Day 5: Final Day in Kent

The gorgeous bright morning sun gave us a great sense of optimism for today's plans: to see as much as possible! We nipped out at the crack of 8:30am to swing through the town of Tunbridge Wells to see their famous Pantiles (arcaded shopping street). Portia lead us smartly through the early traffic right to a empty parking spot and off we went to find....

All was closed, of course, and it was too cold for us to sit outside with a coffee but I can see how pleasant it would be to do so a warm afternoon.

A few miles further we located All Saint's Church, a small country church that has 12 amazing Marc Chagall stained glass windows that were commissioned in the melancholic memory of a young woman who drowned at the age of 21. 

Just 10 am and already 2 sites under our belt! Next we motored north to the National Trusts's Emmett's Garden. Started in 1895 the 6 acre garden was the passion of its two owners until handed over to the Trust in 1964. Magnolias, camellias, azaleas, rhododendrons and so many other gorgeous flowering bushes. Tulips, daffodils, bluebells, narcissus, trilliums, hyacinths - so many colors! I love Spring!

Lunchtime! We'd been having nice cups of soup and cream teas other days at our Trust properties so we were talking ourselves into another tasty repast at Knole, destination #4. Yet the tearoom was closed for renovation! Strike One.  No photos allowed inside = Strike Two. Cold, dark, and a lot of materials and pieces removed for restoration. Strikeout. Yup, not our favorite. 

Monumentally huge, tourists are limited to a number of 'showrooms' which were actually rooms used to display the owners wealth ever since the mid-1600's. Heavy wooden paneling, dozens and dozens of paintings of important people, ornately painted grand stairways - all to illustrate their status and connections. Left us cold (and still hungry).  A nice pub meal put us right and improved our outlook for our last adventure.

We returned to Scotney Castle, this time with plenty of time before closing(!) and we were so pleased we did. The main house was only built in 1837, and lived in until 2006 when the owner died at age 99 and it was immediately taken over by the Trust, with the interior pretty much intact as a cozy combination of 1830's/1950's decor. Previous to that, the family had actually lived in a moated castle, the one now in ruins at the bottom of the garden!  Built in 1348, then rebuilt in the 1680's, it was falling apart so they helped it on its way by using bricks and architectural elements harvested from it to combine with stone quarried on site to build the new house. 

The castle...

                                Just a few rooms are left to visit

                 View from castle back up the garden to the 'new' house 

And that ended our trip to England! Tomorrow we have a very early start to beat the morning traffic back to Heathrow so we can board a plane for our trip to Russia!  More from Moscow!

Day 4: A Full But Short Day

The weatherman was on our side today. He obligingly held off the rain till well after noon so we had a good day for driving around south Kent and into East Sussex. It turned out to be a lot of driving...not really time behind the wheel but just that we didn't cross many sites off the list today. :-(

Portia, our GPS, took us on some lovely scenic little byways heading down to Rye. I didn't have enough hands to take photos too so I came up a bit short for pics to share today...

                        Church Square, Rye. Umpteen quaint 15th C. houses

                  Spring 'snow' shower?

                         My little Pillsbury Dough Girl, I think she had 6 layers on today!

We swung by the town of Battle, where the actual Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, not Hastings as we all were taught. We basically just hesitated there before moving on to Alfriston. According to my online guide - one of the prettiest villages in England. Another quaint shotgun town, with everything clustered on a narrow, long, one-block street. Lots of pretty shops and tea houses, historic pubs and private bungalows. 

Set behind the High Street was the church and green and the Alfriston Clergy House - the very first acquisition of the National Trust back in 1896! Based on period photos on display inside of the sorry state of disrepair I think they were heroically optimistic of the challenge ahead. And the restored project:

The clergy house started as a private house in 1385 but has been attached to the church since 1400.

In order to escape a sudden downpour we popped into a charming tearoom for a little repast and ended up with a delicious lunch!

                                        Actually, I had salad....

I attempted to get us back north in time to visit Scotney Castle but we arrived 6 minutes past Last Entry and there was no bending of the rules by the stony cashier! So we slunk back home with a few unchecked boxes on our schedule. Tomorrow, our last day, promises to be a busy one!

Day 3: Another Sunny Day!

We're thrilled to have a second beautiful day. Still chilly, 10-12° C / 50-ish° F, but eminently doable with a multitude of layers :-). Since bad weather is on its way tomorrow we rearranged our itinerary to see most of our outdoorsy/garden sites today. Here's a recap:

Such vibrant color! I was swerving into every layby I saw so I could hop out and take pictures of the fields, apple orchards, windmills, oast houses - you name it. The sky was so blue everything looked beautiful!

Oast houses, all the ones we've seen are old apple cider mills converted into homes.

Smallhythe Place - 16thC. home, most recently of Victorian actress Ellen Terry and apparently has a fascinating collection of her costumes, etc. in a museum created by her daughter in 1929.  Apparently as it was closed! Would have been nice to see. Urgh. Ah well, at least it was in the neighborhood.

Bodiam Castle c.1385. Unfortunately the owner in 1641 supported the losing side during the English Civil War and lost his castle - literally. The interior was gutted and only the great exterior remains.

 

My fav of the day: Great Dixter. Home for years and years of renowned garden expert Christopher Lloyd. The gardens were stun- stun- stunning!! Set into "rooms", each with a theme and artfully designed view; the beds were chock full plants, bursting with color.  And the house! The 3 rooms we saw were dated 1464 but so light, bright, architecturally jaw-dropping yet cozy, I coveted. I wanted them. I wanted to live there right now. The docents, however, did not approve.

And to finish the day we revisited Sissinghurst Gardens & Castle. As we'd been there 4 trips ago we just took a quick whip round. A bit of a letdown after the glory of Dixter, but lovely.

Home in time to fit in a lovely cuppa tea before Happy Hour!

Day 2: Sunshine!!

Deciding to take full advantage of the sunshine we tackled our longest day on Day 2 - the hour drive east to Dover and its famous white cliffs. The scenery became stunning as the views opened up more than we've seen so far as we entered the Downs, officially an "Area of Oustanding Beauty".  Vast brilliant yellow fields of ...rapeseed? Bright green grassy expanses, and miles and miles of twisty 2-lane roads. 

Somehow our 1 hour drive took 3 hours - still trying to figure that out. The GPS was flawless, perhaps our pit stops? Or maybe the frustrating excess of miles of forced reduced speed long before we reached the port. Can't say the town of Dover had any immediate visual appeal, but high above town, set on a big bluff, was the amazing Dover Castle. A fortress sight for over 2000 years, the inner castle was circa Henry II (as in 1180's & Eleanor of Aquitaine), and the cliff front of most recent importance for its defense of the English Channel in WWII and the Dunkirk evacuation. We went on a tour of the tunnels which had a moving audiovisual reenactment of the week of Operation Dynamo as well as actual military communication and mapping equipment left from the war.

Just around the corner was a an ideal access to paths that ran along the White Cliffs of Dover so we braved the icy wind for some jaw-dropping views of the cliffs, the busy port of Dover with its multitude of ferries running back and forth across the Channel, and France! We could see France! How cool was that?

And, since we were so far east, we stopped in to Canterbury to see the famous Canterbury Cathedral. Being an English Literature major and a modern 'pilgrim', I couldn't resist visiting one of the most important pilgrimage sites of the medieval ages. The exterior was glorious, the interior, restrained. The church tried to downplay the Thomas à Becket connection by 1538 as Henry VIII wasn't so happy with the power of the churches so there's really nothing left to commemorate Tom's murder but an ever-lit candle. Still, very powerful impact walking in the steps of history....

Edward the Black Prince entombed here 1376. Becket's flame is over behind where his feet would be

Day 1: Chartwell & Hever Castle

We're happily ensconced in our easy chairs in our own little cottage after a short day of excellent sightseeing.  We have cocktails in hand, a bowl of crisps to share and each our own iPad to document our adventures on our individual  blogs. 

We arrived at Heathrow yesterday in glorious sunshine, such an welcome surprise! The easiest exit from the airport ever, I was behind the wheel of our rental car and heading down the M25 well within 1h20m of landing! With 6 days here in England we decided to concentrate on seeing the gardens and country houses of Kent and so I booked us a central place for the whole visit instead of our usual shuffling around from inn to inn. We're thrilled with what we booked - comfy lounge, a full kitchen, 2 bedrooms, every amenity. Why didn't we ever do this before?

However, being so self-sufficient led us to being ever so tardy in our departure this morning. "Tea in bed, mum? Here you go." And "hmmm, think I will have that 2nd cup of coffee". Eventually we forced ourselves out the door, laden with every possible layer of protection against the elements, to first visit Chartwell, Churchill's beloved home.

Winnie bought Chartwell in 1924 and he loved it so much it was only near the very end did he agree to be buried elsewhere. He added on to the house greatly when he bought it but his lofty 2nd floor study has features dating back 1496! Tons of memorabilia, photos, uniforms, letters, etc. featured throughout the house really give a sense of the impact and importance of this great leader while his many paintings and its pleasant decor imbue an intimate sense of the man. No photos allowed inside, so here's a poor pic of the exterior:

Next we visited the epic Hever Castle & Garden. It was the childhood home of Anne Boyelyn and has the finest collection of Henry VIII + many wives period paintings outside London. William Waldorf Astor bought the moated home in 1903 and set to out-Tudor any other Tudor building! Wooden carved paneling is everywhere, with intricate minstrel galleries and balustrades; fancy 16th C. tapestries; and he even fixed up the ole drawbridge. The gardens are also magnificent - a bit too chilly for us to wander around fully, but we loved what we saw.

And that was our first day. A bit tourist-lite, but we'll remedy that tomorrow!