The complete tour through the grounds and castle was quite expensive and wouldn’t have matched well with our schedule, so we opted for the ticket that would let us wander about the magnificent grounds and view the interesting exhibits.
The grounds featured informal gardens, heirloom vegetable gardens, amazing formal gardens, amusing and quirky contemporary sculpture, pheasants of all varieties, beautiful views out over the countryside, and the chapel where lies Katherine Parr, final wife of Henry VIII. Remember, ‘divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived!’ After Henry’s death she married the master of Sudeley and lived there for a few years till her death at age 37 from complications of childbirth.
The exhibits included relics found on the grounds dating as far back as Roman times, information on Henry VIII, all six wives, and other personalities of the day, and quite a bit on Emma Dent, the fascinating mistress of the house for many years who seemed to be a regular correspondent with just about everybody who was anybody during the Victorian era, a prolific diary keeper, and a committed walker who logged over 1000 miles a year as recorded on her trusty pedometer and documented in her diary.
By the time we finished at Sudeley it was definitely lunch time. We drove a few miles to the Rising Sun hotel and restaurant on the edge of Cleeve Hill, overlooking a sweeping view of the northern parts of Cheltenham, the valley to the west, and the start of the Malvern Hills and the hills of South Wales. Delightful lunch! Quality, creativity, and presentation have come a long way since the bad old days of British cooking.
A brief walk after lunch gave us the chance to take in more of the view. Interesting observations included a gorgeous con trail extending over at least half the sky, a bird hovering absolutely motionless over the hillside, and a glider apparently launched from Cleeve Hill and starting its descent into the valley.
View from Cleeve Hill of the Cheltenham valley, the Malvern Hills and Wales in the distance
We then continued down into Cheltenham. By then some of the schools were letting out, so we saw lots of children in their distinctive uniforms. We parked near our former house and gave Aimée and Steve a tour of the neighborhood, including the magnificent Pittville Park and Pump Room across the street. The Pump Room is a building where one came in the 1700s to sip the healthful sulfurous waters. It’s now used largely for events, receptions, and the like. All looked as we had remembered it, except that our former landlord certainly keeps his hedges trimmed a lot more neatly than we ever did, and the tree in the front garden had sure gotten a lot bigger.
Next we drove past Berkhampstead School, which both Karin and Sarah had attended as small children. Uniforms were still very much the same as then, except that the girls were now allowed to wear trousers. That used to be reserved for very cold weather and wasn’t really a part of the uniform anyway but a concession to necessity. Considering how school uniforms get passed down or recycled through the resale shops, we wouldn’t have been surprised if some of the uniforms we saw were indeed the same ones that existed during our time here! A new feature at Berkhampstead was a pair of small school buses, a likely recognition of the fact that many of the Mums who used to ferry the kids to school were now working and not available for taxi service. But there were still a lot of Mums gathered around.
A quick drive past Bruce’s former work place, now partially converted to commercial uses, and we were on the London Road, heading out of town. More school kids in uniforms. Drove a few miles to Northleach. It’s also long and strung out like Winchcombe, and like Winchcombe it became quite wealthy as a center of the wool trade centuries earlier. When we lived in England in the early 80s, the main road to London ran right through the town. It was a terrible bottleneck, but Northleach has become calm again with the construction of a bypass.
Love that golden British sunshine!
We looked through the church, wandered the back streets, chatted with various dogs and cats in the neighborhood, bought a few postcards and a snack. Steve left the postcards on the counter at the shop where we got the snacks, but fortunately as we were sitting in our car checking the map a woman came up to us and let us know about it. Everybody is so nice!
By then it was almost 4 o’clock and we had to decide whether to go to the rather well known Cotswold villages to the north (Swells, Slaughters, Stow on the Wold, Bourton on the Water, Mud in the Road (not really, but we did see that sign quite frequently!), Chipping Camden, Broadway, etc.) or the lesser known ones to the south. All are lovely! We opted for the latter, partly in anticipation of the opportunity to drive the car through a brook at the fords in a series of tiny villages called the Duntisbournes—Middle Duntisbourne, Duntisbourne Abbots, and Duntisbourne Leer. Sue Anne had been there before with a friend, Bruce only knew of the villages from signs out on the main road, and it was a brand new adventure for Aimée and Steve.
It was only a short drive from Northleach: down the Fosse Way Roman road, past the Fosse Bridge Inn which had been a treat dinner location for us in the past, along one of the longest and most beautifully constructed stone walls in the world, to the outskirts of Cirencester (Corinium in Roman times). Then a quick jog back north on another Roman road (Ermin Street, now the A417) brought us to the turnoff for the Duntisbournes.
It was a different world once we made that turn. The country roads were incredibly narrow—one car wide, and even that was tight! No room whatever to pass or turn around. The driving ethic was that you had to keep a mental record of the locations of the occasional wide spots in case you did encounter an oncoming car, so you knew whether it would be practical for you to back up or whether you had to hope that the other car would do so voluntarily. Fortunately we met only one car, occupied by teenagers, and they quickly volunteered to be the ones to back up. We exchanged happy waves with them as we drove by. There were also a lot of pheasants on the road. Most quickly volunteered to be the ones to move out of the way, though one certainly acted for quite some time as if she thought she could outrun us.
We negotiated two fords, each perhaps about 6 to 10 feet wide and no more than 6 inches or so deep, turning around and coming back through each in order to find all three of the villages.
Sue Anne was anxious to find Duntisbourne Leer, which has a long ford where the roadbed and the streambed are one and the same for a few hundred feet. Asking a local woman produced the answer that it was that road over there with the ‘Unsuitable For Motor Vehicles’ sign on it. And that we really shouldn’t try it. So we decided to start with reconnaissance on foot. A couple of local guys egged us on, and with the right vehicle (such as a Subaru Forester) we might just have tried. But the concept of explaining things to the rental car company, plus the size of a few rocks we could see in the water as we strolled along side on the path, was enough to make us think better of the idea. One of the guys said that they have been having problems with large trucks (‘lorries’ or Heavy Goods Vehicles—HGVs) navigating through the area by GPS (‘Sat Nav’ in British), unaware of what they’re getting into. A few got stuck at the smaller fords, and one actually went down the long ford and got trapped between the stone walls on each side. You can find lots of pictures and articles about this problem if you search for Sat Nav on Google and Google Images.
Yes, that’s the road! Imagine a lorry going through there.
You can read more about the fords at the Duntisbournes (and indeed about all 1803 documented fords in the entire UK if you wish!) at the site www.wetroads.co.uk. Click Gloucestershire to get to the page containing the Duntisbournes. Yes, there’s a Web site for people interested in just about anything!
As for the HGVs, we just read in the local Gloucestershire Echo that there is a proposal afoot to ban them from all minor Cotswold roads except for local deliveries.
We found our way out of the Duntisbournes without incident, enjoying the sweeping views along the way. On to the fast road that led to the M5 motorway near Gloucester, and back to Ledbury. Aimée and Steve had thought of attending a play in town tonight, but they found the theater unexplainedly dark. (Later: We learned that it was canceled ‘due to injuries.’) So we decided on a light supper followed by a super treat dessert of Pavlova, a meringue ring topped with strawberries and cream and accompanied by a bottle of red wine. It’s the final supper in our cottage, as we’re planning on eating at the pub tomorrow night.
Pavlova!
Tomorrow we start with a Bake and Craft sale at the local church hall and a bit more wandering and shopping in Ledbury. Then to Cheltenham for lunch with the Shortells (see Tuesday’s blog) and afternoon drinks and snacks with our former neighbor Sheila Taylor. Then it will be time to pack and get ready for the trip back home. We fly out of Manchester at 11 on Saturday, so it will be an early departure from Ledbury for us. Arrive in Chicago at 1:20 PM, say good bye to Aimée and Steve, and finally get back to Manchester, NH at about 8.
So this will be the final entry in the blog till we get home, as there won’t be any chance to post anything after tomorrow morning. Aimée promises to write up their trip to London real soon, and Sue Anne and Bruce will wrap up the final two days after we’re settled at home. Then we’ll go back through the whole blog, clean things up where needed, add further information or background links, and insert pictures, videos, and the pen and ink drawings that Sue Anne has been doing for the whole time we’ve been here. We’ll let you know as these things progress.
Thursday - October 16
