Claiming my birthright.

Thursday 29th September 2016

So.....today's grand house is Haddon Hall, on the A6 east of Bakewell.  It is the ancestral home of the Vernons!  I think Richard de Vernon was the Lord of the Manor in 1215.  It stayed with a string of Richards, Williams, one Henry and a George till 1565 when George Vernon's only daughter Dorothy eloped with the second son of the Manners family.  This marriage was a mixture of scandal and romance.  The Manners family still own the Hall.

More about the hall later.

We cycled from the site to Bakewell.  Nice little town famous for its tarts.

Answers to ths weeks caption completion please...

Bakewell must be a rough place as there was the biggest police presence I have seen for a small place.

There were nine police vehicles in total and I actually saw police officers walking around the town.  Something must have happened?

Here's the thing.....me and my tart (sorry, Janice) continued to Haddon Hall and really enjoyed it.  

My brother David has told me that the original property for the Vernon family was Shipbrook Castle near Northwich.  That Castle no longer exists and now is an organic farm.  I also have other Vernon houses to visit at Sudbury Hall near Ashbourne and Hanbury Hall at Droitwich Spa.  I am determined to find some family connection to money, power and status although I shouldn't show my motives as that behaviour is unbecoming for a man of my position.

The tapestry was apparently given to the family by Henry VIII, Sir Henry Vernon was a chief adviser to King Henry's brother.

The portrait is Dorothy Vernon, can you see the likeness?

This is the Vernon coat of arms.  Wild Boars feature heavily, that perhaps explains a lot!

This is the Long Hall.

Putting family bias to one side, this was a really interesting visit and I would recommend anyone who is in the area to give it a visit.  The house is really old and the stone floors are well worn.  It feels very authentic and unspoilt.  Of course I told one of the guides my name and I had come to claim my birthright.  She was quite amused and she gave us the full run down of the family at the Hall.

Holiday or Lifestyle dilemma.

Wednesday 28th September 2016

So....here's the thing.....I am still having a problem about whether we are on holiday or this is our new lifestyle.  It manifests itself in various ways, often it is about spending money and always about eating and drinking.  When on holiday we would probably spend money more freely than when we stay home and give ourselves regular treats.  When we have longer travels we can't sustain that level of spending.  Similarly, when on holiday most people treat themselves to meals out most evenings and drinking alcohol most days and sometimes at all times of the day!  I am rather torn between the desire to eat and drink most of the time.  So, far we are trying our best to be moderate with our eating but their has only been one alcohol free day so far. We are very good at making our own food and packing lunch for when we go out.  However, we went to a Lidl supermarket this morning and I was sorely tempted to buy far too much food than a) we could eat in the next 3 days and b) more than we could fit in the fridge and  cupboards of the van.....never mind I will trough my way through it as quick as I can so nothing goes past its sell by date!  

We have moved on today and headed to the Peak District (not a place I have visited very much).  We parked and had lunch on the outskirts of Buxton.  I have been to the spa town before but today the weather was nice and we cycled down into the down and enjoyed its grand buildings.  The Opera House was being well used as a tourist information centre, a cafe and a greenhouse for exotic plants.  The Cresent was unfortunately covered in scaffolding but at least it is being restored to its former glory. Buxton is a bit like Harrogate but on a smaller scale and not the worse for it.  

Our days destination was a Caravan Club site at Chatsworth Park.  On arrival we were told that their had been a problem with my booking.  I had mixed up the dates and was expected to arrive the previous night and therefore my booking had been cancelled when I didn't show up.  The Wardens were very helpful and they still had space for us on the site for two nights.  The advantage of staying at this site is that there is a side gate into Chatsworth Park for nice walks and we get £6 off the £20 entry fee into Chatsworth House, which makes it manageable because it isn't a National Trust property.

Later in the afternoon we walked around the Park but will wait till Friday before we actually visit the house and gardens. 

Not a bad shack!

This is just the Stables.

On the site I met an ex cop called Ray Stephenson from the Furness area.  It was lovely to see him again, he retired 20 years ago.  He still has the gift of the gab.

In the evening we took advantage of the site wi-fi and watched Poldark on the iPlayer and to Janice's delight Ross Poldark took his top off again.

Whoops we forgot the passports.

Tuesday 27th September 2016

So....we continue with our cultural quest to visit National Trust properties.  The weather was better today which meant that we got on our bikes and publicly displayed our matching fluorescent jackets that we purchased from Decathlon yesterday.  I'm not normally in favour of matching clothes but they were good quality and just what we were looking for.

Our aim was to visit Quarry Bank Mill in the morning and Dunham Massey in the afternoon.  Quarry Bank Mill is that place that is signposted when you turn to go to Manchester Airport.  The sat nav told us that Quarry Bank was about 5 miles from where we were staying but that involved motorways.  Our route turned out to be 13 miles on the bikes and although we missed the motorways we did go under the airport runway.

Chocks away, permission for take off!

We had been tempted to take our passports and see where we could end up!  Quarry Bank Mill was bigger than we expected and was quite busy with a school trip.  Nevertheless it has a good assortment of spinning and weaving machinery as well as an old water wheel and steam engines.  The setting was pretty too as the surrounding gardens were lovely.  The mill had been owned by the Greg family who had obviously been involved in the cotton industry before they started making pies!

Nice jacket!

After lunch we cycled around the airport again, seeing the highlights of Wythenshawe (didn't take long) and some nicer places on the fringe of Altrincham.  We arrived at Dunham Massey which is a house that was owned by the Earls of Stafford whose family name was Booth in the 1700's, I believe they made their money in the early supermarket business!  They only had a daughter and she married a Grey (linked to Lady Jane Grey).  The 7th Earl was George Harry and he scandalised the area by taking a second wife who had been a circus performer.  Shock, horror, she was certainly not the right sort of class.  Local gentry rebuffed the wife and as a result the Earl and wife abandoned the house to live in a mansion elsewhere.  I always though those Cheshire folk were society snobs!

Here's the thing....before we left I managed to ask the staff the killer question...."Why is Dunham Massey called Dunham Massey?"  Of course the person I asked didn't know and neither did the person they asked.  They were eventually helped by a volunteer who told us that the area had been called Dunham (but couldn't explain what it meant) and the area had been given to a French nobleman called De Massey who had come across with William the Conqueror and been given the land for his services.  Sounds a bit like the story of Richard De Vernon.....but more of that later.

By the time we got back to the van we had done 30 miles cycling when I thought we might have done about 12 miles, never mind it is all healthy stuff.  We ate a nice Beef Stew made in the slow cooker and helped down with lashings of Lea and Perrins....mmm.

So.....here's the thing!

Sunday 25th September 2016

The title is my comment on modern language trends.  Young people seem to start every statement with 'So....' and when explaining anything they say 'here's the thing'.  If you haven't noticed this previously have a listen to anyone under 30 talking on the media.  I shouldn't complain because it is better than 'whatever' and 'oh my god!" which used to dominate any young persons conversation.

Wel it has been quite a while since I blogged.  I can't believe the last blog was early June when Janice and I came back from our Devon and Cornwall trip.  A few things have occurred since then.  We have had some smaller trips in the van including a weekend at Kendal Caravan Club site where my brother Peter and his family joined us in a camper van and a weekend at Barrowford near Nelson visiting my friend Guy and his wife Yvonne.  However, our most significant trip was to the Cambridge Folk Festival at the end of July.  We had a lovely time in our Morris dancing outfits.  We were festival virgins but thought we might be able to manage a mild mannered type of festival rather than the Glastonbury experience.  We stayed on a small site about 5 miles away and cycled into the festival on a daily basis.

Our current trip was slightly delayed by the purchase of a house for my daughter Rebekah in Salford.  We got her moved in last week and we took the opportunity to get away for about 3 weeks.  We had previously had ideas of going onto the continent th Holland being a likely destination but we scaled the trip back and decided to stay in the UK.

So...... having travelled up and down to Salford several times last week we set off to.......South Manchester.  Here's the thing, we are actually staying in a village called Broomedge, about three miles from Manchester airport but our CL site has a clear view of Manchester and Salford.  It is surprisingly picturesque...honest.

Monday 26th September 2016 - National Treasure.

You will quickly grasp the theme of our current trip.  It will be National Trust properties.  

I recently subscribed to getting the Sunday Times newspaper each week and as part of the deal we got free joint membership of the National Trust.  What a good deal (sorry it's no longer available) as I get the newspaper cheaper than normal and I get the free membership.  I have previously been a member but not for a long time. We fully intend to get good value from out membership and so I will bore you rigid with facts about the properties we visit.  Sorry!  You can unsubscribe now if you wish.

Today has been a rather wet, drizzly day so we unplugged the van and drove to Lyme Park, where the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice was filmed.  On the way we stumbled across a Decathlon store.  We couldn't help but stop and make some sporting clothing purchases.  Great value and very exciting, we got new cycling jackets and an assortment of shorts, tops and leggins.

The front of the Hall.  Do you think there is some resemblance between me and Mr Darcy?

This is what Janice called the 'backside' of the Hall.  Not sure it is correct terminology.

We enjoyed flashing the membership cards and getting in free.  It makes the whole experience so worthwhile.  The Hall was owned by the Legh family since the Tudor period.  They supported the the second Jacobite rebellion but still managed to retain the property despite being out of Royal favour.  We found out that the lining of King Charles I's cloak, on the day of his execution, was taken and used to upholster four chairs in the house.  They later made their money through mining industries and then lost their wealth because mining was nationalised after the Second World War.  The property was then sold to the National Trust and restored.  Very grand it is too.

We have more properties to visit tomorrow....I bet you can't wait!

We had a lovely chicken and tomato pasta 'for us tea' (Manchester vocabulary), well at least that's what I had....Janice had Chicken poivre as she managed to empty the pepper pot by mistake onto her meal.  We are still enjoying the Manchester drizzle this evening.  The forecast is better tomorrow, I think/hope.