Ee-i-ee-i-o!

This is the view of the valley that Tom walks past twice a day and I walk past whenever I go to the High Street. Lovely, huh? Of course, this photo was taken on a sunny summer's day, so to get an idea of what it's like now, take away the sun, add mud and reduce the temperature by 15C. Anyway, I digress. The real reason for this post is to submit a complaint about a song: Old MacDonald had a farm. I'm sick of singing it! Unfortunately, it is our daughter's favourite song and it is requested several times a day. Eliza sings along and suggests an animal for the farm. Initially, Old MacDonald had a farm solely consisting of pigs but he has branched out recently and now has a substantial duck farm. He also has the occasional sheep or cow (hence the photo.) I know babies love repetition but I think I need to change songs before I go ga-ga.

Warwick Castle pt 2

Having read Kylie's post about Warwick Castle, you will now be fully conversant with the wars of the roses and my dislike of high, old buildings. So, take your skun ferret and lower it slowly into the boiling pitch until... sorry, don't know where that came from.

Warwick Castle is really touristy. The building is very impressive, and they've gone to some lengths to try to educate people about some medieval things. But the result is that the whole thing feels a bit cheapened, and they neglect some of their best stuff.

As Kylie has outlined, the castle started as a fairly significant fortification in the history of Norman England. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the English were a bit less worried about the hordes of marauding vikings / saxons / poor people / traitors / distant relatives who might try to come and burn your castle down, and a bit less confident about using castles against them if they did come. So the Earls of Warwick turned the castle into a fairly comfortable Victorian gentleman's house, which also happened to have a big wall around it.

The contrast is quite bizarre. Outside: Medieval castle. Inside: Comfortable house, with oak-panneled rooms, fine furniture etc. Odd.

The inside is set up to try to show you what a weekend party at the house might have looked like in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Winston Churchill figures, as he was apparently a regular guest, as were the dukes of Devonshire and Marlborough and the Prince of Wales. On the whole, they were a fairly immoral lot.

Outside, medieval rules. There were quite good displays of falconing, and, of course, the firing of the grand trebuchet. This was a singular disappointment. Here you have a weapon capable of flinging some quite interesting things, like furniture, pianos or small cars, some considerable distance, and what do they do with it? They fling a 15kg rock. Alright, they doused it in pitch and set it on fire first, but it was still a small rock.

Back inside, I was quite disappointed that they didn't make more of their collections. They actually have some quite good artwork, including a number of van Dyke studio portraits, one or two by van Dyke himself, several by Sir Joshua Reynolds and more by his studio, and one quite unique painting of Henrietta Maria which was first painted by van Dyke's studio as a half-height portrait and then extended to its full height by Sir Joshua. They make nothing of them. I only found out about them because I recognized a van Dyke and asked one of the staff about it. He turned out to be extremely knowledgable on the subject, and very helpful and happy to talk for a long time. But if you didn't ask, you would know nothing about it. The one upside is that, because they make nothing of them, you can walk right up to the paintings. You could easily damage or destroy them if you chose to. In other stately homes, the paintings are kept roped off and you can't get near them. At Warwick, you can study them very close up.

They also have a quite extraordinary collection of weaponry, ranging from Norman times through to the 18th century. Again, they make nothing of it. It's like someone found it all in a crate and said, "What'll we do with all this old junk?" "I dunno, just hang some one the walls where it might look nice. Spread it around a bit, you know?" The crowning piece is, of course, the trebuchet, and they make a great deal of that, but on everything else they are silent.

The best thing about Warwick castle was getting in free. We were lined up behind a coach party. The driver came down distributing tickets, and when he got to the end of the line he asked us, "Have you paid?" We said no, and he said, "Well, here, have these tickets, they're spare." Beauty.

Verdict: A good family day out, but could be better.

Oh, and several people have asked what is a Motte and what is a Bailey. A motte is a kind of pile of dirt, useful to be on if you are trying to hurl rocks at someone else's head, or if you want to see a long way, and a bailey is a wall that you put around the motte, to keep people from trying to put a sword in your head (or assorted other disfiguring operations).

Airports

Airports are always odd places. No-one is ever themselves in an airport. The majority of people are families or retired couples on holiday; they are either bubbly and excited or tired and frayed, depending on which end of the holiday they are at. Some sit around drinking coffee until you can see the tension in them. Others take to stronger drink, and either talk randomly and loudly to the people near them or fall asleep. Even the people who work there look like they put on a full body mask early in the morning and then take it off again at the end of the day to go home. Personally, I like to get there early, sit and read until the last possible moment to board, then be first off the airplane, through the airport and out as fast as possible, to be the first to the taxi queue. This requires some careful planning to make sure your hand luggage is as portable as possible.

But Glasgow airport is easily the oddest I have seen yet. The building is, on the whole, long and thin, with gate lounges scattered along it on both levels. They have taken some care to make sure that people departing take a different route between the gate and the front door to those arriving. The result of this is that, to get from the gate to the door, you have to wind your way along, up and down, around, under and over and it is very easy to get lost.

The contrast between the two routes is quite amazing. When departing, you walk along shiny, tiled walkways, where everything is glass and stainless steel. You walk through various glitzy shops and cafes. The staff are all smartly dressed. When arriving, you walk on aged carpet. The fittings are bare, functional, even slightly shabby. This impression was not improved by the concrete cutter operating in a bit of the building that was screened off. The staff wear old-looking yellow reflective security vests.

The security operation here is immense. It was, of course, the scene of a slightly bizarre terrorist attack which somehow only managed to injure the terrorists when someone drove a car through the front window and set fire to it a couple of years ago. Somehow the risk of people driving through the windows has led to an enormous upgrade in body scanners which will, erm, I dunno, scare the cars off. Some sort of fire alarm went off just as I arrived, which prevented people from leaving the baggage reclaim room; this made for a very crowded and uncomfortable twenty minutes.

I was in Glasgow for the day for work. It meant an early start and an even later finish. Bristol to Glasgow for a day trip is a bit like Adelaide to Melbourne; doable, but long. I didn't look out the car window almost the whole way from airport to office and back, so I can't tell you much about it.

Warwick Castle: the Wars of the Roses and a tour of the ramparts

This is Kylie writing, just to clarify any confusion over authorship. :-)

This is Warwick Castle on a rare sunny day. Warwick Castle is in the town of Warwick, in the county of Warwickshire (Shakespeare's county, according to the sign posts). It sits on a cliff right next to a bend in the River Avon. It is big. It is old. It is a major tourist attraction.

The photo below is the initial view of the castle keep as you walk up the winding drive. From left to right: Caesar's tower, barbican and gatehouse, and Guy's tower. There are a couple of smaller towers (Clarence and Bear) to the right, but we don't appear to have any photos of them: in the one photo that is in the right direction, they are obscured by a tree. This part of the keep dates from the 14th century. There was originally another keep in the same location that dated from the time of Henry II (1154-89).


There is still an even older ruin of an earlier castle. Somewhere on the mound is the ruins of the wooden motte-and-bailey castle established by William the Conqueror in 1068. It sits on a hill called Ethelfleda's mound. Ethelfleda was the daughter of Alfred the Great, and legend has it that it was she who instigated the construction of an even earlier Anglo-Saxon fortification there to defend Mercia from the Danes. The mound was landscaped in the 17th century.


I feel as though I need to get my head around the history of the place so, at the risk of boring you to tears, here is a summarised history from what I can glean from the fount of all knowledge and of many more wild inaccuracies:

Anglo-Saxon times: an Anglo-Saxon burh is constructed on a mound to protect Mercia from the Danes; no traces remain visible
1068: William the Conqueror establishes a motte-and-bailey castle on mound, appoints Henry de Beaumont to act as constable.
1088: Henry de Beaumont made first Earl of Warwick.
1153: wife of 2nd Earl is tricked into thinking her husband is dead; hands castle over to Henry of Anjou (who becomes Henry II a year later); 2nd Earl dies on hearing the news.
1154-89: Reign of Henry II. Builds keep and, at some point gives the castle back to Earls of Warwick because they had been loyal to his mother, Matilda.
1242: 6th Earl of Warwick dies without issue, title passes to sister, who also ends up dying without issue (in 1253). Title passes to cousin, William Maudit (8th Earl).
1260: Stone replaces wood in the castle's construction.
1267: Death of 8th Earl, title inherited by nephew, William de Beauchamp. Title remains in de Beauchamp family for 7 generations (180 years); most of the additions to the keep made in this time, the money for these coming from the spoils of various battles.
1449: Once Anne de Beauchamp, 15th Countess of Warwick (the men are Earls, the women are Countesses) died at age 5, things became bloody (and complicated!) The title was inherited by her Aunt's husband, Richard Neville (also known as "Warwick the Kingmaker"), a cousin of Edward IV. Richard Neville had two daughters, Isabel and Anne, and they married two younger brothers of King Edward IV. He was also responsible for making Edward IV king in the first place whilst Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou, were busy campaigning in the north.

Now, as far as I can work out, there are three sides in this phase of the Wars of the Roses: Henry VI (Lancaster), Edward IV (York), and Warwick the Kingmaker, who at first supported Edward, then became jealous when Edward married Elizabeth Woodville (due to a combination of embarrassment and receding influence) and so supported himself, and then, when that didn't work, decided that Henry VI wasn't so bad after all. His son-in-law (married to Isabel), George Plantagenet (Duke of Clarence) seems just as confused in his allegience: he supported Edward IV at first, then became jealous of his brother being King when he wasn't and so supported Warwick, then realised that Warwick wasn't going to make him king either and so supported Henry VI, and then when Henry VI was murdered, decided that being the King's brother wasn't so bad after all. France and Burgundy also rate a mention as places to flee to or to fight against. France was on Henry VI's side; Burgundy was on the side of Edward IV.

Continuing with the timeline...

1469: Richard Neville (Warwick the Kingmaker) rebels against King Edward IV and imprisons him at Warwick Castle; George Plantagenet assists. The aim is to get Edward declared illegitimate so George will become king. Edward IV receives aid from younger brother Richard and many other nobles. Richard arrives at Warwick castle with a large army and liberates Edward IV.
1470: Richard Neville and George Plantagenet flee to France. An alliance is formed with Henry VI. Richard Neville's daughter Anne marries Henry VI's son, Edward; George Plantagenet is named next in line to the throne after Edward. Richard Neville invades England; Edward IV and brother Richard flee to Burgundy. Henry VI restored to the throne of England
1471: Richard Neville plans to invade Burgundy and, instead, Burgundy assists Edward IV to invade England. Richard Neville is killed in the Battle of Barnet fighting against King Edward VI (but on the side of Henry VI); his title is inherited by George Plantagenet. Henry VI's son, Edward, is killed at the battle of Tewkesbury, Henry VI is murdered shortly thereafter.
1478: George Plantagenet is executed for treason; his son, Edward, is only 2 years old when he inherits so The Crown takes custody of the lands. Edward is cared for by his aunt, Anne Neville who, by this time, has married Richard Plantagenet (Edward IV's brother).
1483: Edward IV dies. Richard acts as regent for Edward IV's son, Edward. Richard imprisons both Edward and his brother Richard (this is all rather confusing with them all using the same names) in the Tower of London and becomes Richard III.
1484: Richard III's son dies, and Edward earl of Warwick is named his heir... for as long as his Aunt is alive (a matter of months) and then he is also imprisoned in the Tower of London.
1485: Richard III is killed at the battle of Bosworth. Henry VII takes the throne. The earl of Warwick is left imprisoned and is eventually beheaded for treason in 1499. No more Earls of Warwick for the time being.

Let's take a break from history.

One of the things that you can do at Warwick Castle is climb the ramparts. You start the climb by climbing up to the Clarence and Bear towers, then climb all the way up to the top of Guy's tower (39 metres), down and then along to the gatehouse, and then finally up Caesar's tower. Climbing up Guy's tower was hard work! The winding staircase was steep and narrow; Tom couldn't see where to put his feet because he had Eliza in a baby carrier. We have no idea how the woman in front of him managed the climb - she was wearing 4-inch stilettos. Actually, I still have no idea how she managed to walk in them for the entire day - ouch! Anyway, so when we'd finally go to the top, I was prepared to take my time and enjoy myself. Here I am enjoying the view.


And here is the view from the other side. Nice, huh? The building on the right is part of the actual living quarters.

I ended up taking most of the photos because, it turned out, I was the only one enjoying the view. This is where Tom stayed.


Why (I hear you ask)? Is he afraid of heights? No, not exactly. The engineer in him is... concerned that the structure might fall down, particularly the bits with overhang. Here's another photo of Guy's tower.


See how it overhangs at the top? See the person looking out? That's where I was standing earlier. There are even little grates where you can look down and see the ground. It's really cool! (I would have taken a photo but I didn't think it would focus properly.) However, apparently, even though the tower has been around since 1395, it might fall down, or the top part might fall off or... something. It's not worth risking life and limb by standing too close to the tower wall.

Anyway, we eventually climbed down Guy's tower and continued along the ramparts. I'll leave you with a couple more photos: Tom and Eliza in the gatehouse looking back to Guy's tower; and the view from Caesar's tower of the River Avon and the giant trebuchet.

Authorship: part 2

I'd just like to clarify any confusion over the authorship of the post titled 'Authorship'. That post was not written by Tom as claimed.

Authorship

I'd just like to clarify any confusion over authorship of the last post. I started the post, but the bulk of it was written by Tom... as you may have gathered. This post is somewhat shorter and contains less random photographs.

Blenheim Palace: commemorating the victory at Blenheim

When talking to a certain Australian friend (Mike, you know who you are), we mentioned that we'd recently been to Chatsworth and how much we'd enjoyed it. His response was that Chatsworth was good but Blenheim Palace was better. And so for our next holiday we included a trip to Blenheim Palace.

If you've been following our adventures, you'll have already met a couple of the great English families, and you'll have discovered that their backgrounds are not that great, after all. There was the Legh family, of Lyme Park, who cut off a Frenchman's arm at some highly significant battle which no-one has heard of. There were the Dukes of Devonshire, who bought their title and then improved it through a spot of creative treason, er, I mean patriotic revolution. But at Blenheim Palace we meet a family of a different sort, the Dukes of Marlborough. Their fame began with John Churchill, who began life as a page in the court of Charles II. He was essentially a military genius, and was quickly promoted. He rescued the Austrians from disaster in the war of the Spanish Succession and then won the utterly memorable battle of Blindheim, or Blenheim, knocking the French out of the war (which is, of course, the aim of all wars up to 1910).

Until this point, the war had been looking rather bleak for England, and so Churchill was rather a popular sort of fellow. He was made the Duke of Marlborough (he had, admittedly, been made Earl of Marlborough for supporting the Dutch Orange). It was thought that probably his flat in Kensington, nice though it was, was not a iftting residence for a Duke, so Queen Anne decided to build Blenheim Palace for him instead, as a home for a hero and as a monument to commemorate the victory at Blenheim. It shows. By the time it was three-quarters done, the Duke was not quite so popular with the Queen, and in fact she stopped paying the builders, leaving the Duke with a £60,000 bill to finish it. The poor fellow, only getting £240,000 from the taxpayer for his house. For reference, that's somewhere well over £100,000,000 today, the poor sod, I dunno how he coped.

Anyhow, the family has continued to produce some highlights, including Lord Randolph Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and, of course, Sir Winston Churchill, also premier of these islands, and smoker of enormous cigars, who was in fact born at Blenheim Palace.

Take a first look at the place, as you drive up the carriageway* to the front door:

Good, isn't it? It's big; that commemorates the victory at Blenheim. See the baroque ornamentation? That commemorates the victory at Blenheim. The symmetrical perfection of it? It commemorates the victory at Blenheim. The solid immovability of it? That, also, commemorates the victory at Blenheim. The house was designed to overshadow Versailles in a "blaze of architectural glory" (according to the guide book) and that, of course, commemorates the victory at Blenheim. Lions are, of course, very noble, courageous beasts, and the miniature statues of them scattered around the grounds commemorate the victory at Blenheim.


Cannons are very military things, and there are some of them scattered around to commemorate the victory at Blenheim.


The first Duke was a soldier, and there are lots of statues of soldiers, typically with not much in the way of clothing, kicking around to commemorate the victory at Blenheim:


They have quite a good maze... in the shape of the Duke's banners and trumpets, commemorating the victory at Blenheim:


And when you reach the middle, you find B L E N H E I M spelt out, to, erm, commemorate the victory at Blenheim:


While it's not exactly in Trafalgar Square, like that uppity sod Nelson's column, it is still a big column, and certainly commemorates the victory at Blenheim:

Whether or not the sheep are, in some way, commemorative, remains unclear. This is Gladys (modeled on the ninth Duke's second wife), and she, also, commemorates the victory at Blenheim.

Even that "heroic Grand Bridge" you can see at the top of this post, which was built before there was a lake for it to cross, by the way, commemorates the victory at Blenheim.

Perhaps you get the picture.

There were less people here than at Chatsworth, and we had better weather. This was not a reflection on either Chatsworth or Blenheim, just that we'd gone to Blenheim during the week and Chatsworth on a public holiday. And as for the English weather...!!! Well for a summer that never happened, it was nice to see the sun during our holiday.

Chatsworth and Blenheim are different. The gardens at Chatsworth are so huge that we didn't have time to see the surrounding park whereas at Blenheim we spent most of our time in the park and pleasure gardens. In Chatsworth House we were allowed to take photos, but in Blenheim Palace we weren't. So the available photos aren't going to give you a good comparison but I hope you like them.

The gardens at Chatsworth are more formal, with more features and works of art scattered around. You feel like you move from one set piece to the next, even the ones that are supposed to look natural. Blenheim subscribes more fully to the landscape garden theory, that it should be constructed in a way that looks like it wasn't. There are a couple of formal gardens around the house, and a kitchen garden some distance away, but the rest looks like it might have just happened that way, albeit with some regular mowing.

See this lovely, natural-looking lake? Man made.


And this lovely, natural-looking waterfall? Man made.


And this lovely, natural-looking butterfly? Alright, not manmade, but I needed to get the butterfly house in somewhere.


These things may or may not commemorate the victory at Blenheim; the guide book is silent on this point. They also have this gate, which doesn't look natural but rather took my fancy nonetheless. I duly walked through it and shut it again, though Kylie laughed at me.


There are formal gardens, too, although about half of them are private. Here's a sample:


We don't have any photos of the inside, as we weren't allowed to take any, but it's no real loss; we could only see a few rooms, the state rooms, and they were generally so ridiculously over-ornamented that they don't really impress any more; they end up looking gaudy, or all just blending into each other.

All in all, it is well worth a visit and comes highly recommended, with one minor word of caution: Getting in cost us a shade under 40 quid, including the guide book, which is a bit steep as days out go. This is nearly two thirds of our national trust membership, which gets us into 300 different stately homes around the UK for a year, which you would have to say is a better deal.

I will leave you with a selection of views from Blenheim. Alright, more views from Blenheim.









* Of course, us plebs don't get to drive up this way, we come in by the back entrance.

Oxford: an expensive city

I have one piece of advice to start this post: do not drive in the city of Oxford! You have been warned. Parking is difficult to find, and when you eventually find a spot, any spot (you've spent well over half an hour looking for a place to park, vainly following road signs that seem to suggest that parking is this way, although you are sure that you're driving around in circles), parking turns out to be very expensive.

A family from church had (very generously) loaned us their car for a few days so, armed with our sat nav, we set off for Oxfordshire. Our plan was to spend the afternoon in Oxford and I'd compiled a list of things to see whilst we were there. On the way there, we saw signs recommending the use of the Park 'n' Ride facilities (park your car outside the city; catch a bus in) and, in hindsight, that's what we should have done. The bus would have dropped us off in the centre of town, we could of called in at the information centre for a map, and spent the rest of the day wandering. Instead, we followed our sat nav's instructions, which directed us to the centre of town right where roads had been blocked off and, more importantly, there was no parking. What followed was a rather random series of turns in an overcast, unfamiliar city. We saw Magdalen College (on my list) through the car window. That was where Tom had to reverse down a narrow road because there was a truck blocking our way. Meanwhile, we were going to have to make a decision when we finally found a park whether we found a place to buy lunch or whether we actually saw something in this famous university city.

It was by pure coincidence that we managed to find a park near something we wanted to see. We were madly following the signs towards parking spaces when, hey, there's the museum of natural history, and here's a spare park. £3 for two hours. Oh well! I hope the museum has a cafe, because we have three hungry people here and one is making an awful fuss.


The museum did not have a cafe, but it did have dinosaurs and dodos, so one hour and one KitKat later, we were on the move again in search of Christ Church College. Now, this is when things started to get really expensive.

This time we actually managed to find a pay and display car park (£3 for 2 hours) and so decided to park the car and head off in the direction that the sat nav had suggested. It was a round-about route, and took us over twice as long as if we'd actually known where to go, but we arrived and it was beautiful.



Unfortunately, it was just after I took this photo that other camera lens fell out of the camera bag. Ouch! Something expensive is broken inside it and we're not sure whether to get it fixed or buy a new lens. However, we continued to look around Christ Church College. There are all sorts of famous alumni, but the only one I can think of is John Wesley. What interested me more was that the staircase leading to the dining hall (which we saw) and the dining hall (which we didn't see as there was a function on) were used as locations for the Harry Potter films. This next photo was taken in the Cloisters.



After exploring Christ Church College, which included going in to the chapel, we headed down the road to climb one of the towers to get a good view of the city. The first tower we came to was the tallest but, unfortunately, was too steep and windy and refused admittance to children under 5. So we settled for the oldest tower: the tower of St. Michael at North Gate. The church dates from c. 1000-50, and is mentioned in the Domesday book. As with all old buildings that claim to be of a certain period, only part of the church dates from that period but, in this case, it is the tower (the rest of the church was rebuilt in the 13th century.)

Halfway up the tower is a door.


This was the door to the Bocardo prison, behind which were held Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer. Obviously, the prison wasn't located halfway up an old church tower, but the door has been moved here and stuck to a wall.

Once at the top of the tower, there was plenty of room to see a skyline that was, frankly, disappointing. Tom took enough photos to get a panorama and this is the best view of the bunch. Looking at it now, it doesn't look too bad, but at the time I was struck by how dirty and cluttered it was. At street level, the main streets have some impressive looking buildings; but up high you can see all the ugly buildings that are tucked away, that many buildings only have an impressive-looking facade, and that the dominant structure on the skyline is a crane. Tom and I were struck by how we are spoiled, living so close to Bath. Oxford has many heritage-listed buildings, but Bath is a heritage-listed city.


It was at this point that the other expensive thing happened. We'd given ourselves enough time to get back to the car (this time in a direct route,) only to find that we'd misread the parking fee. It was £3.50 for two hours. As we'd paid £3, we only one hour of parking (for which the fee was £2) and a parking fine... for £100. Sigh! Do not drive in the city of Oxford!