right next to the fun tub!

Pantry, spices, etc.

Tea bins...these people bought their tea by the ton...Hyson was the green, before
they got into black tea

Senior servant quarters

Great beautiful copper beech

Garden vista

Garden view

Vista toward the folly

Close-up of folly...a docent told us they were not permitted to call it a folly
(though it was built as such) because someone lived there...

Henlow, Arlesey, And St. Peter's Parish Church

After Coventry and Costco we headed east in increasing heat--it would get into the 90s that day--and we were looking for relief, a quiet place to hold up for a few days, to plan, to rest, to do a few minor camper repairs. Vicki had found the Henlow Bridge Lakes Campsite, Angling, and Leisure Park. It's in Bedfordshire, near the border with Hertforshire, about 3 miles northwest of Letchworth Garden City, four miles north of Hitchin, and 6 miles south of Biggleswade. Sounded perfect to me. We stayed four nights, and, in addition to resting, planning, and repairing, we also did the wash and took several walks into nearby Arlesey, which has 2 convenience stores, 2 pubs, a car wash, and an interesting 12th century parish church.

Regarding parish churches: we have seen a few, including some wowsers like Tewkesbury and Kilpeck, but while we were in Menlo Park last winter, Vicki came across Simon Jenkins' mammoth doorstop bestseller (seriously) England's Thousand Best Churches, which was also a hit TV show (not as big a hit as Bake Off, I suspect). We ordered a copy from Amazon and brought it with us to the UK, which is indeed exactly like carrying coal to you know where. And we have now acquired a second copy, since Vicki likes to tear pages out of guidebooks to carry on site. This is not something she learned in library school, and I am appalled. We are thus the only Americans in Britain with 2 copies of the Jenkins tome. Anyway, having seen most of the cathedrals, we're now going to be looking more at the parish churches, many of which are equally old and interesting.

Quite a nice place, quite diversified: in addition to camping sites and cabins,
there were 5 fishing ponds (for a price; this is England), a hair salon, a daycare
center, a store, smaller venues for weddings, reunions, etc., and a large venue
for concerts or whatever; oh yes, also motor-home and caravan storage, and a
garden store (this is England)

Nicely landscaped, too

The train not taken: Arlesey station was a few hundred paces away, and we were
tempted to make a dash for London, not far away; but we didn't

The campground just had so many interesting activities... (when was the last
time you saw the word circa in the US?)

The big attraction for us was the St. Peters parish church in Arlesey, 12th century
origins and lots more

Nave view; not a huge church, not a huge town, not even in Jenkins' top 1000;
but still interestingly old; just another of the 16,000 parish churches here

Very old font

The parish churches are also sometimes community centers;
so you have conversation areas, or kiddie areas, right along
with the 13th century artifacts