The Newt in Somerset, May 2020, with a friend this time

Tags

bridge, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Haynes international motor museum, Morocco, Museum of Gardening, Social distancing, Sweet Track, The Newt in Somerset

I wasn’t planning to visit The Newt in Somerset again this month, but the meet-up rules had been relaxed, and I was due to pass over my previous camera to my bridge partner, Daphne. It had been she who had told me about The Newt when it opened in 2019, but my one planned visit there in August had been thwarted by bad weather (which led to my London friend Mary and I going to the nearby Haynes International Motor Museum instead).

Daphne and I had not seen each other since 5th March, the last bridge club meeting before my Morocco trip. Greeting each other with a socially distanced hug, we exchanged carrier bags via the boot of my car, and started up the entrance path.

The Newt is now charging again, but Daphne and I were already members, so we were able to bypass the ticket building to get in.

Near the top of the path to the ‘Threshing Barn’, it was sad to see that a magnificent beech tree was being removed. It was diseased on the inside apparently.

There is still a theoretical one-way system, and we were channelled through the barn.

Along withe the charges have been restored the gift shop, and the ability to buy beverages and ice-cream.

We partook of neither, and indeed our intention was to avoid the most frequented parts of the gardens. We turned off left therefore to the Marl Pit and the Marl Pit Copse.

I have just realised. This is built to the same design as the neolithic Sweet Track, dated very precisely by dendrochronology to 3807 BC, and situated perhaps 20 miles away on the Avalon Marshes/Somerset Levels.

On a day that was to become very hot indeed, it was wonderfully fresh, with the sunlight trickling down through the trees. I hadn’t explored this area on my two previous visits.

We continued into the deer park with no real expectation of seeing any deer, but we did just get a glimpse.

We went on to the walkway to Museum of Gardening, itself closed of course. In any case I’m told you must allow at least two hours to do the museum justice. It has a refreshment area to keep you going.

Looking down from the walkway…

… which Daphne is doing.

It sinews around.

From the museum, we walked to the end of the grounds of the Newt, though beyond is still part of the whole estate. I do not recall this dovecot (if that is what it is) beyond the boundary being there in January. It is built in the same style, stone and roofing as the rest of the new build at the Newt.

We ambled back. (Ambling is now allowed as ‘The Rules’ no longer require that you be outdoors only for essential shopping, and exercise.)

Until I saw this photo, taken, obviously, by Daphne, I thought my hair must need cutting.

The Kitchen garden, the almost invisible so-called Bathing Pond (that is apparently what it was used for, but not now), the Long Walk, and Hapsden House, now a luxury hotel.

Returned from the Deer Park, we ventured a little into the more crowded ‘pretty’ areas, but did not plunge in.

This was filled with tulips on my last visit, three weeks previously. I wonder what will be there on my next visit.

We stayed at the top…

… and walked along this people-less path …

… to the Cottage Garden.

Once through the arch I looked back

Finally there was the ‘Woodland Walks and Mound ‘ area, which I had not seen on previous visits.

I almost got my ducks in a row.

We climbed The Mound, of which I forgot to take a photo. It’s basically an upside-down pudding bowl with a gentle spiral path to get to the top.

But the top was a little crowded so we didn’t stay long.

It was time to go – once I had bought my Newt in Somerset cyder (sic) – leaving by the one way system exit, which meant passing the diseased beech on its other side. It had lost a few more branches, which were being removed one by one. No ‘Timber….!!!!’ was to follow i was told when I asked. It might have been worth staying to watch if so!

Daphne and I had had much digital and telephone contact in the twelve weeks since we had seen each other, but there is nothing like actually being with a friend and together doing something you both like. And now restrictions are to be relaxed further as from tomorrow, another bridge friend is immediately taking advantage of that and has invited three of us round to her garden, not of course for bridge – which would not be within guidelines, sensible, or practical – but for a good old chinwag, socially distanced of course. We will even each take our own beverages.

Haynes International Motor Museum

Tags

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.