April 26: Sudely Castle, Belas Knap, Hailles Abbey, and Alanna

On a beautiful spring day, we explored the countryside and enjoyed being together! 

Kathleen drove us straight to Sudeley Castle, first on our local highway (two wide lanes, except where we get to a town and they become one and a half lanes, with parked cars bringing it to half a lane); then on a named “Road” (Tewkesbury Road, Worcester Road, etc.) of two narrow lanes; then on an unnamed road of a single lane with “pullovers”; then back up the chain on the way back.  At one point, the Garmin directed Kathleen down "Gravel Walk", which turned out to be, in fact, a gravel walkway.  With aplomb, Kathleen maneuvered our huge car, a Kia Sportage, into one of the few remaining spaces on the field, as the castle was hosting a garden show this weekend.  I longed to go, but wouldn't be allowed to take anything home with me anyway, so we went straight to the castle.

We had a fabulous garden to explore, since Sudeley is situated in the middle of one of the best gardens in England, as the awards posted here and there let us know.  The castle has an amazing history, since it was built for the third time in the 12^th Century, after The Anarchy, when the de Sudeley’s sided with the wrong side.  The original castle was Saxon, and Sir Harold was only allowed to keep it after the Norman Conquest because he married one of the Conqueror’s great-nieces.   The castle was destroyed and rebuilt time and again, and was owned by Richard III during the Wars of the Roses.  Later, it belonged to Katherine Parr, the widow of Henry VIII, and she is buried in the chapel here, the only queen or king of England to be buried in a private home.  The castle had a glorious past, with Elizabeth I staying here on progress to celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada, but also had its share of hard times.  During the Twentieth Century, the castle lost the heirs wars, lost huge amounts in death taxes, and was reduced to only 10% of the estates it had held before.  Now the family are only able to maintain the castle by opening it and the gardens to the public.  This made me feel better, as it was a pretty steep entry fee, but we agreed it was worth it.   

A small piece of the tithing barn.  It must have been tremendous!

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A knot garden

Fish in the medieval fish pool.

We spent a couple of hours going over the castle and the gardens.  We saw the most exotic commode you have ever seen, with a silk cushion, and silk hangings, and Kathleen’s only comment was, “How would you clean it?”  There were many treasures in the castle, including a despatch box owned by Charles II, and amazing textiles.  In the chapel a small but excellent choir was rehearsing, and they say “Praise, my Soul, the King of Heaven” which is the hymn I walked down the aisle to, thirty-six years ago!  Another highlight was the pheasant enclosure.  The current owners have an interest in pheasants, exotic and local, and we saw some of the most amazing birds you can imagine, including one Kathleen dubbed “Disco Bird”.

This castle (Richard III era) was destroyed in the Civil War, when it ws ordered "scourged" and had its roof removed.

Tomb of Katherine Parr

Kathleen's disco buddy.

Our trip down the country roads would have been faster if we hadn’t kept stopping for pictures.  Everyone has been warning us that we are in for a rainy week, and certainly there have been showers, but the sun burst through the clouds in the afternoon, and the countryside was glorious.  I felt at times that I was in Midsomer Murders without the high death count.

Studeley Castle as seen from the path to the long barrow.

Our next stop was Belas Knap Long Barrow, a Paleolithic tomb complex, which like all long barrows, is at the top of a hill.  The hike up is about a mile and a half, first through a wood, and then around the edges of a field of sheep.  There were little lambs and their mothers everywhere, which were so interesting we kept stopping to take pictures.  This was probably a good thing, as the path was very steep, and we could catch our breath!

Belas Knap is a fairly complete tomb, as it had been buried over by the Romans who built their villa not far away, and didn't want to be bothered by ghosts.  One area was a “false entrance” with what they called a portico for ceremonies, and there were three other entrances as well.  We crawled into them all, and climbed on top for good measure, and generally enjoyed the perfect weather.

The bluebells are out!

We went along the ridges of hills on our way to Hailles Abbey, stopping to take pictures of the hill opposite, where we had just been, and anything else that took our fancy, and also to open and close cattle gates, and to avoid pheasants and rabbits and sheep on the road, and singing too loudly to hear the Garmin . . .  this explains why we arrived at Hailles about 20 minutes after it closed!  We took some pictures from the public right of way next to the Abbey (another sheep field) and decided we would have an “early” dinner.

We had planned to go to Chipping Camden, which was voted the most beautiful village in England, to a well-reviewed pub.  While we had no trouble getting there, the pub was closed, as many pubs are on Sunday evenings.  We drove to another lovely town, and found the same thing.  In despair, not to mention very hungry, we set the Garmin for home, and resigned ourselves to sandwiches from the gas station.  Luckily for us, Clive, our host, told us about a Carvery, which is a restaurant that sells different roasts, and a buffet of side dishes.  We all ate as much as we could stand to, AND had dessert, which was a nice thing since this was our last evening with Alanna for a year.  Tomorrow we drop her off for the bus just before 8:00.

Kathleen and I are dithering about what to do tomorrow.  With an early start, we were thinking that maybe one of our longer days (Wales?  Oxford?) would be a good idea, but then there is still so much nearby, and we haven’t had time to plan a route or anything, so right now we are leaning toward Gloucester and some more local sites.  Heaven knows there are a lot of them! 

It Is going to be hard to pick a few pictures, but here is my best attempt.