Margate

Today began, after a breakfast with lots of choice, with a visit to Prittlewell Priory, started by the Cluniac Monks in the 13th Century . There is not much of the original 13th Century building left, just the cellar. Henry VIII destroyed most of the priory, then realised that it was worth something to sell. The Priory changed hands a number of times until the Victorian Scratton family bought it and eventually gave it to the Southend Council for the public to enjoy.

We had a 2 hour (actually a bit more with a number of roadworks), 80 mile or so drive to Margate, where we had booked for the night. As usual, we found something to look at, Tilbury Fort. It defended London’s seaward approach from Tudor times up to the second world war. It’s supposed to be the best example of a 17th century bastioned fort in England. This took a lot longer than we thought it would.

On to the fastest nav sat setting to get to Margate. So many roundabouts, so much merging traffic, so many changes of roads, so much variation of speeds. 70 mph for a long time, then 40 and at times we stopped and this was all on M roads (big blue roads).

We are now at Margate, in our “small hotel” with our grape juice, getting ready to find a pub for dinner. Tomorrow into Canterbury for the day, then Travelodge (at least we could book it at a good rate before we left home) for 2 nights. Tomorrow evening, hopefully catch up with Di, Barry and Co and looking forward to that.

Southend-on-Sea

We back tracked 20 miles from last night’s accommodation to visit the Kelvedon Hatch secret nuclear bunker. If you want to click on the coloured text above, it will take you to the web site. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside unless we paid a fee. On principle, we chose not to. The bunker was very well set up with so many rooms displayed as they would have originally been. The entrance is through a “simple farmhouse” and slopes down slowly to the lowest level. There are 3 floors below the ground, all below the current car park. The bunker would have been impossible to see, especially with vegetation rather than car park. The bunker is encased with concrete 10 feet thick and 100 feet underground. It was built in the 50s, had 3 different uses and was decommissioned and sold in 1992.

After visiting the bunker, we drove to Southend-on-Sea, ready for coffee and an early stop. We found a great little cafe right on the foreshore and coffee was good. We then drove around a little, looking for rooms for the night. After knocking on one door, we tried a 4 star across the road, thinking that it would be expensive. The owner was a smart businessman, he quoted a price, we said that it doesn’t really fit the budget. He had had 2 cancellations so had 2 rooms. He dropped from 79 to 74 to 69 pounds per en-suite room. We couldn’t let it go, so we are here. The rooms are bright, big, very well furnished and the bathrooms are tops.

Just on our way to a nearby pub for dinner. Margate tomorrow night.

Takeley – surely you know where that is.

Our first stop this morning was Audley End house and gardens. This house started as a Benedictine Abbey and, over the time, parts have been demolished and added and the building became a house. Henry VIII gave the house to Sir Thomas Audley, Henry’s Lord Chancellor, as a thank you for helping set the law that allowed Henry to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Thomas’ grandson rebuilt the house on a massive scale between 1603 and 1614. The current interior was decorated in the Jacobean style during the 1820s. There is an impressive amount of decorative timberwork inside the house.

We also went to see the beautiful stables. They were substantially repaired by Sir Christopher Wren when they were in royal ownership in the late 17th century.

We called in to the Epping Ongar Railway. Unfortunately the next train isn’t until Wednesday, but the volunteers told us we were welcome to go onto the station and have a look. This line is the continuation of the tube service to Epping, but not used now as a public section of line.

We didn’t realise just how close to London we were. We spent a while there and just before we left, we had the offer of using their wfi to find a bed for the night. We ended up booking a guest house not far form Stansted airport. Haven’t heard any planes yet.

Kelvedon Hatch bunker tomorrow.

Toddington

We spent the whole day at Bletchley Park and ran out of time. We could have spent many more hours there. There was so much we didn’t see. We’d just walked into the mansion when one of the staff asked if anyone else wanted to go on the tour that was about to start. It was all outside and we thought we’d come back to the mansion. No time. We went into many of the buildings with exhibits, saw a number of enigma machines and the mighty computer, the bombe, which came up with the settings to set in the enigma machine to decode the German messages. It is such a well presented complex, with very informative staff (although with our lack of knowledge, we could have been told almost anything and we’d probably have believed it.) A visit here is a must if you’re in the area. It rained for most of the time, in fact this is the wettest holiday we’ve ever had. No photos today, but hopefully when we connect to our half hour free wifi, we can include some photos from the internet.

We try to avoid Travelodges. There is nothing wrong with them, we know exactly what the room will be like, but they are all sterile and the same with no character but usually good value. Sometimes, when accommodation is hard to find, we do resort to using them. Last night we spent a lot of time ringing around and ended up ringing the Travelodge call centre and booked rooms, about 1 hour from where we were. Tonight we’re also in a Travelodge that we booked, with the help of a barman and the pub’s wifi (pub didn’t have accommodation), not far from where we started looking. We managed to get here a bit after 6pm. It was good to know we had somewhere, Travelodge not withstanding, to be for the night. We’re sitting down now, with our usual glasses of water, relaxing (at least 3 of the 4 of us are, one of is is writing this blog).

Much further away than we wanted to be (Rushden, somewhere north of Bedford)

 

We headed for Bletchley Park but were sidetracked when we saw a National Trust sign to Wimpole Hall and Gardens. There was so much more there than we first realised. We were there before the house (hall) opened so we went for a walk to see the walled garden, then on to the parterre garden, both very attractive. Within the walled garden, there were vegetables growing that will be provided to the onsite restaurant. The hall was built between 1640 and 1686 and had many owners, one of them being Elsie, daughter of Rudyard Kipling. As we love looking at libraries, especially old ones, we were really pleased when we saw the Book Room and Library. There is a collection of about 10,000 books in the 2 rooms. In 2010, there was was extensive water damage to the books caused by heavy snow and downpour. Every page of every book was inspected and repairs to the books were only completed last year.

We got back on track, sort of, but stopped at Sharpenhoe Clappers, an ancient woodland with fantastic views and walked in the nice clean air for about an hour. By then, we had no chance of getting to Bletchley Park.

We started looking for a bed from about 4:30. We thought we’d done very well when we stopped in a village, found a pub with 2 double rooms and booked and paid for them. Lesson well learnt. We didn’t look at the room, assuming that the rooms were ok. When we took our stuff up to the rooms, opened the doors and were stopped in our tracks when we saw that the beds were still unmade from the last occupants, towels were still on the floor and it was obvious that previous occupants took no notice of the no smoking signs. We went back to the bar and told them that we were not happy to stay there and that we’d like a refund. The staff understood and we moved on. We tried other pubs and ended up at a big chain hotel, who also had nothing. Gary & Rick using the hotel’s wifi for 40 mins (when it cut out), we were no closer to finding accommodation. Last resort was to ring the Travelodge central booking to find out the nearest Travelodge with 2 rooms. We ended up booking one about 30 miles away, here at Rushden. We stopped on the way and bought stuff for a room picnic and for breakfast and finally got here just after 8 pm.

Bletchley Park tomorrow and hopefully it will be easier to find beds tomorrow night.

Cambridge again

There is a bus stop across the road from Oakley Lodge, so we took the bus into the centre of Cambridge. The first stop was to the Apple Store, in the shopping centre beside where the bus stopped, for a final attempt to get Gary’s phone working. One redundant phone. Minor consolation was to have a good coffee near by. We were able to get a straight Arabica coffee, not a blended one with Robusta. This seems to be why the coffee is not as good as we want.

We followed the route marked on the map and had a look inside the grounds of some of the colleges, Cambridge being a university town. So many attractive buildings, gardens, lawns and chapels.

 

The big one of course, was King’s Chapel. It was stunning and, while the interior was very ornate, it was still simple. The chapel choir is world famous and we often watch it on TV before Christmas. The chapel is huge, it is as big as some of the cathedrals we’ve seen. We can only assume that a chapel is a private church, in this case part of the private King’s College.

After we left King’s College, we walked through “The Backs”, a narrow park that offers views of the backs of the colleges. One of “the things to do” was to go punting on the river/canal, would have been great if it wasn’t raining as much. The punts go under many nice old bridges.

Back to Oakley Lodge again, so good not having to look for accommodation tonight, especially as it is still raining.

Cambridge

Being out in the sticks last night meant that it was very quiet, no loud trucks or early morning traffic and we had a good night’s sleep  in a big bed.

We spent a couple of hours looking around Stamford, another very attractive town with almost all buildings built of the same colour stone (sandstone I think). Bought a cork screw from an op shop so we could open the wine properly, doesn’t matter now if we buy screw cap bottles or not. Had a look at another Church Conservation Trust church and spent a while talking to the man who repairs/tunes organs. It was interesting to see him disappear through a small opening (what it is to be agile and supple) and end up about 5 metres inside the organ works.

   

Starting to run out of time, so we used a big road to get to Cambridge, actually bypassing Cambridge and going on to another National Trust property. Anglesey Abbey, Gardens and Lode Mill was really impressive. The house was formerly a priory and is Jacobean-style and the property has a 46 ha garden and a working watermill.

“At the age of 30, the future Lord Fairhaven began to create his first home. Wanting to inspire and surprise visitors, he created a spectacular garden with planting for all seasons and a cosy house in which to entertain. Life revolved around horse racing and shooting, and guests enjoyed 1930s luxury”.

We left around 4:00 and once again, the search for accommodation began. We tried a couple of pubs and the receptionist at the last (very expensive) offered to let us use their wifi to try to find somewhere. After many ‘phone calls and internet searching, we found Oakley Lodge. We booked it, set the destination in the sat nav and found that it was only 3 miles from where we were and only a few miles out of Cambridge. When we got there, we checked out the rooms and booked for tomorrow night as well. We can spend the full day in Cambridge tomorrow. There is a bus outside the Oakley Lodge that takes us into town, so we can leave the car here. We asked about laundromats nearby, but were told that we’d get lost finding one and the owner offered to let us use her washing machine. Makes it much easier for us and we’re grateful. Looking out the bay window in Gary & Jan’s room, we can see the fish and chip shop we’re about to buy dinner from “The Codfather”, and the Spar where we’ll buy another bottle of wine from. The one we opened a short while ago is empty. I’m sure that there is a scam going on. The bottle was marked 750ml and looked like 750ml, but must have been 375. No rain today and very mild outside, so we’ll eat in the back garden.

We’ve booked tomorrow night at Oakley Lodge as well. It’ll be nice not to have to move on after only 1 night.