Haynes International Motor Museum

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1897 Daimler Wagonette, 1905 Daimler, AC Ace, Alfa Romeo Gran Turismo, Ambassador scooter, Austin 10 four door saloon, Benz Patent motorwagon, Cadiallac 452A, Clement Voiturette, Facel Vega, Ford Edsel, Ford Popular 103E, Ford V8, Gaz M13 Chaika, George Hotel Castle Cary, Harley Davidson Fatboy, Haynes international motor museum, Haynes Light 12, Haynes motor museum, Healey Silverstone, Hindustan Ambassador, Jaguar 3.5 litre, Jaguar 420G, Jaguar XK 120, Jordan Playboy Roadster, Lambretta, Lanchester Sports Tourer, Market House Castle Cary, Maserati Merak, MG Midget, MG TC, Morris Eight, Morris Minor Van, Pontiac Superior Ambulance, Reliable Dayton, Reynard 893 Alfa Romeo, Skoda Citigo, Stanley Steam, Vanden Plas 1300, Wolseley Hornet, WW I tank

The day after my trip to Caen Hill, my friend Mary came down from London. We were planning to visit the recently opened Newt in Somerset. We had joked about making sure we had gloves with us, the weather had been so awful on her previous visit in June, when we had stuck to our plans to go round the Bishop’s palace and Gardens in Wells, but the pictures were so dull and grey and cold that I didn’t write it up. In the event it was even worse. Perhaps not so cold, but it was raining continuously, and only forecast to stop mid-afternoon. So we abandoned those plans to another day, and decided to visit the Haynes International Motor Museum, just a short drive from Castle Cary Station where I had picked her up.

First though, a stop in the town for a coffee at the George Hotel, opposite the Market House.

Although I had been vaguely aware of the Museum, in the eight years I had lived in Somerset I had never visited it. Established in the 1980s, with its 400 cars and motorcycles from many countries it truly merits the epithet ‘international’. It was quite amazing, and, though neither of us has the slightest interest in motor vehicles, we had a great day out.

I do apologise to real motoring aficionados for the undoubted mislabelling which will have occurred from time to time below. I tried to keep track but fear I may well have made some errors. Corrections, and suggestions for filling gaps, if added in Comments will be gratefully noted and acted upon.

There were a few cars in reception, and this one caught our eyes.

But I didn’t make a note of what it was.

As you go through the dark doors, you are plunged into ‘The Dawn of Motoring.’

This then greets your eyes. Nearest is Veteran and Vintage. Where do you start?

1905 Daimler Detachable Top Limousine

?

We turned off to visit The Red Room.

1929 6C Alfa Romeo 1750 Gran Turismo

1956 AC Ace

1980 Maserati Merak SS

1958 Facel Vega HK 500

Back to Veteran and Vintage.

1900 Clement Voiturette

A reconstruction of a WWI car turned into a tank.

I took photos of quite a lot of car mascots.

1929 Lanchester 30hp Sports Tourer

A byway into Minis and Micros

And back into vintage cars.

1934 Austin 10 Four Door Saloon, and …

… its mascot

No yellow room, but a collection of yellow cars.

1951 Jaguar XK120

I’m pretty sure that my (state) primary school headmaster, Mr May, had one of these (below) in the 1950s. Perhaps head teachers were paid more, in real terms, in those days.

1949 Jaguar 3.5 litre Saloon

There was a whole section, on a first floor, for motorcycles, which we didn’t visit – there are limits – but this magnificent Harley Davidson made it to the main British Marque showroom.

1992 Harley Davidson Fatboy

1928 Jordan Playboy Roadster

I think I’m rather glad that steam cars didn’t last for more than a few decades. The Stanley Twins started making this model in 1897.

1924 Stanley Steam Car

This car brought Mary a little nostalgia. Her father had something like it at one point.
1937 Ford V8 Model 78 Deluxe ‘Woody’

1909 Reliable Dayton (we’re in the US section now.)

Plenty of displays on the walls as well.

More mascots, or hood ornaments.

It was time for a bite of lunch, in the café just off the reception area.

While Mary held a place in the lengthy queue – they apologised profusely for the delay, explaining that the tills had gone down, but were now up and running again – I went back to reception, and found my very first car, a Wolseley Hornet, only mine had been a pale turquoise.

After lunch we found ourselves in the ‘other foreign cars’ section. We looked at this and virtually chorused that it must be Russian. We were right. (I suspect that we actually had some deep memory of the car.)

1959 Gaz M13 Chaika

Aggressive or what?

In 2010, most unexpectedly I found myself the sole tourist occupant of a white Ambassador for three days in Uttar Pradesh, India. Sadly, the Mumbai massacres had just taken place, so instead of having only a driver with me, I had some army fellow with a rifle as well, for my ‘protection’. I sat scared in the back, and had to ask for the rifle not to be pointed so near me over the shoulder of the army man, who sat in the front passenger seat. I really would have preferred not to have been ‘protected’ in that way.

This Ambassador seems much more peaceful. I understand that, prestige cars as they have been seen in India for a long time, they are now being phased out, heavy polluters that they are.

1992 Hindustan Ambassador

We seem to have wandered back into the British car section.

1969 Jaguar 420G

And now into The American Dream once more.

1968 Pontiac Superior Ambulance

1959 Ford Edsel

Cadillac Model 452A Madame X Imperial Cabriolet

More hood ornaments.

The above-mentioned Cabriolet

1917 Haynes Light 12, rescued from a jungle in Java ‘where it lay hidden for 30 years in an overgrown, wooden warehouse’.

Hall of motorsport. My dad, who never drove, would have loved this section. He used to spend hours in front of the TV watching the cars going round and round.

1989 Reynard 893 Alfa Romeo Formula 3

1950 Healey Silverstone

Motor scooters (but few of them British).

Ambassador, made in Berkshire, UK, from 1960 to 1962

This Lambretta was the only exhibit in the whole museum we noticed without a label. So our curiosity went unsatisfied.

There was a section on The Morris Story

1938 Morris Eight Saloon

1935 Morris Minor Van

There was a large section called Memory Lane.

1974 Vanden Plas 1300

1959 Ford Popular 103E

The indispensable picnic set for those ‘Let’s go for a drive’ days, when we didn’t think, or indeed know, about the environment.

But I still hadn’t seen my favourite car, the MG Midget that I had owned in the mid-1970s. I had seen this car.

1930 MG Midget

And a 1947 MG.

1947 MG TC

But not my little pride and joy, in whatever colour.

Towards the end of our visit we found ourselves back in The Red Room, near a couple of Museum employees chatting to each other. I asked them about ‘my’ Midget. We were led to it, not far away. Mine had been white and a model just few years later than this one, but here it was, nearby in The Red Room, and overlooked earlier by me. I was invited to step over the rope barrier and examine it more closely.

1968 MG Midget

What fun it would be to be driving it again! They stopped making it in 1979.

Here’s a photo my dad took (and subsequently developed, enlarged and printed) on 11th June 1976, as he carefully noted on the back. I wonder what he would have made of it’s being out there in The Cloud 43 years later!

No wing mirrors!

A cup of tea and a cake, and it was time for Mary to be taken back the short distance to her train (in my Skoda Citigo, just awarded best city car of the year by ‘Which?’). What had been just something to do on a wet day had turned out to be a very enjoyable experience indeed.

Caen Hill

Tags

Caen Hill, Caen Hill flight, Caen Hill Locks, Canalling, Devizes, Gongoozling, Great Canal Journeys, Kennet and Avon Canal, Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, Marshfield ice cream, New Hampshire, Prunella Scales, Royal Berkshire Hospital, Timothy West, Wadworth Brewery, Wiltshire

Thwarted by a dead computer, it is only now that I can write up a very enjoyable day spent nearly two weeks ago with my ‘American’ cousin Geoff, his two daughters, Claire and Sophie, who live in New Hampshire, and his mother, Barbara, who lives in Berkshire. Sadly a last-minute problem meant that Geoff’s wife and their son were unable to make it over the Pond, so the party was somewhat depleted.

We had arranged to meet up in Wiltshire, as being about halfway between where I live, in Somerset, and Berkshire. Caen Hill is near Devizes. (‘Caen’ is pronounced ‘Cane’, not like the French town.) It is best known for its 29 locks, and in particular its ‘flight’ of 16, engineered by John Rennie the Elder and a scheduled monument, on the Kennet and Avon Canal, which links Reading and Bristol.

Constructed between 1794 and 1810, it was not long before the railways were serious and stronger rivals. Through lack of maintenance, most of the canal had become unnavigable by the mid-twentieth century. Some 35 years ago, when I was living in Reading and mad keen on canalling – and I still could be – I was a member of the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, which had been formally constituted in 1962 from an informal group to bring the Canal back to life. Much of it had been restored by then, but the Herculean task of the flight had only just been started upon. The only time I had visited Caen Hill, before this month, had been in the 1980s, and it was then in a sad, derelict, sorry state.

Total restoration of the canal and all its works was not complete until 2003, but it was fully navigable by 1990, and formally reopened by HM Queen in that year. The first boat to do the complete trip was that of Sir Timothy West and his wife Prunella Scales (‘Great Canal Journeys‘). They had been founder members of the Trust. (And as it happens, I came across them as they were canalling near Hungerford in 2005, and drove them in my car to A and E at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, but that’s another story.)

I had last seen Geoff and co in New Hampshire in February 2018, and Barbara this January, so there was quite a lot to catch up on. We wandered downhill in one direction.

Looking backwards and upwards as we started off.

Gongoozlers – that’s what canallers call people who stand and stare.

Barbara admiring an owner-occupied narrowboat, solar panels and all

Sophie, Claire and Barbara watch a lock filling. Out of the sun it was decided chilly until lunchtime

There was wildlife.

On one of the side pounds, holding water in reserve for the nearest lock

There were reflections.

Outside the flight, the distances between locks were not far.

Every lock was dedicated to someone or some group.

As we walked back up to our starting point, Geoff and the girls helped two women holidaying on a hired boat. It’s so good to have someone to do the locks!

As we went back up we had a good view of that central flight of 16 locks.

Because of water management problems, in fact that day boaters had to be in the first lock in the flight by noon. There is no stopping and mooring up between locks on the flight.

After lunch at the Trust’s café, we had a pleasant walk uphill into the town, with the intention of going round the Wadworth Brewery.

Looking back at some residential narrowboats

It’s just always fun to gongoozle

The brewery

Unfortunately, when we got there we found the afternoon tour was full. So we sat around for a few minutes in the entrance hall, and reflected on what to do next. There were exhibits, including a rather detailed one on the beer-producing process – and lots of different beers on sale in presentation packs.

We decided to meander the mile back to the locks’ cafe, and to have a Marshfield (West Country speciality, highly recommended) ice cream, before dispersing.

A lovely family get-together, blessed by the weather.

Knoll Gardens, Dorset

Tags

Abbot of Glastonbury, blueberry, Knoll, Knoll Gardens, Neil Lucas, pickerel weed, pontederia, St Dunstan, Trehane nursery

Still with bruises all over, and my arm still bandaged, I went with three friends to Knoll Gardens, near Wimborne in Dorset a few days ago. To quote from their leaflet, In just 40 years, Knoll has progressed from being a market garden to being a private botanic, specialising in Australasian plants, to today’s naturalistic display garden. Many of the rare and unusual trees and shrubs you’ll see in the garden are a legacy of the original plantings. Now under the stewardship of Neil Lucas, Knoll is internationally acclaimed showing Neil’s fabulous collection of ornamental grasses through a series of horticultural galleries.

Having lost a lovely, but old, crab apple tree to honey fungus last year, I had converted that area to a gravel garden, and had already furnished it with a few ornamental grasses a couple of weeks previously. But I just had space for two more. So I was delighted that they had an excellent selection on sale, and found just what I wanted as we left. With four of us in the car all buying, it was a good job that I hadn’t decided to buy my entire stock from Knoll!

But I’m jumping ahead. Come round with us to see the trees, grasses, lawns, shrubs and other plants – and then we’ll go blueberrying…

It was quite overcast when we started going round, but as a high chance of rain was forecast, we did not complain when the sun only came out not long before we left.

Pontederia/pickerel weed in one of the ponds

A well-established bug hotel

The ‘guardian’ of the garden seen from the pergola walk

The dragon, specially commissioned from Susan Ford, (link to come if I can find an authenticated one) is based on the legend of St Dunstan, patron saint of goldsmiths and one of the four patron saints of Wessex. The legend goes that when the devil tried to tempt him from his work he struck him on the nose with a red hot tong. The harp is the emblem of St Dunstan, who was a metalworker, born here in mid-Somerset, sometime Abbot of Glastonbury, and later Archbishop of Canterbury.

This eucalyptus was blown down in a storm some years ago. Retained as a feature it is re-growing.

Each of us took a photo of the other three sitting in these chairs. (There was no passing stranger to take the four of us, and it did not occur to any of us to try to take a selfie – I’m quite pleased at that!)

Tipped off by a neighbour that there was an organic pick-your-own blueberry place next door to the Gardens, I had suggested that we take containers. So, having bought our plants, we left the car in the car park and walked to the nursery.

We were invited to try the five different varieties of blueberry before we started picking, ranging from sharpish through to sweetish. I chose somewhere in the middle (Herbert). These are the bushes you come to first but we were encouraged to go to the other end, where the branches were absolutely dripping with fruit. We soon learned not to pick the berries individually because other ripe ones dropped to the ground. So we held our containers underneath the bunches. Tickling them was a very speedy way of gathering all we wanted. Picking goes on until the fruit runs out, likely the end of August.

A humorous request not to eat while picking

I was so busy picking – or rather catching – that I failed to take pictures of either the dripping bushes, or the full container of more than one kilo that I picked. I’m now enjoying the latter in smoothies, with ice cream, and on their own, and there are many more in the freezer. I may even try one of the recipes on their website.

There is talk of this becoming an annual expedition.

Taunton Flower Show, 2019, a trip

Tags

begonias, Monkton Elm Garden Centre, River Tone, Sherford Stream, Taunton Flower Show, Tone FM, Vivary Park, Youth band of Barnstaple, Youth band of Bideford

A few weeks ago I had never even heard of the Taunton Flower Show, held annually in Vivary Park – thank you Sam. I went to its opening day yesterday with a friend.

While it was interesting to see all the many commercial stalls, selling all sorts of things, most of them nothing to do with flowers (and indeed I bought a handbag), the highlights were the marquees. And perhaps another time, on reflection, I would wish to spend more time watching what was going on in the arena. But as neither of us had a sunhat with her – having believed the BBC’s local weather forecast that it would be overcast for much of the day – that was not really on. Anyway, there was a lot else to occupy our time.

The first ‘flowery’ exhibits were in the growers’ marquee. Here is a tiny selection of what we saw there.

I overheard someone saying that the plant nearest looked like a tarantula

I wasn’t the only one taking pictures

This is just part of the central stand in the marquee, by one of the main local nurseries, Monkton Elm Garden Centre

We moved on to the competition marquee. I have not been able to be so rigorous in my photo selection.

This won first prize in the ‘In a nutshell’ category. It was about 5 inches, about 13 centimetres, high.

This exquisite composition one first in the ‘Turkish Delight’ category.

Second in the ‘Nostalgia ‘ category

First in the same. I didn’t seek to take a photo without the observer, because I thought her dress went so well.

We both thought that this was by far the best in the ‘At the garden gate’ category, but sadly it was disqualified because of the use of artificial grass.

Likewise, we disagreed with the judges in the ‘Helter Skelter’ category. Of the five entries, only two included a coiled ‘slide’, but first and second prizes went to entries that were just vaguely lighthouse-shaped. This is the one we liked best.

This, like the following image, is of entries in the ‘Roots, Shoots and Leaves’ class.

We had no problem with the judging in the ‘Recycle’ category. Each contestant had been given an hour, a bottle, a tin, some string, some sticks, some fabric and some vegetation, to make their exhibit. This was definitely the best we thought – and so did the judges.

Couldn’t resist taken a ‘selfie’ in this exhibit from the mirrors category in the crafts section.

The snowy owl and the squirrel won second and third in their class.

I love begonias, and fuschias

Another photo op I couldn’t resist – a rather large gentlemen taking a photo of this rather large cabbage.

How do you judge Victoria sponges…

… or cottage loaves, for that matter?

This is one person’s entry for a variety of crafts. The top of the box is in a sort of felt bas relief. No doubt it has a name. Would that be stumpwork?

The mauve and white arrangement won first in its class

I was given a very small one of these as a houseplant many decade ago. I think it was from that that I acquired my love of begonias.

We walked around the arena, and stopped to watch for a short while the Combined Youth Bands of Barnstaple and Bideford, though this video is just of the Bideford lot. (And I really must remember that the camera stops the sound two seconds before I press the button.)

A bar in your garden?

This plant sales area seemed to be doing good trade.

We decided to look for a spot of lunch. On the way, I moved sideways to take a picture of a whole load of seagulls and ducks to our right in the Sherford Stream, a tributary of the River Tone which runs through Vivary Park. I made for the railing, and … Wham!

I hadn’t noticed there was a step down before the railing, and fell sideways. Desperate to protect the camera slung round my neck, I fell flat on my front along said step, and ended up neatly ranged full-length between the upper step and the railing. People rushed to my aid, wanting to haul me up, though I asked to lie there for a little while before they did so. When I eventually stood up, someone from the Tone FM (Taunton’s local internet radio) stand opposite had already placed a chair for me, and someone else had gone to get first aid. St John’s Ambulance volunteers, Eloise and Mel, soon arrived.

They spent a very long time ensuring that every last bit of grit had been washed out with saline, and patching me up.

Taken where we eventually had lunch. I think my bag also must have cushioned my fall.

The only seriously broken skin was along my left forearm, and I had/have swelling on my right knee, pulled muscles in my left shoulder, a small bump to the side of my right temple, and a few other tiny scrapes and bruises. Nothing broken. Well done St John’s Ambulance for a very good job! Apparently I was their fifth call that day, and the two women were due to return for the second (and final) day of the show today.

Eloise and Mel, the railing behind them

We had some lunch, one of the thinnest and nicest pizzas I have ever tasted, entertained first by a local ladies’ choir, and then by this jazz band.

We meandered a little more, I bought my handbag, and I decided to take those pesky seagulls and ducks, though from a completely different angle. (Even from the original one, it wouldn’t have been all that much of a picture anyway, and wouldn’t normally have survived the thinning for this post.)

As we made our way to the exit, we enjoyed the sight of this little girl dancing to the fairground organ.

A very pleasant day, lovely weather, nice atmosphere, and not too many crowds.