Brighton and Eastbourne

As we left Welshpool we wanted to spend a little time on the south coast of England for the last portion of our stay in Britain. I had never spent much time near the south downs, so decided to look for accommodations near Brighton and Eastbourne.
We found a very good Airbnb cottage located just outside Ditchling, which is only a short drive to Brighton and the coast. The cottage was the conversion of a small "dairy" that was attached to an old farmhouse, which was built in the mid 1600's.

We noticed there was a large manor house next door and we were told that the property where we stayed was once part of that estate. The house is called Streat Manor and is privately owned.

We thought it a bit big for just two people!

We did not fully realize how windy Brighton seafront could be. This day it was blowing a gale!

These guys knew where to find a sheltered spot.

I couldn't help wondering which corporate clients used this form of consultation!

There used to be two piers in Brighton, but this one burned a number of years ago.

We wanted to take a walk on the down-land close to where we were staying and thought starting by this windmill would be a good idea. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing so hard we could barely stand, so we gave up. The windmill looked interesting, but was only open on weekends.

Eastbourne has a very long seafront, some 5 miles in length. We found the town much more relaxed than Brighton, which seemed like a busy extension of London.

We ran into this Lammas Festival Parade and Fair. Discovered that Lammas is the wheat harvest festival and is particular to northern Europe. There were Morris dancers and much drumming, which was really fun. Not sure about the costumes but we heard the roots may be Pagan in origin.  The fair had many artist's stalls, live bands and demonstrations of traditional crafts.

A band of drums in various shapes and sizes.

This guy was the lead drummer with a voice that seemed about to give out, but he lasted throughout the day.

Eastbourne Pier with a lot of renovations underway.

Charleston Farmhouse was close to where we stayed so we decided to chance a tour since we weren't able to make a reservation on line.  We were lucky and got in. This was the home of Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf's sister) and Duncan Grant.  Their home is where the Bloomsbury Group used to meet in the early part of the twentieth century. The group included Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes and other intellectuals of the time.

The gardens at CharlestoFarmhouse, which have been restored to replicate them as they would have been in the 1920's.

We also visited Monk's House, which was the home of Leonard and Virginia Woolf.  It was just a few miles from Charleston.  We were told the Virginia would often walk to Charleston.

Monk's House is in a wonderful location with views over the surrounding countryside. This photo is of Virginia Woolf's writing studio, which had beautiful views of the South Downs.

We continued our visits to famous writer's homes with a visit to Bateman's, the home of Rudyard Kipling. We found the rooms in the house very dark as they are all paneled in dark oak.  Beautiful craftsmanship, but did not feel very comfortable or inviting.  We also got to see Rudyard Kipling's Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, which he described as the only car he could afford because it did not break down. It was also a surprise to discover that as much as he loved motor cars, he never drove.

I wanted to visit Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, to capture my version of this iconic lighthouse. Again, the wind was very strong and it felt like you could easily be blown off the cliffs.  There are no guard rails and about a 400 foot drop!

We had planned to walk along this famous section of the South Coast called the Seven Sisters, but again the wind was far too fierce.

So we sat on the "beach" for a while out of the wind. You can see from this photo just why the cliffs are being eroded away quite quickly.

The cricket season was in full swing during our visit, so when we happened upon a match in progress, I had to stop and watch a few "overs".

We also discovered that we were close to Great Dixter, the home of the English gardener and writer, Christopher Lloyd, whose garden writings we had followed for many years. The gardens attached to this 16th century house are very extensive and formed the basis for much of Christopher Lloyd's writing. We also toured the house, which had been restored by Lutyens, and was quite spectacular.  No photographs allowed of the interior.

A few more images of breezy Eastbourne.

The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea is a good example of an Art Deco public building. There was an exhibit of very unusual graphic art work, but again, no photos allowed.  Another very windy day, so the seafront was mostly deserted.

The view from the Pavilion.

We had to have a meal at the Belgian Cafe when we discovered they had mussels prepared 50 different ways.  We sampled two, the Normandie and the Naturale. Yum.

Diane making a new friend on the promenade.  His name was Jake.

Next stop, Ealing in West London, as we begin to repack and prepare for our flight back to San Francisco.

Birthplace

Since we were frustrated in our plan to visit the Isle of Arran by the strike actions of the ferry workers, we headed back to Wales, this time to the area that borders England.
We found a wonderful cottage, through Airbnb again, located near the village of Guilsfield, which is very close to Welshpool, the town where I was born.
However, before we got to that cottage, we made a two night stop in a property belonging to the National Trust, an organization founded with the aim to save and protect historic houses, gardens, mills, castles, coastlines and many other sites of historic importance in Britain.
The house we stayed in was part of the Attingham Estate, which has a magnificent house set in a 4,000 acre estate.

This is the National Trust B&B where we stayed, it is also the location of a cooking school.

This is Attingham Park, a country house and estate. The house was built in 1785 to include about 4,000 acres, comprising several farms and other houses. ( David W, I took out the blue just for you).

There were several rooms in the house that contained some of the original furniture and paintings etc. However, not much of the original contents remain. We were told that most of the house contents had been auctioned off to pay the creditors in the early 1800's. This auction was needed as a result of one of the Earl's excessive spending during his European tour at that time!

The National Trust is doing a very good job of restoring much of the house to it's early layout and furnishing, and one of the results is a return to the kitchen where some demonstration cooking takes place.

Although these pheasants were fake, it brought back memories of my youth when pheasants were an occasional treat.

There are also large walled gardens which are being restored to way they would have been in the 1800's.

The old gardeners really paid attention to caring for the welfare of the plants, no cold water shock here.

Now we are in the cottage in Guilsfield where we spent a week. It is part of an 80 acre farm where show-jumping and dressage horses are raised, as well as sheep.

The view from our front door, which we thought was pretty nice!

The welcoming committee.

Welshpool, where I was born, is another market town. It now claims to have the largest sheep market in Europe. When I was growing up, the market day was Monday, (still is) and the actual market was close to the edge of town, and in those days it was all mixed livestock. I do not know how long the Monday market has been running, but my mother would relate how my great grandfather would attend in a pony and cart, get drunk, and then let the pony find it's way home, (some 10 miles), with him asleep in the cart. This would have been sometime in the late 1800's or early 1900's.

Today it is the tractor instead of the cart, but I am not sure if it can find it's way home just yet.

We paid a brief visit to Powys Castle, which is just outside the town, and we chose to walk there through the deer park.

It was a nice walk with the deer heard occasionally visible. Unfortunately, the day turned wet, so it was a long walk back to the car, parked in Welshpool.

Diane said, at least the flip flops were waterproof!

We spent a day visiting two mountain lakes, Lake Bala and Lake Vyrnwy, which entailed driving over the Berwyn Mountains, full of sheep and wide rolling vistas devoid of trees.

There is a town of Bala, which we found very pleasant, having a sunny day also helps, It would certainly be a town to revisit.

A picnic on the lake shore.

A small restaurant whose name is also a famous Welsh song, which some readers may remember.

There is a narrow gauge railway along Lake Bala using steam engines, all managed and run by volunteers as a tourist attraction.

Len got to play signal operator in the old signal box, which is still used when they run the trains.

On our return over the mountain, this is what we faced, road maintenance crews patching the road. They were soon out of the way and it was a beautiful drive, even though mostly on single lane roads.

Many times, this was the view from the passenger seat!

The dam at Lake Vyrnwy, shown here was built in the 1880's, it is stone built and was the first of it's kind in Britain, and maybe, the world. The valley and the village that it contained, was submerged to make the lake that then provided fresh water to Liverpool, in England. Quite a feat in it's day, but many in Wales were not happy about flooding peoples homes to provide water for the English.

This splendid structure, a little way up the lake from the dam, is the "straining tower" where the water is filtered before it enters the aqueduct and makes it's way to Liverpool.

Welshpool also has a narrow gauge railway with a steam locomotive, now also operated as a tourist attraction by volunteers. The line is just under 10 miles long, and runs between Welshpool and Llanfair Caereinion, the town where I attended grammar school.
It was a lovely ride through farming countryside and, at times close to the River Banwy.  Lots of memories........

A wing of the grammar school where I was fortunate to attend when it was newly built in 1954, amazing to think that was 60 years ago. Class size was small, no more than 20 per class and the total school population was only about 300 pupils.  Times have changed as we heard that the school might be in danger of closing as part of a school consolidation plan.

We had an hour to wait until the train began it's return journey, so we walked into town and found that a classic car rally was just passing through. We later discovered this is called the "1,000 Mile Trial" and is run with all pre-1940 era cars. The rally is based on the original 1,000 mile trial run in 1900. At that time, most people in Britain had never seen a car and were skeptical that it was going to replace the horse. So the idea was formed to take the cars of that time on a 1,000 mile tour of major cities in the UK to demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of the car.
This rally idea was re-instituted in 2014, and we were just fortunate to see a few cars in this pretty remote part of Wales taking part in the 2015 run.!

Quite a few cars stopped to pick up petrol, and as a result, we were able to get a good look at several of them. Here is the brochure of the event if anyone is interested.
http://www.heroevents.eu/files/attachments/1000MT_2015Flyer02lo.pdf

One of the key reasons for returning to my place of birth was to visit the grave of Mum and Dad. This is the church and graveyard where the grass is left to grow throughout the season as a nature conservation program, a really good idea.

It felt good to pay a visit.

We drove close to the house where I spent my teenage years and Diane managed to get a photo of this very old oak in which I used to hang out.  It was great to see that it is still faring well, and I hope will continue to do so for years to come.

Another reason to return to Welshpool was to visit Diane Ashman, who we met many years ago and with whom we established an instant rapport. This Diane has a store of vintage clothes and jewelry so you will not be surprised that our Diane was wishing she had brought an extra suitcase!

We attended a Welsh festival in San Jose in 2001 and met an artist named Kathy Gittins (we bought one of her prints), who happened to live near where I went to school. She now has a number of clothing stores in Wales and this one in Welshpool, which we just happened into.  Quite a coincidence.

Unfortunately, Kathy was not in the store, but we did get to meet and bond with Nicky.

A last look at Welshpool High Street on a bright sunny day.

And goodbye to the beautiful horses.

The farm.

And, no it was not sunny all of the time.
Next step, the south cost of England, as we wind down our stay in Britain.