Brighton

After 4 hectic days and coming to Brighton for Tessa we decided an easy day was needed so were able to get an apartment close to the Brighton beach for 2 nights (15th and 16th June) and caught up on a lot of things including sleep, photos and writing my blog.  The apartment had cooking facilities so it was great to be able to cook our own meals rather than having to buy them all.

eiGht, the apartment we stayed in in Brighton for 2 nights.  It was on the 2nd floor with the balcony.

The view of the sea from the apartment.

It was a beautiful summer day so with everyone else headed for the beach in the afternoon.  The biggest disappointment was the beach consisted of stones and the water was cold !!! 

This water is a bit cold !!! Tessa and debs try a paddle !!!

On Brighton beach. The stones are a bit hard !!!

We walked down the beach and looked at the sights !! and the empty beach chairs !!!

 

View of the Brighton one way from the Pier.

View of Brighton the other way from the Pier.

Empty deck chairs with the Brighton Pier in the back ground.

 It was then to the Pier and a bit of fun.  The 2 little children in the group decided some rides on the rollercoaster and dodgem cars at the end of the Pier were in order and then it was a feed of fish'n'chips and mushy peas, very good but on a par with ours.

A bit heavy !!!!

Debs winning the dodgem car race !!

No visit to Brighton Pier is without a feed of fish'n'chips and mushy peas.

An early night was in order after a restful day in preparation for another busy 4 days.

Salisbury Cathedral

After leaving Longleat House at 3 pm on the 15th June we headed for Salisbury and the Cathedral and were lucky to get a park close to it.  When we got there we discovered that viewing of the Cathedral and the copy of the Magna Carta that is stored there was free as they were holding an open day to celebrate 800 years of the signing of the Magna Carta.  It turned out to be a very important day and was being celebrated in London with the Queen attending and the USA also.  We were able to see the copy held in the Cathedral, one of 4 that are still in existence and the best preserved. There were about 40 copies originally written in June 1215 on pigment skin by various people. They were holding celebrations at the Cathedral that night and were getting ready for them.

Salisbury Cathedral

The copy of the Magna Carta held in Salisbury Cathedral, 800 years old on 15th June 2015

The Cathedral was very impressive inside, very high and large with the large columns up each side.  it was built in Medieval times 800 years ago, taking 38 years, an example of early English Gothic Architecture (13th century) and has the tallest spire at 123 metres (404 feet) in England.



View of inside of the cathedral looking towards the back of it.

                                                     

Building the Cathedral

It also had the oldest clock in Europe in it and it chimed every hour.

Notice about the Oldest Working Clock in Europe

This is the oldest working clock.

The Cloisters and the fan walks were some of the largest in England as are the grounds and the Cathedral Close around it which also has Museums and other important houses enclosed in it.

The Cathedral Cloisters 

The large fan walk in the Cloisters

View of the Cathedral from the back.

After this great visit to the Cathedral on a very special day it was back on the road and to Brighton via the motorways, arriving at the apartment late at night, very tired.

Longleat House and Safari Park

Monday, 15th June, after deciding not to go to Stonehenge with the thousands the next choice was Longleat, the home of Lord Bath or the Marquess of Bath, his official title and his Safari Park.  It was close by and we got there by 10 am, the opening time, to find there were also hundreds there as well !!!  As I didn't want to go around the Safari Park and see its lions, cheetahs and tigers, giraffes and rhinos, monkeys and wolves, zebras, vultures and African pigmy goats, I instead settled for exploring the house and gardens.   Debbie and Tessa proceeded to go around the Safari Park by car and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Longleat House, the front of it, from the road coming into the property

The House and 900 acres of land in Wiltshire has been with the same family since the house was built by John Thynn in 1580.  It has been handed down from son to son and Lord Bath, the 7th Marquess of Bath, now 86 years old, his son, the Viscount of Weymouth with his son, only 7 months old, all still live there in the west and north wings of the house.  The House was opened to the public in 1949 by the 6th Marquess of Bath to avoid future inheritance fees (if a historic house is open to the public for more than 100 days a year and a contract is drawn up with the Government, all inheritance fees are waivered).  The Safari Park, the first drive-through Safari park outside Africa, was opened in 1966 by the 6th Marquess as well.

The other side of Longleat House taken down near the Lake with the growing maze in front of it.  The brown grass is the daffodil patch that has just been mown.  They must have looked glorious.

I spent the morning initially on a tour of the downstairs part of Lord Bath's private part of the House where he has his private mural art collection that he has painted and his 1,000 piece private painting collection, called the "Wessex Collection".  Lord Bath is an artist and started the murals in 1948 and they consist of a theme, they are very colourful, cover most of the walls of the hallways, the huge Billiard room and the Disco room. They consist of an oil based painting on a canvas that is then surrounded with a paper mache based mural which is very labour intensive and involves about 11 processes.  Unfortunately I was not able take any photos of this.  It was fascinating to see and very different.

Following this tour, as the east and south wings to the House which are open to the public did not open until the afternoon, I explored the grounds and the gardens.  The grounds were extensive and included a garden with 4 large topiary birds, an adjacent rose garden with an orangery (I was in my element, so many roses) and then behind another hedge, a secret gardens with animals made of twisted wire in the centre of it.

The garden at the back of the House with the 4 topiary birds, only one in the photograph.

The House from the Rose Garden.

The Rose Garden and the Orangery

The Secret Garden with Regency flowers and the animals made from twisted wire.

The grounds covered a lot of the area surrounding the House and before the Safari Park, were in immaculate order and well kept.  On one side of the House a maze was being grown of hedging and beyond that a large lake had been formed, beside the Safari Park and adjacent to the grounds.

The Lake adjacent to the House and the Safari Park

I met up with Debs and Tessa at about 1 pm and we had lunch in the Cellar café under the House and then proceeded to go through the House open to the public.  The House has 150 rooms in all, a lot of them not used or used for storage.  The main ones we visited included the Great Hall which retains many of the original 16th Century features including the fireplace, the elaborate wooden screen and the hammerbeam roof.  It has massive hunting scenes painted by John Wooten hanging on its walls.
It has a balcony and double doors built later for the visit of Charles II so he could look down on the visitors as well as a shuffleboard table, 33 ft long and made in the House and can't be removed as it is.  Photos had to be taken without a flash and Debs was able to get some but not of all the rooms.

The end wall of the great hall with the balcony and double doors made for Charles II visit.

The most impressive rooms apart from the Great Hall was the Breakfast Room, Downstairs Dining Room and the Red Library.  This library had nearly 5,000 books in it.  There were 7 libraries in all, and over 44,000 books, the oldest being around 1577.  As well as antique furniture there were over 500 traditional paintings in many of the rooms, mainly portraits or country scenes or of horses but modern portraits and family photographs were also scattered around in several rooms.

The Downstairs Dining Room.  The Queen dined here for the celebrations of the 400 anniversary of the House.

Upstairs there was the bedroom bathroom, nursery and 2 bedrooms, the Chinese and Prince of Wales bedroom.  More impressive was the main Dining Room with a silver centrepiece weighing 7 and a half stone, the Saloon that is 90 feet long and the State Drawing Room.   The latter has Italian wall coverings made of velvet and to protect these and the delicate furnishings and early panel paintings, also on the ceiling, the windows are sealed off from all light and the room is temperature regulated.  Further on are the Music and Minstrel rooms, the latter sitting in the centre of the house, opening into the Great Hall.  It has a Bechstein Piano, dated 1910 and music from this room can be heard in the Great Hall and the Drawing Room.

The Chinese Bedroom

The final part and the most impressive is the Grand Staircase which was an addition at the beginning of the 19th century replacing a more simpler one.  In the early 1800's corridors on the inside of the House adjacent to the central courtyard, were added for privacy in the rooms and for the servants to use.

The Grand Staircase.  Tessa was moving when the photo was being taken.

 I had a wonderful day there and really enjoyed everything I saw and the history of it.

Bristol and Bath

Stayed the night of the 13th June on the outskirts of Bristol as Tessa caught up with friends in Bristol that night.  We only arrived at 5 pm and saw Bristol from the car as we took her into the centre of the city.  A pretty city with rows of lovely Georgian 3 storied houses all made of stone.  The main attraction in Bristol is the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the canal.  We went and saw this on dusk, being told one of the best views of it was from the White Lion Hotel so went and had a drink there and viewed.  Decided we had to drive over it once the lights came on !!

Clifton Suspension Bridge from the Pub.

The bridge again when it got dark

Next morning, Sunday, 14th June, it was off to Bath for the day.  First up was an early lunch at Sally Lunn's Historic Eating House.  I had the famous bun toasted with lemon curd on it, scrumptious, a mixture of the taste of bread, a roll and cake, really light, about the size of a bread and butter plate.  The recipe is over 300 years old.  The building dates back to AD200 when it was thought to have been an Inn or Guest House.  It was rebuilt in 1482 and was used by Sally Lunn from 1700's.  It has a Hanoverian Arch, early Georgian doors, Tudor fireplace and a cantilevered spiral staircase.

Entrance to Sally Lunn's Historic Eating House

Below the Eating House was original kitchen with wood fired oven and other excavations that have been done.

Sally Lunn's original kitchen

The Roman Baths were next on the list, we thought we would take a look at the Bath Abbey next door but the long queue put us off so only saw the outside of it.

Bath Abbey

The Roman Baths date back over 2,000 years and are right in the centre of Bath next to the Abbey.  Excavations are continuing around them.  We wandered around through them listening to a commentary as we went.  It was fascinating.  I will let the photos tell the story.

The Main Roman Bath

The Hot Spring Pool

Notice about the Hot Spring

The Model of the Bath Roman Bath and surrounds

Debs and Tessa beside the Main Bath - "Am I going to push her in ?"

Excavations around the Immersion Pools

We spent at least 2 hours there, a memorable experience.  We had a good walk around Bath giving up a swim in the thermal pool due to lack of time. 

View of the canal and Weir through the centre of Bath

Bridge over the Canal

Next was a visit to the Bath Art Gallery, a combination of traditional and contemporary art, it was interesting.  The last place we had on our ticket was the Bath Fashion Museum and Assembly Rooms, a building with 3 large reception rooms including a large ballroom with amazing chandlers.  There was ballroom dancing happening in it during the visit which was exciting to watch.

The Museum had a display of dresses dating back to the 1750's right up to the present time and a commentary that went with it.  The garments and dresses were amazing, to believe they wore them most days and the intricate sewing on them that they did by hand back then.  There is a large collection stored there and they had many of them on display.

Dresses at the Fashion Museum

On the way back to the car we walked around some of the circle houses in The Circle and around The Royal Crescent where there is a large row of them. 

Row of Circle Houses at The Royal Crescent

Close up of the Circle houses at The Circus.

We left Bath, an amazing city which we could have spent a lot longer exploring at about 5 pm arriving at our accommodation that night near Stonehenge at the The Swan On Stoford, a little country pub, very old with lots of steps and wobbly staircases and floors. 

The Swan on Stoford where we stayed.

Debs and I decided to go looking for Stonehenge, found very few signs to it, even though it was close by.  We were told that now the only way to get to Stonehenge was with the official tour but we had heard you could see it from the main road.  We eventually found Stonehenge and saw it from the road but were unable to stop due to the traffic and no parking along the road.  Debs decided to get up early next morning and did get closer and took this photo.  At least I can say I have seen it !!

Stonehenge from the road