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Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 ENGLAND: LONDON
AND THE COTSWOLDS LONGLEAT HOUSE
Friday, May 20.
We had breakfast
at the Abbey Hotel again, and Lee
was there at 9:00 sharp to pick us
up. This would be the final day of
out private tour. Our first stop
was at Longleat House (1580),
about eight miles away, the seat
of the Marquesses of Bath. The
house was huge, with about 130
rooms. To help maintain it, the Marquess not only was the first in
the UK to open a stately home to
the public commercially (1949),
but he also used the grounds for the
first drive-through safari park
outside Africa (1966). There is
also an adventure park. These
attractions bring in far more
income than do the house tours.
We were offered a chance to join a short guided tour through some "private rooms" in the west wing to see some "unusual art." It was painted by the 7th Marquess before he turned the house over to his son in 2010. We had never heard of the Marquess or his art, but we had two hours to kill, so we accepted the invitation. It was an experience, to say the least.
We must have gone through ten rooms, each
with the walls uniquely painted, bearing no
resemblance to anything else we had
ever seen. They did have in common
that they were not smooth or flat
but rather like low bas relief.
Some of them were mildly
risque'. I understand the art in some of
the rooms we did not see
is pornographic.
The private tour did not take much more than half an hour, so we left the house with a lot more time to kill. Lee joined us and we wandered toward the rear of the house. We discovered what must have been part of the adventure park. We went through a house of mirrors, then into the Bat Cave. The cave was almost completely dark, and we were repeatedly brushed by flying bats. Using my camers viewer, I could just make out a couple bats hanging upside down, one eating fruit. I took a few pictures at random (no flash allowed) and, with a bit of Photoshop enhancement, some bats showed up.
Continuing toward the rear, we came upon a fairly extensive outdoor zoo. We explored that until it was nearly noon. Then we headed back to the front of the house and got there just as the doors opened. It was not a guided tour, but there were placards in each room describing it. Because we were running two hours late, we tried to move along at a brisk pace. Less than 30 of the 120 rooms were included in the tour but it still took us about 90 minutes to get through them.
Fortunately we found a cafeteria in the basement just as we finished our tour. We were able to order a cream tea each. Jane objected when I helped myself to more than one packet of clotted cream, but I had no trouble finishing it. Lee was waiting for us as we emerged about 14:40. AVEBURY It was about an hour's drive to Avebury, our next stop. Like nearby Stonehenge, 17 miles to the south, Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument. It has three stone circles, one of them the largest stone circle in Europe. Although there are many more stones here than at Stonehenge, they are much smaller. Also, there is a village (Avebury) built amidst the stones. The area is not fenced and there is no admission charge. Also unlike Stonehenge, visitors may freely move among the stones and touch them to their hearts' content.
The stone circles are hard to date since the site was developed over a period of centuries, but the stones probably were placed beginning around 2,500 B.C. We roamed among them for half an hour, then wandered through the village and stopped at the small visitors' center. Avebury was a very quiet place and there were few tourists.
HIGHCLERE CASTLE
By now it
was 15:15 and we were feeling the
pressure of time. Avebury normally
would have been the last stop on
our tour, but we had asked Lee to
take us to Highclere Castle, of
Downton Abbey fame. It was only
abut 15 minutes driving time (each
way) from our route back to
London. But being two hours behind
our planned schedule, it would
clearly put us into the Friday
evening rush hour. |
