Continuing on our revised route after changing direction at Winchester…
I forgot to mention in the last post about Jane Austen’s home in Alton, that that is where her very modest writing table is. A true shrine for Austen fans, there’s a photo of it in the gallery attached to this post.
Continuing east from Alton on a route suggested by our new favorite safe cycling App – cycle.travel – we had an average length ride ahead of us, only 56 kilometres. It was a beautiful sunny morning, cool, but not cool enough to require mitts. We enjoyed our brief encounters with some local animals: a couple of pigs in a penned area on the edge of a forest (were they truffle pigs? I don’t know), and Patti shared the road with some goofy juvenile partridges for a while. We’ve seen many domestics animals, of course: sheep, cattle, horses, ducks. Wildlife, like deer and birds. And, sadly, roadkill like possums (or were they badgers?), lots and lots of quail, and a very small fawn.
Our National Trust treat for the day was to be Polesden Lacey. It’s a beautiful estate in Surrey, featuring miles and miles of land (as in, they owned anything they could see), huge ancient trees, a stunning mansion, an enormous croquet field, formal and rose gardens, and a vegetable garden with gardener’s cottage. There is a beautiful story about its owner, Margaret Greville, 1863-1942, that I’d highly recommend checking out. Greville and her husband had no children. She died in 1942, and is buried in the grounds of Polesden Lacey.
Margaret – “Maggie” – bequeathed the house with its contents and estate at Polesden Lacey to the National Trust in memory of her father which was a shock to her friends, members of the royal family, who had been told that they were going to inherit it! However, she did bequeath all of her jewels to Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), including a diamond necklace reputedly belonging to Marie Antoinette, a pair of diamond chandelier earrings, and a selection of tiaras and a ruby necklace by Boucheron, all of which remain in the possession of the British royal family. The jewellery was presented discreetly to Queen Elizabeth (the wife of George VI) in a black tin box. To this day, the full extent of the fabulous collection is still not known. One notable item of jewellery is the honeycomb-patterned diamond tiara (often referred to as the “Greville Tiara”) which was a favourite of the Queen Mother, and in recent years has been worn frequently by Queen Camilla. Maggie Greville was a character, and a shaper of style and she pulled the strings with maharajahs and kings from her beloved Polesden Lacey. Highly recommended.
We left Polesden Lacey and continued on with some urgency (we’d spent so long there, we lost track of time!) because the Canadian Women’s Rugby Team were playing England at 3:00 and we had a few miles to put in before we got there. On one busy and hilly road, John saw a cyclist running along, pushing his bike on the narrow shoulder, and shouted at him to follow. We all turned off into a gravel driveway, safely off the road, and John offered to repair the cyclist’s tire.
Which he did.
I don’t know what that cyclist would have done if someone hadn’t come along to help: he had no patch kits, and in fact, he knew even less about changing a flat tire than I do, and he was 12 miles – miles – from his home. The sun was beginning to get very low in the sky when we said goodbye to our very grateful new friend, but we managed to find our hotel, check-in, change, and install ourselves in front of a telly in the pub in time to catch the last half of the game. The Canadian women lost that match, but they sure gave every team they played a run for their money. We’re both Canadian Women’s Rugby fans now.
We hoovered a gorgeous dinner (pork belly!!!) at the George and Dragon pub across the street and enjoyed watching every child in the pub come to visit and cuddle with the three dogs who were sitting dutifully and quietly at their masters’ knees, beside us. Photos, in the gallery attached. It was a really wonderful meal and I am a huge fan of #dogsinpubs.
The next day, we were in for a treat at yet another over-the-top National Trust mansion, Knole, southeast of Sevenoaks in west Kent, the childhood home of Vita Sackville-West (we talked about her in a previous blog when we visited her home). Knole is one of the NT estates where it is a very, very good idea to pre-book your ticket. It’s popular not only with tourists, but with locals who love to visit the huge grounds to walk with family and with their dogs. The estate has been in the hands of the Thomas Sackville family since 1605 and there are still Sackvilles living on the estate. You can see where their (private) apartments are in a photo in the gallery, below. There are very tame deer grazing on the grass along the path that leads you into the home. Leopards are a part of the family crest, and you can see leopards in the decor throughout the house. Knole is especially reknowned for the original fabrics on the upholstery, all behind glass, of course, to preserve them. Hanging casually on the walls in one of the galleries are a series of Raphael cartoons, the preliminary sketches for a series of tapestries that would eventually hang in the Sistine Chapel. (!!!) Knole is a truly grand estate, and also highly recommended. See the photos, below.
On Sunday we had a short ride planned (43km) to Eden Park. Ironically, in our original route we had planned to visit The Eden Project in Cornwall on this day. (Check it out.) Our hotel for this evening was a room in The Toby Carvery. The Toby Carvery is a popular, medium-priced chain of restaurants that specialize in “carvery“: turkey, gammon, ham and beef roasts, all served with absolutely enormous Yorkshire puddings, and all of the trimmings and “Brown Sauce” you can imagine, at a buffet. Being Sunday afternoon, they were doing a brisk business. I don’t need to visit another Toby Carvery ever again but it was good food, reasonably priced, and a real eye opener to see the Brits get their carvery on… And I had Yorkshire with beans and sausage for breakfast.
That was a wrap for East Horsley, Westerham and Eden Park. We were pretty excited about our route for the next day – Monday – because it would lead us right through the centre of London. (Finally, a city I had heard of!)
Any hedgehogs?
0
0
No.
0
0