...on to South Devon & Dorset

After nearly 3 weeks of wandering around the English countryside touring gardens, they are beginning to blend together as a blur!  Last week we visited several interesting ones, and even more this week, but the big change has been improving weather, so I've finally gotten my bike out again, and begun riding around on the crazy English roads.

Riding on the UK isn't terribly different than Spain, or even the US, especially as the drivers here are quite courteous... But the roads are all about 30-50% narrower than anyplace I've ever been!  Primary highways ("A" level roads) are strictly 2 lanes (roughly 20-22' total), with no shoulder (a paint strip, then nothing, zip, nada... Minor highways  ("B" roads) are more like 1.5 lanes (about 12'-15' total). On minor rural roads (no letter or number designation, and often no name!), it's no more than one lane, often just 6-8' of pavement, with no shoulder, just a hedge on both sides running vertically up 8-15' high. 

On similar rural roads I spend most of my time on in upstate NY,  they are a full two lanes of 12' each, plus a rough or soft shoulder if needed.  The countryside here is like riding through a postcard from the mid 19th century... Gorgeous, but often nerve wracking in a car- on a bike, however, they are really pretty nice, as cars cannot travel at much more than 20mph safely!  

Consequently, off the main roads, there is essentially no traffic.  I've ridden about 100 miles now on these tiny roads, and probably encountered fewer than 25 cars in total. I've seen more cows and sheep on these roads than cars (which is another reason the cars tend to go slowly!So...  I do all I can to stay off the main roads!

The other thing we've been up to is lots of walking.  Norma and I are averaging about 25-30 miles per week, as there are public "footpaths" through our the countryside all over. The coastal paths cover some fantastic areas, but almost every town has walks extending our into the farmland too. We've really been enjoying that!

So... Here's a few more pics from the last week to catch up!

Cheers-

Its spring!

Lambing season too...

carpets of woodland bluebells...

Ammonites on the Jerassic coast...

Exeter Cathedral on a warm sunny day...

the "Pilgrim Steps" in Plymouth...

...and lots of curious cows!

A Week in Cornwall

I've discovered that I love Cornish pasties!  ...and that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the things we're enjoying here in England's southwest. After getting our bearings on arrival in the UK the last week in March, we've spent this week exploring Cornwall, visiting several remarkable gardens in old country estates, as well as taken some fantastic walks along the coastal cliffs and coves traced by the National Trust's South West Coastal Path. 

We started our week with a visit to Trebah, one of the most noted gardens in Cornwall due to it's location in a deep, protected valley along the South coast. Because of its remarkable microclimate, subtropical plants like palms and tree ferns thrive here, and the tender camellias and rhododendrons grow like weeds. While I can't say the design of the place was much to my liking, the shear abundance of spectacular plants, many in full bloom, was well worth the visit-- truly a "plantsman's" garden!

The next day we drove over to Marazion, near Penzance, and visited Saint Michael's Mount, a 12th century fortified Abby turned to a private "castle" home of a local aristocrat after Henry VIII's confiscation of the Catholic church's properties (following his excommunication by the pope over his propensity for discarding wives via divorce!). Originally developed by monks from the same order (Benedictine) as those who built Mont St. Michel across the English Channel in Normandy, the place clearly borrowed many of the same ideas in design, taking advantage of the local topography of a small, rocky island, separated from the mainland at high tide by only about 300 yards.

At high tide, one needs a ferry to access the island, so we waited until low tide to walk across the causeway that connects to the mainland for 3-4 hours each tidal cycle. With tides along this part of the coast fluctuating by more than 10', and local currents being treacherous, it's pretty obvious why the site makes such a great place for a defensive stronghold! 

The more recent history of the castle is not so much defensive as it is a retreat for the still resident aristocratic family and their staff, most of whom have inhabitanted the small village on the island for generations. The whole place is now managed in partnership with the National Trust, and includes some really interesting gardens terraced into the cliffs below the castle.

On the way back to our cottage, we also stopped at another local landmark of the Cornish industrial aristocracy of the 16th-18th century, Godolphin house. The family who built the house we're among the wealthiest in all of Cornwall during this period, based on a collection of mines and industrial processing facilities producing tin, copper, lead, silver, and other metals, as well as founderies and factories making use of the raw material for use and sale across the rapidly expanding British empire. Sadly, at the beginning of the 19th century, the last male heir passed on his estate and holdings to a family in the Midlands, who wanted nothing to do with a huge old house out in the hinterlands of Cornwall.  On the intervening years of neglect, almost 75% of the house was dismantled and used to build barns and other outbuildings for tennant farmers renting the surrounding lands. The remains of the house and a remarkable set of gardens dating more than 500 years were all but abandoned until acquired by the National Trust about 20 years ago!

Next up, we took a fairly long drive to another visit another National Trust property a bit to the east in central Cornwall, Lanhydrock House & Garden.  We originally picked this place out to visit because of its late Victorian interior, due to the house's reconstruction following a fire in 1881, and rebuilt with interiors of high English Arts and Crafts designs. With the weather continuing to be typically English (periods of rain, wind, etc., with 5-10 minutes of bright sunshine every couple of hours just to tease you!!), spending some time wandering around a big old house sounded like a good idea.  Our house at home in Cazenovia is all designed in American Arts and Crafts styles, so we thought we might enjoy seeing something of that style's European inspiration... 

Oddly enough, other than some really gorgeous William Morris wall paper, the most impressive aspect of the interior design was the huge kitchen that clearly was designed to feed and  entertain vast numbers of visiting guests, with all of the latest in technologies and gadgets of the time-- almost "steam-punk" in their range of mechanical  cleverness!

In addition to the interior, the garden proved to be pretty interesting too, and even the weather gave us enough patches of sun between rain squalls to enjoy it!

Another rainy day led us to then visit the local museum in Penzance and a tour of the collection of paintings by artists of the Newlyn School (a late 19th century group of painters very much working in a style reminiscent of Winslow Homer in the USA). We really enjoyed our visit, and the artwork, particularly of Cornish villages and waterfronts was very inspiring! Lots of ideas for new sketches... :-)

After visiting the museum, we took advantage of a clearing on the weather to visit one last local garden just outside of Penzance, Trengwainton Garden, featuring the very nice pond and bridge below, as well as an exceptional naturally planted small stream course...

On our last day in Cornwall, we decided to spend the day wandering along the South West Coastal Path again, taking in the segment between Lizard Point and Kynance Cove.  It's very reminiscent of my bike tour down the north west coast of Oregon and California last summer- each time you round a headland, the view is more spectacular than the last!

Now we're off for Devon to a new base in a little town called Chittlehampton, just outside Exmoor National Park...

Cheers!

England in Springtime :-)

With Spain now quickly receding in the rear-view mirror, we are launching into our grand tour of English Gardens in all their spring glory! On Wednesday, we arrived at Gatwick to the south of London, and were amazed at how we waltzed through passport control and customs without so much as a glance at or mention of our vaccine status or CDC cards. Go figure... The English all seem to have decided it's time to get on with things so there's no masks, or checks for vaccine cards anywhere.  Hopefully that's all a good thing :-). After settling into our Airbnb in Benchley, West Sussex, we managed to find a great little pub just down the road for one of our first indoor meals in about 2 years!

By Thursday morning, even with chilly and blustery weather (we had snow flurries roll through a couple of times!), we were out visiting our first garden of the trip here in the UK, one of our favorites, Sissinghurst Castle. We visited here in June of 1992, and were eager to see what it would be like in early spring.  We were amazed and pleasantly surprised at how far along all the flowering plants were for the last day of March! At least a month ahead of our garden back in Cazenovia, which still had snow on it...  

Sissinghurst is a classic late "arts & crafts" style garden of strong rectilinear geometry with informal and exhuberant planting.  Owned and operated by the National Trust, it is a "must see" for anyone when enjoys gardening! The property also includes several hundred vacres of adjacent farmland and woodlands, filled with publick walking paths (which are common all over the UK). So in addition to wandering around the garden for an couple hours, we also added in about a 4 mile walk around the farmland. 

The other great thing about the National Trust properties is that for those who purchase an annual membership, all their hundreds of properties are free for entry :-) 

The following day we headed out and visited two other nearby Trust properties- Scotney Castle & Garden (a Victorian era house & picturesque parkland),

...and Beckmans- a 17th century house, and the home of Rudyard Kipling.

Both were exceptionally well kept and well worth the effort to wander around ;-) 

After two days in Sussex, we then headed west to Cornwall, stopping at Stonehenge along the way.  We've never been to Stonehenge before, but as it was directly along the highway west, we figured as the weather was nice, it would make for a great walk too! Plas, as another Trust site, it was again free to visit, so why not ;-). We were prepared for disappointment, but again pleasantly surprised but how impressive a place can be that's basically a big circle of rocks.  We'd visited a similar site (that's not well known) in Portugal a few years ago that was really cool, but Stonehenge really diserves it's status as the grand-daddy of Neolithic stone structures!

Finally, catching up with where we are now, we arrived last night in Cadgwith Cove on the south coast of Cornwall. We've rented a very neat little cottage made from an 1880's rail car from the local Great Western Railroad. Today we spent pretty much the entire day out walking along the Coastal Pathway, which traces the cliff-tops all along the Cornish coastline. Unforgettable views!

We walked bit over 8 miles out and back to Lizard Point, where we had lunch in Britain's southern most cafe - including delicious Cornish Pasties & local cider...

Cheers!