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~ An occasional blog, mainly photos

Musiewild's blog

Monthly Archives: August 2017

Buckinghamshire 4

27 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Geology, Photography, Plants, Travel

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

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.P1270060001

P1270061001Outside 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.

P1270063001We 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.

P1270100001We 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.’

 

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Chalk soil and flints, underfoot for some of the time

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P1270079001There were plenty of wildflowers to be seen.  (These identifications are subject to any suggested corrections.)

 

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

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Lady’s bedstraw, Galium verum

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

P1270082001A 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.P1270088001We 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.) P1270099001

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.P1270111001P1270108001P1270103001

P1270104001Thank you, Geoff and Jackie, for a lovely break.

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Buckinghamshire 3

25 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, History, Photography, Plants, Travel

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

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.

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Lady Nuffield’s Wolseley

P1270024001We wandered in the gardens.P1270025001P1270026001P1270027001P1270036001P1270042001We saw a small shed containing this iron lung. P1270028001P1270029001Lord 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. P1270043001P1270044001P1270046001

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

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In Lady Nuffield’s bedroom

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In Lord Nuffield’s bedroom. Really.

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Personally I found the order of this more appealing.

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

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The double spare bedroom

 

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‘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.

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Buckinghamshire 2

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, History, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

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). P1260962001 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. P1260964001This is not a church tower, but part of old fortifications. P1260967001Here is a selection of the things which appealed in the gardens.P1260970001P1260972001P1260973001

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

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

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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.

P1260993001P1260994001P1260995001Particularly 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).P1260996001P1260998001P1260999001P1270001001P1270002001P1270004001P1270005001P1270006001

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Cinnamon bark tree

P1270011001It 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!)P1270014001We 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. P1270015001Sadly no brief history awaited us at the door of the house this time,P1270017001and 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.P1270018001

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Buckinghamshire 1

19 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, History, Photography, Wildlife

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

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). P1260859001 Images, in two and three dimensions, of Disraeli abounded throughout the house. I have no idea whether this one was added in his lifetime.P1260862001This was the first we saw inside the house. in the porch.P1260867001But I stopped taking photos of them after that.

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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.P1260875001P1260879001The 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.P1260885001

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This Trust volunteer seemed to fit the library so well.

P1260890001Over 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.P1260892001

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Political insult ain’t what it used to be.

P1260902001Disraeli 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.P1260904001During World War II, Hughenden was known as Hillside, a secret target map-making base, and there was an exhibition about this in the basement.P1260908001P1260909001P1260910001P1260915001

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Reconstruction of the resident family’s sitting room

It was good to go outside to the rear garden.P1260916001P1260918001P1260919001P1260923001P1260925001P1260926001P1260927001P1260928001P1260929001P1260931001I noticed these original hinges on the stable doors P1260932001P1260933001 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. P1260935001P1260959001Not one, but two National Trust properties the next day, (though one did not allow inside photography).

 

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