SCARECROWS, ARLINGTON COURT & CARRIAGE MUSEUM

Don't understand why it's this time of year, but Linton & Lynmouth have a scarecrow festival. Town is stuffed with them

We also visited Arlington Court which was the home of the Chichester family, Sir Francis, the RTW sailor you would know. It was last owned by Rosalie who made the house beautiful, so light & airy and with lovely gardens. It also houses the National Carriage Museum. I never knew there were so many types of carriage. Can you pronounce Brougham correctly. It was one of the carriage designs on show.

This would suit Ada

MINEHEAD, LYNTON & LYNMOUTH

 Nice scenic drive into Devon along the coast, enlivened by still more scarily steep hills. Went up and down by the water powered cliff railway. The whole place seems designed to take money off you, I calculated the railway must take £200 grand per year, and even a pee costs 50p.

DRUG ADDICT,

 drunkard, revolutionary, romantic poet, friends of many who subsequently became enemies, composed;-

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan. A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.....

who was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Complex man who many thought a genius. Went to Cambridge University but drank & womanised into so much debt that he fled & joined the army under a fake name. Couldn't hack it & left after 6 months. Lived in a house we visited today in the Quantock Hills (some 1:4 hills there, you know) Had friends who sponsored him and successfully published some of his work. Successful poems then was a bit like getting a hit record today, very rewarding.

The house was mouse infested, hence all the mice for the kids to find. Nice sitting room where you could chill & listen to his poems.

Visited Taunton but it was closed. Nice walk along the River Tone.

DAY OFF

Last week played golf with Des, Rob & Pete at Dyrham Park, today visited Dyrham Park,  built in two stages between 1692 and 1704 for King William III's Secretary of State, William Blathwayt, Dyrham contains one of the best surviving Baroque interiors in the country. Small world. Talk about changeable, the weather today was 16 degrees C, rainy and blowing 25mph+. Took the buggy to & from the house, no walking. As I said - day off.

Visited Weston-Super-Mare and had fish & chips lunch in the oldest house in town. Nice house, good grub. Weston is a bit of a dump in some parts, has a drug reputation, but nice in other parts. Council said they were reviving the town with that spike & the big cock. There were toilets with a council message - " All toilets closed to improve the town". All pricks if you ask me.

Went to the oldest golf course in England - Burnham & Barrow. 

Now based in Bridgwater for next 2 days. Watching TV tonight with sushi and drinks - day off.

CORINIUM OR

Cirencester in modern day speak. Corinium was a major Roman town in England, probably the second largest. You can see from the map that it was centrally located with Fosse Way and Ermine Street passing through it.

We went on a wallywalk guided tour, around 2.5 miles, but it was hot & sunny, 35 degrees Celsius(86F) & up and down - so pretty tiring for old folks. It had a large amphitheatre holding 8000 people. It was converted to city defences after the Romans left.

The town is picturesque with a market next to the church and large open park area that was the former Abbey dissolved by Henry VIII & his mate, Thomas Cromwell. Nice view back to the church.

Despite the heat & exhaustion, we went to the theatre in the evening to see Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde - the musical. A very good show that had the most cast numbers I have seen in a provincial performance. I counted 45 on stage at once. After a hot day, the theatre was stifling, although a double Monkey's Shoulder & double Gin to Die For may have contributed.

The DIY hotel was good, nice room, no problem getting the keys & using the access codes.

ROAD TRIP 2

Visiting places in England we have never visited before. Today we drove to Cirencester(more about that tomorrow) via The Vyne, a stately home of nobility in Henry VIII court. It was huge, like the size of Hampton Court but two thirds was demolished in 18th century to save money. Henri is 8 had visited with Catharine of Aragon & Anne Boleyn (but not at the same time)

Lovely gardens & planting, nice walks through the grounds. That tree is an oak that was here when the house was built, so 500 years old. It called the the 100 guinea oak because in 1800 or so the Royal Navy wanted to buy oak to build ships to see off old Boney. They offered £100, but we're turned down. Six months later they upped the offer to 100 guineas but we're turned down again because the owner said if it had gone up by £5 in such a short period of time, it was an investment worth keeping.

We're staying in one of those hotels with no staff. They give you a code an hour before check in that gets you into the car park, the building & your room. Nice room.

TOP SECRET!

 Spent a lovely day with the National Trust, we have had drought now for several months with rainfall running at 81mm, the driest spring for over 100 years. With a full day in a very isolated place, we got a forecast of rain all day - not so it was dry, overcast and pretty warm. We were at Orford Ness, formerly recovered salt marsh that has a secret history for over 100 years. Firstly it was a research centre for the Royal Flying Corps from 1913, developing techniques & instrumentation for warplanes. This continued until WW2 when they concentrated on bomb development and the resilience of aircraft to machine gunfire.

This is the only way to get there, I said it was isolated! During the war they developed advanced methods of photographing falling bombs. So many bombs were dropped that you are not allowed off the paths because of the risk of unexploded ordnance. After WW2 they started on atom bomb development and the AWRE took over.

These are the Atom bomb research buildings, designed to contain blast in the event of accidents.

All very top secret.

I am waiting for the MOD police to call.

These are some of the last atom bombs worked on, carried by aircraft & helicopters, could be used as anti-submarine depth charges.

A lot of work was conducted on radar, the first of the chain of WW2 was constructed a few miles down the coastline. There was an advanced US/UK radar built on this site in the 1970's to detect missile launches in the USSR. It was code named Cobra Mist and didn't work. The politicians & engineers blamed the Russian spy trawlers, but I'm not sure, it sounds like an excuse no one could disprove.

This is the Black Beacon, an experimental aircraft radio navigation aide from the 1930's. 

There is a resident artist from Suffolk University who has workshop right at the end of the island, Sarah was working on pinhole camera shots that gave nod to the bomb ballistic photos and some interesting wind driven art works.

Orford Ness is now a nature reserve with hares, Chinese water deer, seals and a varied bird population. It's a desolate place with a kind of mysterious beauty.