Buckinghamshire 4

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Chilterns, Cushion calamint, Forestry Commission, Harriet Mead, Lady's bedstraw, red kite, Somerset Rural Life Museum, Tom Hill, Wayfaring tree, Wendover, Wendover Woods

Buckinghamshire 4.  The last day of my visit to friends was intended to be very different, a quiet walk in Wendover Woods (Forestry Commission) in the Chiltern Hills. On the way, we stopped for a coffee in Wendover.

Outside an art gallery there was a sculpture which reminded me of that by Harriet Mead which I had seen at the Somerset Rural Life Museum in June, but after a little research I think it may be by Tom Hill, who specialises in sculpting using horseshoes.

We were planning for a quiet Monday walk, but when we got to the woods, and took a while to park because of all the crowds, we were a little apprehensive.  No need to worry.  The vast majority of people remained around the café and children’s play area.

We scarcely saw a soul in fact. We took the ‘Firecrest Trail’, 4.5.km/2.8 miles, and its official description proved to be accurate, ‘surfaced tracks and unsurfaced woodland paths… a great way to explore different habitats.’

 

Chalk soil and flints, underfoot for some of the time

 

There were plenty of wildflowers to be seen.  (These identifications are subject to any suggested corrections.)

 

Cushion calamint, clinopodium vulgare.  The leaves certainly had a minty smell

Lady’s bedstraw, Galium verum

Wayfaring tree, viburnum lantana  (I’m least sure of this one)

A convenient bench about two-thirds of the way round enabled us to rest and debate the  patterns before us, especially that of the broad field in the middle distance.We knew we were nearing the hub once more when we passed Go Ape – and were not tempted to join in. (Unlike some I know – sorry, private joke.) 

Despite the large numbers of visitors, lunch at the café was peaceful in the open air.

After all those activities, my visit finished with a quiet afternoon in the garden,  where I was able to get some better pictures of red kites.

Thank you, Geoff and Jackie, for a lovely break.

Buckinghamshire 3

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iron lung, Lord Nuffield, Morris Motors, National Trust, Nuffield Foundation, Nuffield Place, Oxford colleges, Wolseley

The final National Trust property we visited was Nuffield Place, the surprisingly modest – in the circumstances – house built by William Morris, founder of Morris Motors in Oxford, later to become Lord Nuffield.  Unsurprisingly, we saw a few cars.

Lady Nuffield’s Wolseley

We wandered in the gardens.We saw a small shed containing this iron lung. Lord Nuffield gave 5000 of them, made at his factory in Cowley, to hospitals throughout the British Empire.  £12,000,000 was an awful lot of money in the 1930s.

 

We went into the house. 

The robes worn by Lord and Lady Nuffield at the 1937 Coronation

In Lady Nuffield’s bedroom

In Lord Nuffield’s bedroom. Really.

Personally I found the order of this more appealing.

Opinions between us differed as to whether we liked this bathroom.

The double spare bedroom

 

‘The horn of Plenty’.  Oxford colleges benefit from Lord Nuffield’s wealth.  The Nuffield Foundation continues to ‘improve social well-being through education, research, and innovation’ 

A trip to the woods was the treat on the last day of my visit.

Buckinghamshire 2

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cinnamon bark tree, donkey wheel, Greys Court, Jersey Tiger Moth, National Trust, wisteria

The second National Trust property we visited was Greys Court (no apostrophe, which bothers me).  Taking timed tickets for 1.15 pm to visit the house, we wandered round the gardens, which were split up into ‘rooms’, for a while.

This was the first of many references to Lady Brunner that we saw during our visit.  It turned out that she was the last resident of the property. This is not a church tower, but part of old fortifications. Here is a selection of the things which appealed in the gardens.

These ‘wings’ rotate in the breeze.  But there was no breeze today. 

This is just part of a huge, 125-year-old-wisteria

A still quite rare Jersey Tiger Moth, a species gradually spreading up from the south. We waited in vain for it to reveal its glorious scarlet underwings.

Particularly tranquil, and deliberately so, was the peace garden where white flowers dominated, designed for quite sitting and reflection, (though I’m afraid not everyone read the notice).

Cinnamon bark tree

It was time for coffee, which seamlessly merged into an early lunch.

 

While we continued to sit there after we had finished eating, I became mesmerised by this house fly, helping to clear up some dried-on jam.  My friends indulged this peculiar fascination by joining in my photographic efforts.  I particularly enjoyed seeing its jaws at work, the lower one splitting and opening sideways as it seemed to me. (I’m sure there is a much more scientific description of this!)We still had a little time before the time on our tickets, so we went to see the donkey wheel.  Poor donkeys, endlessly walking on this wheel, not even able to see the outdoors. Sadly no brief history awaited us at the door of the house this time,and no photography was allowed inside it.  There was no information about the history of the house inside either.  The only references to inhabitants were to the Brunners.  One volunteer guide, in the kitchen, was able to confirm our observation that the house was many centuries old, and indeed the kitchen was Tudor. Later on in the day we discovered the house’s long, fascinating, and at times turbulent, history. Shame on you, National Trust, for leaving your visitors in such ignorance.

But as we left, despite this dearth of information, I reflected that the Trust does provide very good days out, including for families, and there were many of those there that day.

Buckinghamshire 1

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Albert Memorial, Alice in Wonderland, Disraeli, Gladstone, Hillside, Hughenden, Lewis Carroll, National Trust, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, red kite, Sybil, Tenniel, Venetia

I stayed with friends in central Buckinghamshire, on the north-west edge of the Chiltern Hills, recently.  They laid on a great programme of visits for me, mostly at National Trust properties. (We are all members.)

The first was to Hughenden, the home of 19th century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, later Earl of Beaconsfield, (1804-1881).  Images, in two and three dimensions, of Disraeli abounded throughout the house. I have no idea whether this one was added in his lifetime.This was the first we saw inside the house. in the porch.But I stopped taking photos of them after that.

Dining room. The chair with its back to the fireplace has especially low legs, for Queen Victoria. (Won’t she have needed a lower table as well?)

John Tenniel was a great cartoonist (in Punch Magazine for over 50 years) and illustrator, perhaps most well-known for his work on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.  It is thought that Disraeli may have been the model for the Mad Hatter.The feud between Tory Disraeli and Whig W S Gladstone (1809 -1898) was one of the great political confrontations in British 19th century history.  When the latter succeeded the former as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he refused to pay for the furniture of 11 Downing Street, so Disraeli refused to hand over the Chancellor’s robe.  It has been at Hughenden ever since.

This Trust volunteer seemed to fit the library so well.

Over the mantelpiece of this bedroom is a double portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, given by the Queen to Disraeli in grateful recognition of his securing funding for the Albert Memorial.

Political insult ain’t what it used to be.

Disraeli was a prolific novelist throughout his life.  (He wrote a novel, not as well-known as some of the others, though still available, called Venetia.)  Here is one of his better known, Sybil. A whole room was devoted to his writings.During World War II, Hughenden was known as Hillside, a secret target map-making base, and there was an exhibition about this in the basement.

Reconstruction of the resident family’s sitting room

It was good to go outside to the rear garden.I noticed these original hinges on the stable doors  Buckinghamshire is red kite country, and, back at my hosts’ house, I was pleased to see the birds swooping overhead, though less pleased with my photographic efforts.  However, one kite kindly settled in a tree some way away. Not one, but two National Trust properties the next day, (though one did not allow inside photography).