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~ An occasional blog, mainly photos

Musiewild's blog

Monthly Archives: March 2022

A day-long holiday in Bath

17 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by Musiewild in History, Museums, Photography

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Alkmaar Garden, Anne Boleyn, Ariadne auf Naxos, Bath, Bath Abbey, Bath Forum, Bristol Beacon, Great Pulteney Street, Hans Holbein, Henry VIII, Holburne Museum, Katherine of Aragon, London Symphony Orchestra, Mary Queen of Scots, Metropolitan Opera, Parade Garden, Penfol pillar box, Pulteney Bridge, River avon, Roman Baths, Simon Rattle, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir William Holburne, Theatre Royal Bath, Tudors passion power and politics

I was ridiculously excited on Sunday, feeling as if I were going on holiday the following day, not just out for a few hours in a beautiful city. I had clear plans and was slightly worried that I would be disappointed as I drove home, so much I was looking forward to living them. But no, all worked out perfectly. (Except that I took far too many photos and have had great difficulty in cutting down their number.)

Actually, it wasn’t even a full day. I left home at 1 o’clock, after an early lunch, and drove trouble-free to the Odd Down Park and Ride in Bath. In the few minutes I had to wait for a bus, I browsed the map in the shelter.

As we drew near to the turn-round point near Bath Spa station, from my upstairs front seat I snapped the car park I planned to use later. (I thought my evening activity might well end too late for the last bus back to Odd Down.)

Conscious that the evening’s entertainment was to be at a venue nearby, I recce’d as I got off the bus, and there it was, the Forum.

I made my way northwards, and slightly east.

The Abbey, the Roman Baths, and a restaurant
Round the back of the Abbey, there are no more crowds. On the right, the small Alkmaar Garden, celebrating the friendship between Bath and Alkmaar, liberated on 5th May 1945.

Behind me was Parade Garden of and from which I took the next few photos.

Bath is quite proud of its floral competition success!

Back up from the garden, a better view of the celebrated Pulteney Bridge over the River Avon.

I used it to cross over the river, and looked back having done so, but you can’t tell that you are actually on a bridge.

I arrived at Laura Place, and could see the length of Great Pulteney Street, with the Holburne Museum, my destination, at the end.

A ‘VR’ pillar box, with sadly the key letters in shade. This is a Penfold pillar box, a model cast between 1866 and 1879. (You can buy one for £1200, though I imagine it is a modern reproduction.)

I arrived at the Holburne Museum. Yes, I know. It’s part of one of their exhibitions called ‘Old Ghosts‘ which ‘invites visitors to engage with and challenge the perceived notions of power and authority that sit at the heart of many museum collections’ So now you know.

But it was not that exhibition which I was there to see. I was visiting ‘The Tudors: Passion, Power & Politics’. A small room, with not many pictures – all portraits, I think, on loan from the National Portrait Gallery – and probably all the better for that. The room was fairly dark, and my camera makes these selected photos look brighter than my eyes saw them, but not brighter than they really are.

Henry VIII, aged about 30, and Katherine of Aragon. Both painted around 1630 and both by unknown artists.
Henry VIII of course, about 17 years later, after Hans Holbein
Anne Boleyn – I failed to note the artist. Now, does the expression on those pursed lips not remind of the same on a certain present-day female British politician?
Sir Philip Sidney, described as the ideal Renaissance courtier. Unidentified artist, c 1576.
Elizabeth I, the ‘Darnley’ portrait, c. 1575. Reds have faded over the years, ‘making the queen appear paler than originally intended’.
Mary, Queen of Scots, 1578, after Nicholas Hilliard.
Elizabeth I, one of the ‘Armada’ portraits, c. 1588

It had not taken me long to go round the exhibition, which had portraits also of Henry VII, Edward VI, Mary I and Lady Jane Grey, the other wives, and other contemporary politicians, courtiers and explorers. I had a brief look around this room

with exhibits by staff volunteers and visitors to the museum, including

I had not visited the Holburne Museum before. It is centred on the vast collection amassed by Sir William Holburne (1793-1874) and left to the City of Bath on his death. I visited all the other rooms, briefly, and realised I could not do them justice in the time and energy I had available.

On the way, pictures along the stairs caught my eye for various reasons.

The Dead Soldier, Joseph Wright, c.1789. I could not help thinking of all the mothers and children, Ukrainian and Russian, grieving their husbands and fathers right now.
Garton Orme at the Spinet, Jonathan Richardson the Elder, c. 1707-8. The young man ‘failed to live up to the charm of this early portrait. He is said to have murdered his wife, incurred considerable debts, and sold half the family property.’
Still Life with Fruit and Shellfish, Cornelis Bryer, fl. 1634-1671. Here just because I liked it.

In another room I saw more Old Ghosts, but there were interesting things on the walls and in cabinets also.

I was particularly pleased by this ‘Marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne’ by Pierre-Jacques Cazes, (1676-1754). Two days previously I had seen at my local cinema, livestreamed from the Met(ropolitan Opera, New York), Richard Strauss’s ‘Ariadne auf Naxos‘. The libretto ends with the meeting and falling in love of the pair, after Ariadne has been abandoned on the island by her former lover, Theseus. This painting ends the story nicely.

Incidentally, I had been impressed that, as the camera panned round the Met’s audience, every single person was wearing a mask – it is presumably the law still in the USA. Not only that, all members of the orchestra did as well, except those playing wind instruments. I was in a small minority of visitors in the museum wearing one – a trusty FFP3 mask. And at the cinema where I had seen the livestream. No wonder, as I read, cases are going down in the States and rising sharply here.

A volunteer insisted that I look at this ‘gruesome’ dish. As I learned, when I mentioned my interest in the previous picture, that he had heard the same livestream on Radio 3 on the Saturday, I indulged him.

The Beheading of John the Baptist, French, probably Fontainebleau, between 1580 and 1620.
Tripartite bell salt, English silver-gilt, 1613-14.
Pieta, Italian, Patanazzi workshop, 1580-1600, (An inkstand!)
Meissen, lady’s chamberpot

From now on I just wandered without noting what things were. The next room was the most spectacular, and really needs revisiting to do justice to all its contents. These were Holburne’s treasures.

It was time for the coffee and cake I had promised myself, to fill in the time until the museum closed at 5 o’clock. And then a gentle walk back, a longer way round, to the bus stop for the Park and Ride.

As I retuned over Pulteney Bridge, I thought it no wonder that the shop was closing down, if it relied on sales of fly-fishing dogs.

On my longer way back, I saw these in quick succession. Hardly surprising in a city known for its healing waters.

This however was the name of a different kind of watering – or rather eating – place.

I arrived at the Theatre Royal, and was disappointed to find that its street level was marred by works. (Note, not so much the gull in the air and on the edge, but the rather more ferocious birds at the windows on the right.)

My longer way round took me to a less eye-pleasing area, but the old industrial building on the other side of the Avon was interesting – zooming in shows that it is now converted into flats, including a no doubt very prized and pricey penthouse apartment.

On the bus, I again had an upstairs front seat.

A packed meal waited me in my car. Rather than try to be imaginative as to where I could eat it, consuming it in my car in the Park and Ride car park, watching the sun go down through the trees, seemed as practical as any.

I arrived back in the Forum, a converted cinema, in very good time. The concert I was to attend was under the auspices of the Bristol Beacon, the new name of the former Colston Hall, and currently closed for ‘transformation’, except for its foyer which remains open for smaller scale events.

After a quick drink in the rather crowded entrance area, I went into the hall as soon as I could, perused the (free!) programme, and admired all the art deco work. I had selected a seat which I hoped would be fairly well away from the most popular area, and was pleased that it had remained so after later bookings.

Members of the London Symphony Orchestra made their way in gradually. (Like the Met’s orchestra, they were masked except for wind players – and unlike two-thirds of the audience.) I had not heard this orchestra live since I left London in 1975. I wondered if any of them were in the orchestra then. And I realised that most of them hadn’t even been born at that time!

And the maestro came in. Sir Simon Rattle, whom I had never seen in the flesh. The programme gives a fairly conventional biography. But I remember when he hit the musical scene back in the 70s, aged barely 20, a se most attractive young man with a huge talent, and clearly going places!

A most enjoyable concert, which was livestreamed, and can be for a month , to care homes throughout the UK: Hannah Kendall, ‘The Spark Catchers’ (which was sparky but not spiky); Dvorak, ‘American Suite; and Schumann, Symphony No 2, of which I particularly liked the third movement.

I was home by 10.00. A lovely day’s holiday.

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The Newt in Somerset – March 2022

13 Sunday Mar 2022

Posted by Musiewild in Photography, Wildlife

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

fallow deer, Storm Eunice, The Newt in Somerset

Just a brief post of record really. My latest visit was last Tuesday with my bridge partner, Daphne, and her visiting 95-year-old aunt, Vera. But we didn’t see much of The Newt, because, despite the fact that we met up in the car park at 2.30, we sat talking in the café in the Story of Gardening until we were kicked out as the café was closing, and then we were kicked out of the gardens before we had completed our wander around, again because they were closing.

I say ‘kicked out’. We were in fact treated with the utmost courtesy by the staff. The car park is some way from the entrance, and we were met on time by pre-arrangement by a buggy, and were driven to the Threshing Barn, where we were lent a wheelchair.

Daphne and Vera had not managed to have a post-prandial coffee, and I’m always game for refreshments, so we made for the café at the far end of the deer park, on the grounds it was likely to be less crowded. (In the event there were not many people anywhere.)

I did do my share of pushing, honest. Indeed, the beginning part of the walk there was up a very steep hill, and even with two of us I had to ask for a short stop.

We were pleased to find that the deer park lived up to its name, and saw the group of fallow deer.

I think there are sixteen of them in this picture, but they are well camouflaged.
Every time I go along the walkway to the Story of Gardening, my eyes think that the supports are just hanging in the air. In fact they are well jammed into the ground.
Yet another victim of Storm Eunice?

The main entrance to the café had a notice on it directing us to this side door.

We did not notice the time pass, as we consumed the delicious coffee and cake that Vera treated us to, and put the world to rights. In (over)due course we made our way back to the main area, this time with the brakes on down the steep hill, and started to walk around the most accessible bits of the garden, once Daphne had bought a few bits in the farm shop. The Newt is clearly between seasons, but with lots of signs of glorious things to come shortly.

We didn’t get to go in the greenhouse, since a nice young man explained to us that it was past closing time…

Oh yes, everyone has gone home…

But there was still a buggy to get us all back to the car park.

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Hestercombe Gardens

10 Thursday Mar 2022

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

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Bampfylde, Bergenia Cordifolia, Edwin Lutyens, Elephant's Ears, Euphorbia, Gertrude Jekyll, Hestercombe, Hestercombe Gardens Trust, Taunton, Ukraine, Woman's Hour

It was chilly but bright last Saturday, so I took myself to Hestercombe Gardens, near Taunton. I hadn’t been for several years, and believed the actual house to be the property of Somerset County Council, but see from this history that, having been the headquarters of the Somerset Fire Brigade for over 60 years, it was sold in 2013 to the Hestercombe Gardens Trust, (itself created in 1986), for £1. Here is a 54-second aerial video of the entire estate, courtesy of the Trust.

I started with lunch in the café. I had to ask what an allegedly vegan dish, a seitan steak was, and was told it was made of pulses. I have to say, I nearly called the waitress after the first mouthful, to check I had been given the right meal, so like meat it was in taste, colour and texture. Too much indeed for comfort! Anyway, once home I looked up and found there are several different recipes, so seitan is not a trade name. Here is a whole article on the subject.

The formal gardens were designed by those celebrated collaborators Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll. On past visits I have started with these, but this time I left them to last, bypassing the Victorian Shrubbery, and wandering through the landscaped areas first.

Top of the Daisy Steps, which lead down to the Formal Gardens
The edge of the Victorian Shrubbery
Looking back on the Shrubbery
Near the beginning of the Georgian Landscape Gardens, designed by Coplestone Warre Bampfylde in the 1760s
Mausoleum
Looking back
‘Rustic Seat’
The Great Cascade
Sibyl’s Temple

Beyond this point access was forbidden temporarily, because of damage done by Storm Eunice.

Looking down from Sibyl’s Temple to the Box Pond

From here I had a choice of turning left and returning the other side of the ponds, parallel to the path I had taken, or turning right and climbing up and a bit away from the water features. I chose the latter, not least because it was the sunny side.

Highest point, view from the Gothic Alcove
Taunton in the distance

At this point I failed to turn sufficiently rightwards and to take a diagonal path towards the lakes again. I blame a couple with a dog coming up a path worn in the grass, parallel to the fence. I assumed that was the correct way – I had not been up here before.

As the terrain I was on diverged increasingly from what the plan told me, I at last concluded that I was far too far over, so climbed a gate on the right to correct my route, and went past this pile of logs – which may or may not have been a feature of the recent storms. I had seen many sawn-off trunks in my wanderings, both where I should have been and where I shouldn’t.

I had also seen masses of daffodils, and took many, many more photos of them than this one.

Back where I should have been

Moving towards the orchard and the Garden of Remembrance.

Anyone at home?
Up to Lutyens’ and Jekyll’s Formal Gardens
The Pergola, early in March not at its best

I wondered why someone had left this flowerpot around. Looking more closely, I saw written on it, ‘WOBBLY STONE’.

Also not at its best at this time of year, ‘The Great Plat’ nevertheless was a mass of pink, the parterres filled with Bergenia Cordifolia, more commonly known as Elephant Ears, beginning to go over.

Columns topped by cheeky cherubs

Finally, I walked around the Victorian Terrace.

And I was ambushed in the plant sale on the way out, where I fell in love with this purple Euphorbia, and just had to have it. I’ve no idea where to plant it, but I shall find it a good home.

I left the car park at 4 o’clock, just as ‘Weekend Woman’s Hour’ came on the radio. It started with the very same story, broadcast the day before, of the little boy who wanted Mr Putin to become a good man…

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Priddy

06 Sunday Mar 2022

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, History, Photography

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

burial barrows, Castle of Comfort, gruffy, lead mining, Mendip Hills, Pen Hill mast, Priddy barrows, Priddy Circles, Priddy Mineries, skylark, Stockhill Wood, Ukraine

The area, within the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding National Beauty (AONB), is known as Priddy Mineries, for the lead mined from prehistoric times, through the Romans, (believed to have been particularly attracted to the area because of its plumbic riches), and at least to the 18th century. It is also rich in burial barrows. Zoe wanted to show some of them to me during our first-Friday walk a couple of days ago.

We met at the Stockhill Wood car park. Each of us had been listening to Woman’s Hour as we drove up. We shared how we had been moved by the account given by a young Ukrainian woman fleeing to Poland with her six-year-old son. Their apartment had been bombed the very day after they left. The husband had been obliged to say goodbye at the frontier in order to remain in Ukraine to fight. The young boy, on being told of a tradition that when you sleep in a new place for the first time you can make a wish, said that he wished that the war would end, and of Mr Putin that … he would become a nice man.

There is a 1987 67-page thematic account of a 1986-88 archaeological survey of the whole of the AONB. I confess to only having skimmed through it. As far as its barrows are concerned, there are many, many of them, and they are said to be of Bronze age origin, in an area where Neolithic remains have been found. A short Wikipedia account of this particular area’s barrows is here.

Nearby are the Priddy Circles, thought to be the site of henges.

The land is known as ‘gruffy’, a Somerset word related to mining, as ‘Botany Karen‘ explains. It is uneven, from the works, and, the mining abandoned, excellent for wildlife. On a chilly March day, there was little in evidence for us, but we were entertained by several skylarks from time to time. I did not have my camera with me, but I took a few photos with my phone.

We came to our first barrow, left, and there was another immediately behind it.

Over to the right in the distance we could see a row of seven.

To our left, some more.

A fieldful of pregnant sheep.

The plan was to go along this path, but a walker with a dog, coming from the other direction, warned us off the flooded lane.

So we sort of retraced our steps, doing a very, very narrow figure-of-eight. In the distance is Pen Hill TV mast.

At this point we were still some way from our cars, but I failed to take any more photos, probably because I was 100% concentrating on not falling over on the very muddy paths making up much of our route!

We planned to have lunch at the Castle of Comfort public house, very near the Priddy Circles as it happened, but when we got there were told there was not a chance of a table without a booking. That was the first time that had happened in some eight years or so of first Friday walks. We abandoned the idea of lunching together. At least it solved my dilemma as to whether I could allow myself to eat out on two consecutive days, and gave me permission to do so at Hestercombe the following day…

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