Three days in an open top car.

Day 1: Horsham to Burley via Hinton Ampner and  Winchester.  South to the A272 – a delightful road on motorbike (I had one once, and 50 mph on a winding but broad road feels great) or in open-top car.  One hour and 42 miles later we arrived at Hinton Ampner, a pleasing house and especially gardens, for – after the obligatory 20 minute queuing – a cup of coffee.

There is a sundial at the far end of the above grassy path, but I have other things to show.  Drove on to Winchester for lunch and a look around the cathedral.  This turned into lunch (at the oldest inn in town – the Royal Oak) and a look at the cathedral.  They wanted £8 each for us to look inside.  Perhaps we should have pretended to be Christians and gone in free to pray, but we turned out to be travellers and walked around it instead.

This bit of cryptic carving sums it up.  Before 1640 there was effectively a public right of way through the cathedral, but the bishop decided to open up an exterior route through the cloisters for travellers, so that only the faithful coming to worship would go into the church.  The hand pointing left is for the faithful, and some clever up and down reading tells them:  ILL AC PRECATOR or ‘over here to pray’.  The hand pointing right (with a big stick) reads: HAC VIATOR AMBULA or ‘by this way traveller walk’.  We did that.  We found pretty precincts, a bubbling chalk spring and a car park where we left the MG.

The sun was still shining as we entered the New Forest, which as we know is neither new nor that much a forest.  We explored some pretty forest routes and found a shop for a bottle of whisky (for after drive nightcaps) before finding Burley and the Burley Inn for a few beers, supper and a few more beers.  After a full English we set out for the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu.

Look at that word – 8 letters, 6 of them vowels!

The older vehicles pleased me the most, with two Brighton references worthy of note.

‘The first practical electric road carriage was built by Magnus Volk of Brighton in 1887’  Sadly the model on show is from the US of A.  Magnus sold one of his electric cars to Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of Turkey, and he went with it to Constantinople to demonstrate it to the Sultan.

The new Isetta Square near Brighton railway station is in commemoration of the works which stood there in the late 50s and early 60s.  Three wheeler Isetta bubble cars were assembled in Brighton.  It was an Italian design, bought by BMW who were desperate to sell vehicles after the war.  In the UK they built a 3 wheel version to attract a lower road tax (as a motor cycle), but in the rest of Europe they had 4 wheels.

I did get to see the remains of Beaulieu Abbey.  Completed in 1246 and demolished after dissolution in 1538 – just 292 years.  It was a big Abbey church- 110 metres from west end entrance to the east end of the presbytery, plus all the other abbey stuff – including hospital, rooms for visitors and all the religious life functions as well as the farming lay-brothers stuff.

The above plan comes from the Historyfish.net website – thank you guys.  Leaving the New Forest after coffee I blundered with the map.  Instead of taking us under the A30 into the northern part of the National Park, I got the wrong minor road and we accessed the A30, all the way to Ringwood.  It was quick anyway.

Soon back on track for Blandford Forum for lunch.  After 12 miles of minor roads WNW from Ringwood we turned SW on the A354 (above) straight into Blandford – a fine Georgian town it tells the visitor.  And the main church proves it:

Parking proved a problem, but it was free at the (Georgian) Crown Hotel so long as we ate there – so we did, before continuing direct to Dorchester.  We checked into the Wessex Royale Hotel (Georgian as well) before walking the streets for beer and a venue for dinner.  There is a brew pub in town called Tom Brown’s which had a couple of excellent beers, and a little way west was Goldie’s offering traditional ales as well.  But we did not find anywhere interesting to eat.  So it was the hotel restaurant which offered good things – scallops (with a bottle of white) and bacon and chicken salad (with a bottle of red).  Preceded by G&T and topped off with whisky in our room a good night’s sleep was guaranteed.  After a whole kipper for breakfast we waited a while for the rain to stop before setting out for the Cerne Abbas giant.  I would show you a photograph but the weather was so misty it was barely (and I mean barely) visible.  His head and club being further up the hillside were invisible, his more famous attribute was standing proud, but on its own hardly worth showing you.  We took a rural and high altitude route north and east through low cloud until we descended near Sturminster Newton and made our way across the north side of Blandford Forum and onto the Wimbourne Minster road for Kingston Lacy for culture and coffee.

The beech trees above are part of a 700+ avenue planted along a 2.5 mile private toll road built in 1835 for William John Banks across his Kingston Lacy estate as an income generator.  He spent most of his life spending family money on improving and embellishing the Kingston Lacy house – first cladding the brick building in stone.

Part way along the beech avenue this Iron Age structure is seen (hiding behind the tree).  It is Badbury Rings, a defensive fort whose site shows evidence of continuous occupation from the earlier Bronze Age through the succeeding Roman occupation (several Roman roads meet here).

This is a view from inside Kingston Lacy house.  William John Banks spent a few years abroad in his youth and sent all kinds of antiquities home.  In 1841 he was found guilty of sex with a guardsman (such things being illegal then) and escaped jail by going to mainland Europe.  From there he sent home plans and commissioned many expensive items to be installed in the house.  Banks died in Venice in 1855, the National Trust guide does not record what happened to the guardsman.  The NT marks the 50th anniversary of the easing of the law regarding male homosexual sex by flying a Pride flag over the house:

After the obligatory 20 minute coffee queue we headed east, finding a back road route across the River Avon 2 miles north of Ringwood, and entering the New Forest for lunch at the Red Shoot, Linwood.  The weather had become murkier but we resisted putting the lid up, relying on air flow of forward movement to lift mist and fine drizzle over our heads.  The plan worked fine at 45 mph and above, less well in traffic in Winchester, and when passing under trees on the A272 where falling drops were too big to be swept aside by the airflow.

Above: leaving the New Forest in moister weather.  But we got back into Sussex where the rain had been and gone, reaching Graham’s Golf Clubhouse for a pint of recently rarely seen but delicious Belgian orange and coriander witbier Hoegaarden.

Home-grown dinner – in part.

The kohlrabi and carrots came from the front garden, the courgette, garlic and broad beans from the allotment.  We bought the potatoes and beetroot.  Yesterday we picked gooseberries and blackcurrants, and loads of courgettes trying to become marrows, plus some chard and kale.  The few peas and loganberries plus one strawberry failed to make it home.

Garden plants, a compass and nipples.

Nothing rude, honest – just seeking your attention.  There is a big pale green 4 feet tall weed in the back garden.  I was cutting some of it away to give more room for the rose and the sweet smelling Daphne when I thought it would be good to know the name of the beast I was decimating.  Here it is.  No flowers yet, but close examination suggests they will be yellow, like small dandelions.

The books told me it is prickly lettuce, and it does have many sharp points standing out on the underside of each leaf’s midrib.  It has another name – the compass plant.  This is because the leaves on the north and south side of the plant (when its in full sun) turn to get more sunshine on the top and bottom surfaces.  You can see a north pointing leaf below, and a west facing one below that.  Put that in your Baden-Powell scouting for boys hat.

Now the nipples.  On the other side of the garden was another weed, smaller but with yellow flowers.  At first glance I thought, or hoped: wall lettuce, just for balance you understand.  But it was too hairy, and the leaves to angularly incised.  No, it was nipplewort.  Wall lettuce exudes a milky sap when cut, but nipplewort does not, so no explanation there.  Perhaps the flower buds look nipple-like?

 

 

Whiting – not the fish.

A few weeks ago I noticed that the greenhouse was getting very hot on sunny days and I recalled that my Nan used to mix finely ground limestone with water and paint the mixture on the inside of the glass to reflect heat.  That material was called whiting, and the brand I recall was Blanchards.  Decades later I found myself needing Blanchards whiting again.  This time mixed with hot rabbit skin glue to make a gesso to cover papier-mache structures – like the cardboard shelves in the little cabinet, or the papier-mache pot, or the shield with pigeon emblem (what I call Picasso’s Pigeon – its based on part of his  painting).  I also used gesso to build up a textured surface before painting with acrylic paints (quicker than thick oil paint but real depth still possible), as in the Isle of Wight clifftop painting below.  Take my word for it, its a bit of the IoW.

So I called into Dockerill’s hardware store and asked for a bag of whiting.  Not stocked anymore they said.  I asked if they could get it from Blanchards, they said Blanchards had not traded for over a decade.  They could sell me half a litre of greenhouse glass paint for just over £6.  I declined the offer.

Gesso is an artists product, so I phoned Cass art suppliers in town.  They stock it in their London shop, but not here.  But Lawrences art supply shop in Hove had 4 bags in stock, and said they would hold one for me, but did not expect a sudden rush of whiting buyers.  Half a kilo cost £3, and a tablespoon from the big bag made enough whitewash to paint the south facing end of the greenhouse.  Turns out that the reason we have lots of snails here on the chalk geology, is because snails need it for their shells.  They like whiting better.

I’ve got plenty of whiting left, so no real problem, but how do they cross the chalky surface to start eating without leaving a trail, and do they throw themselves off the glass when they’ve had enough?

Last Monday Steve and I went for a walk.  Took a bus out of town and climbed the steep north facing slope of the Chalk Downs before descending 5 miles to the sea at Saltdean down the Balsdean valley.  I know most of the valley, but I had never followed it from top to bottom.  Walking back to town along the undercliff walk I noticed that recent heavy rain had caused accumulations of white mud at the foot of the cliffs.  FREE whiting!!

Dry white dusty trails of this eroded chalk powder crossed the path and drained into the sea.  As Steve said, its where whiting met whiting.

If you are not familiar with the mineral name whiting it may be because the British Whiting Federation (formed by the combination in 1943 of the Northern Region Whiting Association and the Southern Region Whiting Association) changed its name in 1989 to the British Calcium Carbonates Federation.  Check out the members and their products on the website.

Two newspaper-inspired pieces

First: The Guardian a couple of weeks ago had a photo of a sheet of Penny Blacks with the heading ‘Black Day for Stanley Gibbons’.  The  item was about the stamp dealer’s sale of itself, and the bad news on its share price when a private equity firm denied any intention to bid for Stanley Gibbons.  Private Equity firms are those groups of millionaires who get together to seek targets for buying, stripping of assets and loading with debt before they move on to another target, having taken all the value.   Generally something they don’t shout about – I mean voracious greed and selfishness is not the way to make friends, but I may be wrong.  This particular Private Equity body calls itself, that is it has decided to be known as, publicly and presumably without shame or guilt: Disruptive Capital.  Wow.

Incidentally does anyone recall the Goodies, or was it early Python, referring to that rarer volume of information for the enthusiast: ‘Stanley Stamps Book of Gibbons’?

Second: Back in 1968 I went to university in Norwich, at the nearly new University of East Anglia.  I spent three years in the delightful ziggurat halls of residence next to the library, with a view across the shallow river valley and reed beds from my window and balcony.  Bloody luxury.  The chair in my study bedroom was a welded wire armchair that was modern and comfortable as well as light and tough.  I am sure they were fairly cheap to buy in bulk.  Today one will set you back over £1220, as this item from a Metro mentions.  We have one on display in Brighton Museum, high on a wall in a display of designer furniture.  Should have stolen one when I had the chance.

 

 

What is the word for ‘Hatred of Trees’?

Last year we suffered from what seemed to be intentional stout boot kicking of tree trunks to loosen bark, followed by the removal of bark strips.  The Council responded by wrapping trees with a tough wire mesh.  I thought the issue had gone, but last Sunday I saw a new example, in East Street, right in the centre of town.  perhaps it is people with near to nothing, who feel abandoned by society, whilst society appears to value trees above them.  The act of slowly kicking a tree to death may make them feel stronger, or powerful.  Perhaps I’m being too lefty liberal.

Day trip to Beachy Head and Eastbourne

We took a bus to Eastbourne, the 13X which goes across the Country Park of Seven Sisters.  Got off at Beachy Head, high on the chalk overlooking the English Channel, and, as we walked east, Eastbourne itself.  Beautiful sunny day kept comfortable by a breeze, but at other times its more than breezy up here:

This hawthorn has spent all its life living with a strong wind from the west.  The plan had been to do some art at the Towner Gallery, but we got distracted by the first pub we saw (The Pilot – well kept Harveys), then found a pub for lunch (burgers and Greene King beers, but good enough) before visiting a huge second hand bookshop where volumes were bought.  At one point I had 4 in my hand – but convinced myself they would be too heavy and just bought one.  On to the Towner:

When we got to the gallery we only had 90 minutes to enjoy Ravilious and Friends, but after a few miles walking, and plenty of food and some beer 90 minutes seemed long enough to be standing and looking.  The four of us caught a bus to Brighton, bought salads and wine, and bused to Strat and Tamsin’s for a leisurely eating and drinking in their garden.  I must have walked home, but to be honest the memory is less than clear.