RAF Oulton

Blickling's more recent past includes the RAF Oulton bomber base from WWII. Blickling Hall housed personnel and served as a mess hall for the base. The airstrip was only a couple miles away. In the early years of the war, Oulton was home to light and medium bombers, Vega Venturas, A-26s, and such. In 1943, the base closed, concrete runways and other infrastructure were built, and by April, 1944, the B-17s and B-24s that were to pulverize Germany arrived. Blickling houses a small but impressive museum of those times.

Map of RAF Oulton

Huge model, 8 foot wingspan

"Chaff"--tinsel dropped from Allied aircraft on D-Day to confuse German radar;
I'll never forget being in a conversation one day in the 80s between two WWII vets
in Dallas, Bill Stallcup, who flew a USAAF bomber and dropped chaff that day; and
Jerry Stover, who was a US Army signal officer on the beach, whose radio
messages apparently suffered as much as the German radar

Blickling Garden

Blickling's gardens are extensive; we did the tour that covered the formal gardens,
part of the park lands, and then the walled garden; stupendous!

Looking toward the temple

In the formal garden

The sculptured hedges were amazing

In the forest, with its wide avenues and eye catchers

Formal garden looking toward the Hall

Many huge old trees

By the artificial lake, obligatory National Trust croquet

Kiddie village

Jacobean compost point

National Trust gardens always include comprehensive and up-to-date gardener's
notes--this is, after all, a Nation of Gardeners--many of the people visiting are
here not merely to admire the beauty, but to get ideas and learn skills for their
own gardens (click to enlarge)

In the walled garden, under restoration since 2014

Spare parts

In progress

So I have spent 50 years eating artichokes, but never saw one in bloom until
last week; now they seem to be everywhere!

Blickling Hall

I don't know whether anyone rates the National Trust's properties--how could you? they are all so interestingly different--but if there were such a rating, Blickling surely would get 5 stars. The drive-up appeal alone would count for much. The property belonged to the Boleyns in the 15th and 16th centuries. Anne allegedly was born there in the early 1500s. James I's chief justice Lord Herbert built the quintessential Jacobean hall in the early 1600s. Later generations added Georgian structures and touches, but always melding with the Jacobean. In later years, the estate came to the Lothian clan and was last owned by Lord Lothian. If you've seen Darkest Hour, you know who he was--one of the great appeasers (he met personally with Hitler), but later Churchill's ambassador to the United States--and perhaps more to the point, the author and progenitor of the National Trust Act of 1937, which enabled the gifting of great estates in lieu of the so-called "death taxes." When Lord Lothian died in 1940, in Washington, DC, he had already willed Blickling to the Trust and thus to the nation. The long hall is one of the most renowned among these structures, housing what is said to be the Trust's largest and finest library. The park lands encompass hundreds of acres, and I don't think I will be able to do the gardens in just one post: they're varied and beautiful and photogenic. Oh yes, Blickling also has the largest 2nd-hand bookstore and garden store we have seen on Trust properties; and two restaurant/cafes. And then there is the WWII RAF/Oulton museum....

Drive-up appeal: first there is the ancient/giant flanking hedge, a couple hundred
meters long

Then the matching/flanking service buildings

And then the great Jacobean Hall itself

Inside the great hedge (in case you've ever wondered...)

The (former) moat is all that remains of the Boleyn house

In the great Jacobean entry hall; note the carved newel posts

Comfy room; different rooms are done in different periods, reflecting the hall's
great age

Lord Lothian, ambassador to the USA

Formal dining

Family portrait

The long hall; note exquisite plaster ceiling

Library

Gainsborough portrait of the Countess of Buckinghamshire

State bedroom (just in case the king or queen decide to pop in)

Lord Herbert, of the court of King James, who bought the
lands in 1616 and built the great house

Among the things that most interested us, this guest room, decorated with wall
paper onto which had been affixed large prints from the Grand Tour...

Apparently, in the 18th and early 19th, you could purchase books of these
prints, sort of like today's posters or post cards, souvenirs of the Tour

Another bedroom

Back in a drawing room or somesuch: the sad news is that Blickling has been
infested by the Death Watch Beetle; the scaffolding is there to permit an
examination of how far the beetle has gotten into the structural timbers, the
books, and more...