It seems to us that England is an unbelievably expensive place to visit, especially for six weeks. Not only is the pound at about $1.67 to the US dollar, but generally prices in pounds are what we would expect to see in dollars. In other words, the lunch that is 10.50 pounds is really almost $17, and that's for something rather ordinary.
Sites that we are interested in visiting are equally expensive. For instance, last week when we were in Kent, Leeds Castle was just about 2-3 miles away from the cottage that we rented. However, the admission would have been about $60 for the two of us. As much as I would have liked to go there, the cost was just prohibitive.
Leeds is perhaps on the upper end of admission prices, but other sites can get pricey too, especially when parking is added to the cost.
How to survive financially and still see a lot of architecture, art and music? Well, in London, we took great advantage of the Royal Academy of Music for some very good concerts and, of course, the major museums are free (including the Tate, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, etc).
To see castles, manor houses and other national treasures, we bought the American version of the National Trust membership. For Yanks, its called The Royal Oak Foundation, and it has paid for itself after only about 3 or 4 sites, and gives us free parking. With these membership cards in hand, we feel as though we can go to any participating sites (about 350 of them) without a thought about dwindling our cash supply.
Our first manor house was actually a place to spend some time while waiting for our cottage to be available. Called Ightham Mote, it was (like a lot of these old houses) built in stages, starting at around the 14th century.
With five more weeks to go, and just beginning our castle tour, I managed to lose my membership card. I thought for sure that I would then have to start paying for each admission and I would be restricted about where I could go. Oh, how I love the internet. I contacted the organization and they emailed back with a temporary replacement card. What a relief.
My temporary card is now getting well used, as we went the following day to a positively huge manor house called Petworth House. This house is on the magnitude of Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey fans).
This house, also built in stages, was the home of Harry Percy who really tried to take the crown away from Henry IV. Yes, the very story that Shakespeare told in his Henry IV Part I and Part II. He failed and amazingly his family was allowed to live in this magnificent house, which they did for roughly 600 years off and on. In between it was usurped by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, then back to the family again.
We also went to Sissinghurst Castle, home of Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicholson, both writers.
To the tell the truth, I had never heard of Nicholson and I am not really familiar with the life and times of Sackville-West, but that there was something scandalous about her. For some reason, I thought that she had something to do with the Gertrude Stein crowd in Paris. I was obviously mistaken. Sackville-West was evidently the better known of the pair. She came from a very wealthy family who owned a Highclere type house of their own.
Since the hereditary laws of England prevented her from inheriting the estate, she and Harold bought a smaller one nearby. The great house is no longer standing and overall I thought that the site was only moderately interesting. I probably would have been enthralled if I were a fan of the writers.
Being Americans, we are somewhat hampered by not understanding English popular culture. For instance we visited this really lovely old house, Scotney Castle.
I really liked this house a lot, probably because it was so livable. And, in fact, it was lived in until fairly recently (well, recently is a relative term, but considering the scope of time that most of the places have been in existence, it was "recently"). The last owners were also a literary couple, though of a different sort. The last private owner was Christopher Hussey (who inherited it) and his wife Elizabeth. He was apparently very famous as the editor of Country Life Magazine, which is known to people in England but totally lost on us. I'm guessing that he had the name recognition and social standing of, say, Anna Wintour or Tina Brown.
They used this house as the quintessential weekend country home and lived the rest of the time in London. This is my favorite house so far. It even has it's own 14th century castle which had been occupied until the early 1800's when the "new house" was built, at which time the owner of the moment purposely had the castle partially ruined so that it would become a "folly". Follies are those architectural delights (some would say "eyesores") set out apart from the main house whose sole purpose is to be looked at. In this photo, you can see the part of the original castle -- on the right -- that was ruined.
And, of course, it had its own moat.
By sharp contrast to these large to overwhelmingly huge houses and/or castles, we also visited a National Trust property that was rather humble. It happened to be just about four or five miles from our cottage, so it made a good place to visit as we were leaving Kent for our next week.
This was Stoneacre Cottage. It was no doubt rather fancy for the time that it was built, but by today's standards, it is simply a bit larger than a modern house.
It was Jacobean in the interior design and had a massive fireplace, which was lit and providing much appreciated warmth when we were there.
This house is one of the smaller properties and the amenities were in proportion. Normally, the National Trust properties have a sizable gift shop, a good sized tea shop and rest room facilities. The caretakers and other employees often live in the servant quarters of the estate. At Stoneacre, there was one youngish couple who were the live-in caretakers and the wife baked the sumptuous sweets for tea. They were, by far, the best that we have had. Tea was served in their kitchen.
My blog title this time? House of Broken Dreams, because all of these houses and castles were built with great dreams of hope, wealth, often political strength/supremacy. But, in the end, all of them ended in the disappointment of the family not being able to maintain them.
Follow Downton Abbey for a personalized rendition of the failure of these great houses. The lands became independent, no longer tenancies providing rent; inheritance taxes initiated in 1899 crippled the financial standing of families; and finally, the Great War decimated the service staff. Young men left service to join the war effort. If they survived and came back, suddenly they wanted something different than a further life of servitude. The fabric of the upper class was also changed. The younger family members no longer felt the need to follow in the footsteps of the previous generation(s). Raised hemlines, short haircuts and private automobiles were just the outward signs of a cultural revolution taking place.
House of Broken Dreams indeed.
Since the hereditary laws of England prevented her from inheriting the estate, she and Harold bought a smaller one nearby. The great house is no longer standing and overall I thought that the site was only moderately interesting. I probably would have been enthralled if I were a fan of the writers.
Being Americans, we are somewhat hampered by not understanding English popular culture. For instance we visited this really lovely old house, Scotney Castle.
I really liked this house a lot, probably because it was so livable. And, in fact, it was lived in until fairly recently (well, recently is a relative term, but considering the scope of time that most of the places have been in existence, it was "recently"). The last owners were also a literary couple, though of a different sort. The last private owner was Christopher Hussey (who inherited it) and his wife Elizabeth. He was apparently very famous as the editor of Country Life Magazine, which is known to people in England but totally lost on us. I'm guessing that he had the name recognition and social standing of, say, Anna Wintour or Tina Brown.
They used this house as the quintessential weekend country home and lived the rest of the time in London. This is my favorite house so far. It even has it's own 14th century castle which had been occupied until the early 1800's when the "new house" was built, at which time the owner of the moment purposely had the castle partially ruined so that it would become a "folly". Follies are those architectural delights (some would say "eyesores") set out apart from the main house whose sole purpose is to be looked at. In this photo, you can see the part of the original castle -- on the right -- that was ruined.
And, of course, it had its own moat.
By sharp contrast to these large to overwhelmingly huge houses and/or castles, we also visited a National Trust property that was rather humble. It happened to be just about four or five miles from our cottage, so it made a good place to visit as we were leaving Kent for our next week.
This was Stoneacre Cottage. It was no doubt rather fancy for the time that it was built, but by today's standards, it is simply a bit larger than a modern house.
It was Jacobean in the interior design and had a massive fireplace, which was lit and providing much appreciated warmth when we were there.
This house is one of the smaller properties and the amenities were in proportion. Normally, the National Trust properties have a sizable gift shop, a good sized tea shop and rest room facilities. The caretakers and other employees often live in the servant quarters of the estate. At Stoneacre, there was one youngish couple who were the live-in caretakers and the wife baked the sumptuous sweets for tea. They were, by far, the best that we have had. Tea was served in their kitchen.
My blog title this time? House of Broken Dreams, because all of these houses and castles were built with great dreams of hope, wealth, often political strength/supremacy. But, in the end, all of them ended in the disappointment of the family not being able to maintain them.
Follow Downton Abbey for a personalized rendition of the failure of these great houses. The lands became independent, no longer tenancies providing rent; inheritance taxes initiated in 1899 crippled the financial standing of families; and finally, the Great War decimated the service staff. Young men left service to join the war effort. If they survived and came back, suddenly they wanted something different than a further life of servitude. The fabric of the upper class was also changed. The younger family members no longer felt the need to follow in the footsteps of the previous generation(s). Raised hemlines, short haircuts and private automobiles were just the outward signs of a cultural revolution taking place.
House of Broken Dreams indeed.
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