Hiking Hadrian's Wall

Looking back toward Housesteads along Hadrian's Wall

Years ago, I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine about hiking Hadrian’s Wall, and while I am not typically a mad hiker, the images and the idea lingered.*

Since England can’t seem to shake its heat wave this summer, going north sounded…cool. Refreshing. Hadrian’s Wall promised lilting breezes and a spring-like clime…Also, walking for miles along a rock wall in the north of England in rural splendor and solitude sounded very appealing after suffering the hordes of tourists besieging every corner of Oxford. Sadly, I am not a meteorologist. But I boarded the 6 am train in Oxford well-prepared for the four-hour journey to Carlisle - ah, the best laid plans of mice and men!

A little back story on Hadrian’s Wall: on the northern edge of their British territory, the Romans built an 84-mile long wall to separate their holdings from the “barbarians” (that is, Scotland) - the wall (and accompanying forts) were a visible presence of the power of the Roman Empire. The Emperor Hadrian visited Britain in AD122; this date is presumably when construction on the wall began. The construction of the wall is fairly impressive, but its beginning ties in with the end of the Roman Empire.

Depending on where the wall was built, the materials and methods varied. In most sections, the wall was built of stone, but in some areas, it was constructed with turf. The turf sections had wooden palisades and walkways on top. The height and width of the wall wasn't consistent either. In the mid-19th century, the wall, many sections of which were still standing, began to be cleared, rebuilt and reclaimed. Large swaths of the wall were purchased with the intent to keep it intact, as over the years, dismantling of the wall provided building materials for locals.  In 1987, Hadrian's Wall became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The walk I chose (with my one afternoon there before a mad dash to York) was the 7.5 mile "Once Brewed, Roman Vindolanda and Housesteads'" walk, evaluated as "strenuous." The main reason for going with this walk is that it allowed me to see two of the best museums along the Wall, AND it ended at my pub/inn.
 Though there wasn't any post-pint hiking like in the Lake District (the heat spell put an end to those thoughts) it was nothing short of miraculous to fall into my steak pie and pint after I finished...because while I wouldn't say it was a hard hike, there was a lot of steep ups and downs to it...

Heading toward Vinolanda (along the Stanegate Road)

Vindolanda, a Roman fort south of Hadrian's Wall. At least 8 forts have been on this site -some from before the wall. The fort guarded the Stanegate Road, a Roman road that run from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth (part of the Irish Sea).

Vindolanda is an on-going archaeological excavation that draws people from around the world. The Vindolanda writing tablets, discovered in 1973, are fascinating hand-written (on wooden tablets)accounts of life there - mundane articles of life, like requests
for socks and underwear, and invitations to parties.

While Vindolanda is not actually on the wall, Housesteads Roman Fort is - and the setting is magnificent. Vindolanda has an incredible collection and museum, but for an atmospheric ambiance, Housesteads is the better choice.

One of the really cool things was the different ways in which the Roman forts have been used - adaptive reuse is a human condition, not a historic preservation initiative.

Steps leading into fort at Housesteads

Dramatic sky and outline of the fort at Housesteads.

How can you get any better than this?

My only problem now is how to figure out the financing for a week or two at both Hadrian's Wall and the Lake District - a holiday cottage rental, perhaps some wild swimming, delicious hearty meals every night - and of course, lots of magnificent and sublime scenery.



*(I happen to be too much of a practical farmer’s daughter, you see – when your livelihood consists of working outside in all kinds of weather, it just doesn't make sense to spend your free time tromping about outside. Our idea of a vacation is doing nothing at the beach.)

Henry VIII, Jane Austen and Glam Rock Artists

My travels about the English countryside have provided an unparalleled opportunity to see entrancing landscapes, incredible architecture, meet wonderful people, and inevitably, to be stranded after missing yet another bus. So it was with some optimistic cheer I planned an easy, relaxing jaunt on a warm Sunday afternoon to the Vyne near Oxford with my fellow companions from Stable Close. I figured with the three of us, we could work out all potential travel kinks...and someone would drag me from my daydreaming so I wouldn't add yet another site to my list of places across England where I have been trapped after closing time. Our chosen destination was close to home, but also full of interesting connections - I read Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall shortly before crossing the pond and my head danced with fun facts about Henry VIII and his many wives -  a communal affection for all things Jane Austen (and Colin Firth) also played into trip planning. 

This 16^th century house, described by the National Trust as a “Tudor palace turned family home” originally belonged to Lord Sandys, Henry VIII’s Lord Chamberlain. (Although the office of Lord Chamberlain was a political one – that is, it wasn't hereditary – the person holding it was responsible for the Royal Household, not state and political matters. Sandys was essentially a party planner.)

Another National Trust site, the property is located between the village of Bramley and 
the village of Sherborne St. John. This is the north elevation - 
the portico underneath the scaffolding
 was designed by a pupil of Inigo Jones. 

Not yet the gouty and enormous monarch of his later reign, Henry visited the house once with his first wife (Catherine of Aragon), and was twice accompanied by second wife Anne Boleyn. (A sad footnote to this visit: Lord Sandys was in charge of taking Anne Boleyn to the Tower of London prior to her execution. I wonder how awkward that journey was?)

Much after the divorce, beheading and death of most of Henry’s wives, Jane Austen figures in the Vyne's history. Her nephew, James Austen, was vicar of Sherborne St. John, and she visited him several times. In 1653, a barrister named Chaloner Chute brought the property and tore about half of the Tudor house down.

James Austen was apparently good friends with the Chute family, and Jane and her sister Cassandra attended many dances at the house. Given the comparative grandeur of the house and grounds, as well as the lure of the Stone Gallery (full of stone statuary and sculptures collected by one of the Chute boys on his Grand Tour and a tourist attraction in the 18th century)  and the Oak Gallery (one of the earliest examples of a long gallery in England) - I can only imagine Jane Austen taking mental notes and observing the foibles of society around her - all in all, probably yet another source of inspiration for her novels. (I was greatly inspired by the art installation at the house. And I mean that only slightly facetiously. More on that later.) 

Located in Hampshire, the Vyne is only about 45 minutes from Oxford, which of course necessitated taking the train to Reading and switching to another (un-air-conditioned) train to the village of Bramley. Before we left Oxford, we arranged for a taxi to pick us up in Bramley, and felt quite smug in our trip planning…until we got to Bramley and realized the taxi was in the nearby town of Basingstoke. 

The train will only get you so far.

The beauty of English villages, however, is the local pub, where one can quaff a bitter and wash away the sting of thwarted travel plans. Thank you good people of Bramley…and thanks to the other taxi that came and fetched us.

The Bramley offered some beer and cider, and more conversations about why the British love California. 

The best part of Vyne – and the most vexing as well – is the hodgepodge of architectural periods, which makes a walk through the house also a stroll through different centuries of construction. This is not an unknown experience to me, but I rarely encounter a building with more than three centuries represented. For a house begun around 1520, the Vyne exemplifies the process of accretion. The orientation of the house changed, depending on the time period, interiors evolved at a rapid pace, yet the house flows together in a not unsettled manner. 

The Vyne in the first decade or so of the 20th century.
During World War II, the house was occupied by a boys school, Tormore School, evacuated from East Kent.

The Palladian Staircase Hall, designed in the 18th century by 
then owner John Chaloner Chute, a friend of Horace Walpole. 

The interior is really amazing - lots of linenfold paneling. 

Ante Chapel

The layers of changes to the house over the years (which I like: history is not static.) meant that the function of certain rooms shifted dramatically from one generation to the next. (Especially, I imagine, when it was a boys school!) Take the room at the left - nice room, right? This space was originally the "ante chapel" leading as it did into the highly detailed Tudor Chapel built to celebrate Henry VIII and his Queen, Catherine of Aragon. The household would have witnessed mass from this room, while members of the family wold have been in the chapel proper, or in the gallery above. By the mid-19th century, the room was used as a storage room for coal and wood, and also contained a toilet.

The south elevation of the Vyne.

One of the things I have to applaud the National Trust for is their willingness to entertain multiple uses of a historic property, rather than just presenting a staid house museum. During our visit, there was an art installation Unravelling the Vyne  that presented a different interpretation of a facet of the history of the house in each room. Ten artists tackled different themes - like the acorns, symbol of Catherine of Aragon, being swept under the rug in one room - or the pop-up books and paper dolls found in the library (celebrating a legacy of books) - but...the greatest piece, by far, was "An Exquisite Diversion." 

Take the tradition of rich young men going off on the Grand Tour of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries..combine that privileged and hedonistic experience with Glam Rock, and you get a video inside a small room at the Vyne, portraying all sorts of role-playing, gender bending and sexual exploits. If I could find it on YouTube, it would be posted here.No sound, just lots of scenes shot in the house, rife with innuendo  - and the conversation I had with a random guy watching at the same time was hysterical as we both tried to guess what the soundtrack to the air guitar riff might possibly be.....(I went with Queen)

And joy of joys, despite our small mishap upon arrival, the merry band made it back to Oxford without any further mishaps! Sadly, there was no Colin Firth sighting at the Vyne, and the giant statue at Hyde Park went before I could make it to London to see it...

The Summerhouse, built in the mid-16th century, with one of the first neo-classical domes in England.
First used as a folly of sorts for taking tea, it was later transformed into a dovecote. 

A Village Tour (or, how I know nothing about medieval architecture)

Much more learned individuals than me have voiced the idiom that one is always learning, and the condition of that journey is the continual discovery of how very little you actually know. And I know next to nothing about medieval houses, which is fairly understandable given that the most historic of our architecture is late 18^th century. My experience with the architecture of England is limited to country houses and palaces from the 17^th to the 19^th centuries, and while I certainly don’t shun those examples of the architecture of RDWM (rich dead white men), don't exactly illustrate the lives of the average population.

My first foray into examining medieval buildings was in the village of Chalgrove, which is about 10 miles southeast of Oxford in South Oxfordshire. 

Chalgrove is full of charming timber-frame houses, many from the 16th century.

 Thatched roof fever. 

Archaeological digs have confirmed several Roman sites around the village. In 2003, a guy using a metal detector (i.e., not a professional archaeologist – but England does seem to have a better system for recording finds made by amateurs than we do in the States) found a buried horde of coins that included a silver coin cast by the Roman Emperor Domitianus…only the second coin found in the world with his image and name. Before the Chalgrove coin was found, most professionals thought he was a “conjectural figure.” Even if he wasn’t a myth, the poor guy was apparently only emperor for a few weeks.

(The hord is at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford - definitely worth a visit if you are in town. Not only is it the oldest museum in Britain, with very cool exhibits - but it has some fabulous air conditioning.)

Chalgrove was a Saxon manor in 1086, held by Thorkell, Sheriff of Warwickshire. (such nice guttural names) By 1233, it had been divided into two manors, one held by John de Plessis, and one by Drew Barentin. The village’s proximity to Oxford meant the land attracted the attention of the colleges, and both manors (around 1,100 acres) were owned by Magdalen College by 1507 – an ownership that lasted until 1942.

 I know this is a lot of back story, but imagine trying to take it all in and relate it to the house around you, whilst balancing a teacup and saucer on your lap, a book in your hand, and an attentive smile on your face – AND ignoring the flaming sensation of stinging nettles on your shins. It is much easier to read this while seated comfortably in front of a computer….

Chalgrove Manor. The far-right front-gable section is the earliest.

Which brings me to the point: that first manor, held by John de Plessis, was the site of my tea-balancing act – although the actual timber-frame house post-dates de Plessis. Built in three stages, the first part of the house dates from around 1444-1468 and was possibly part of an earlier building that is no longer extant. The middle section of the house was the hall, which dates from 1488. The last section is the south wing, with a “felling date” of 1503-1505. (The British are way into dendrochronology)

The rear elevation of the manor house.

The interior of the first part of the Manor. 

The current entry hall, with the uncovered oak screen
 that was covered up by modern walling materials.
Tree-ring dating puts it at around 1240, meaning it
may have been moved from an earlier house. 

Interior of the hall, which originally had an open central hearth and no ceiling. The original arch-braced collar roof is visible in what is now the attic. 

Painted panels, meant to look like wood grain, are located in the circa 1505 parlor (at the south end of the house).
These panels were uncovered in 1985.

Across the road from the Manor, on Chalgrove Brook, is the mill and millhouse. The Domesday Book records five mills on that stream in 1086. (see? 1086? Domesday Book? There is no hope for me.) The mill house dates from the 17^th century, though it’s had lots of changes. The brick mill wing dates from the 1870s with an attached modern frame addition housing the actual mill wheel. 

The mill and millhouse (the millhouse is the middle section).
The mill conveniently has its construction date laid in brick on the side.

The facade of the mill.

The mill wheel. 

The interior of the mill house (which was not accessible). 

In addition to these two sites, I got to tour an original timber frame barn next to the Manor, which dates from the 17th century. What we call an "adaptive reuse" project the English call a conversion - and this project was fairly spectacular. 

Some of the framing of the former barn.

 

The road side of the converted barn.

The rear elevation.

All bathrooms should be like this.

And to not end this post on a toilet-like note, the gardens of the Manor House:

Sieges, marble and bats: the upper crust of Dorset

The curtailment of my wanderings owes greatly to my lack of a car (also, the lack of funds to rent a car, or the most preferred option, a driver and a car. The latter scenario also involves bonbons, champagne and the eventual purchase of my own country house - in other words - a fantasy.), but also the very real challenges of public transportation in rural England.

This conclusion springs not just from the occasions where I have found myself wondering if I can walk nine miles along a highway to the nearest population center, but numerous conversations with the inhabitants of far-flung rural villages and hamlets. “Oh, it’s a lovely place to live – if you have a car,” is one of the most common refrains I have heard in the last two weeks. Bus schedules tend to be erratic (to say nothing of the drivers, their dispositions and driving habits), the stops tucked away down veritable rabbit’s holes, and I tumble about like Alice on my quest to see as much of the architecture and landscape as I can…rail pass firmly in hand.

I’ll let that serve as the introduction to my trip to Kingston Lacey, a very large and striking 17^th-century pile in Dorset, which is southwest of Oxford. 

Only about two hours by train...

Kingston Lacey - the north facade, which became the main entrance in the 1830s. 

After my adventures at Wimpole, I decided to choose a site directly served by a bus, even if it meant several changes along the route. I boarded the train with 3,000 other people in Oxford, most of them scantily clad and not an ounce of sunscreen anywhere on their bodies. I don’t know if sunscreen would have played a role normally, but this was the first sunny day after two weeks of cloudy gray chilliness, and all of Britannia was ready to go the beach.

Kingston Lacey is close to the small market town of Wimborne Minster, where I caught my second bus of the day. Dominating the center of town is the church from the which the town takes its name - the Minster Church of St. Cuthburga, which dates to circa 1120 (with many additions and alterations since). A religious order of one sort or another has occupied the site since 705 AD, when Cuthburga, a sister of the King of the West Saxons, founded a nunnery at Wimborne. 

Wimborne Minster, which includes the second largest chained library in England. 

Interior of the church. 

The Bankes family created Kingston Lacey after their previous home, Corfe Castle, was destroyed during the English Civil War. (I went to Corfe Castle in 2010, and it is a spectacular site) The family remained loyal to Charles I (and it is telling that it was Mary that defended the castle during two sieges, while her husband hung out with the king in Oxford…) and following the Restoration began construction of a new house on their “other estate” in Dorset. (How nice to have multiple estates…) 

The first iteration of Kingston Lacey, built 1663-65, was a red brick house designed by architect Roger Pratt. Apparently, Pratt specialized in building “practical country houses” but until the 1920s, the earlier house was thought to be the work of Inigo Jones.

The family member most responsible for shaping the house into what you see today was William Bankes, friend to Lord Byron, amateur archaeologist and lover of art. (His archaeological pursuits are interpreted in the Egyptian room, which occupies two rooms in the servant’s quarter on the ground floor. The display cabinets contained a shocking jumble of figurines, tombs inscriptions and other artifacts – what was once the largest private collection of Egyptian.) In the 1830s, the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Charles Barry, transformed the conventional house into his idea of a 17th-century Italianate palazzo. The brick house was clad in a grey-green Chilmark stone and the interior transformed as well by Barry to suit Bankes’ vision as well as house the items acquired on the Grand Tour by William Bankes.

The south facade of the house. 

Looking down the "grand professional staircase" designed by Barry - made of Carrara marble.

The library - the keys above the mantle on left in photo are the keys to Corfe Castle
(left a ruin by Cromwell's forces). The story is that the soldiers besieging the Castle were
 so impressed by "Brave Dame Mary" that they allowed her to keep the keys as a
 "mark of respect for her courage throughout the sieges."
 I am sure she really appreciated that as she rode away
from the smoldering ruins on top of a wagon,
with only a few pieces of furniture and other belongings.
Keys to doors that no longer existed....

The cove ceiling of the Saloon, which became William Bankes' picture gallery - the painted ceiling dates from 1780.

A nice, cozy picture gallery....

Stairs leading to the upper floors and bedrooms. The small door seen at left is mirrored on the
opposite wall and leads to the hidden warren of servant's stairs behind the walls. 

William Bankes was a colorful character and spent money like it was going out of style. He commissioned numerous sculptures, paintings and a very bizarre bed. The bed, a concoction of walnut and holly, includes a carving of the Bankes coat of arms, but also - a row of bats along the headboard. When William died in 1855, the bed was still not finished (bats take a while to carve) and his brother, George, a bit more sober type where interior decor was concerned, tried to cancel the contract. That did not please the carpenter, and the bed was finally finished in the 1860s. I wonder what the German Kaiser (Wilhelm II) thought of those bats when he slept there in 1907? 

The bed.

The bats. 

The top floor at Kingston Lacey contains the children's bedrooms - used by the last owner of the house, Ralph Bankes, the seven time grandson of the founder of the family, and his two sisters in the early 20th century. (Not a happy family, sadly) Ralph donated the entire estate to the National Trust in 1981 - Kinsgton Lacey, 12 working farms and Corfe Castle - some 8,000 acres. 

One of the tiny bathrooms nestled on the top floor of the house. 

The courtyard of outbuildings (including kitchen and stables) on the west side
 of the house, now serving as gift shops and tea rooms. 

The Dutch Garden on the east side of the house, which dates from  the
end of the 19th century. The cedar trees in the distance were planted in 1835.

Shepherd's Hut.

Kingston Lacey is still a working farm with sheep and cattle. A 19th century restored Shepherd's Hut is located on the grounds. This corrugated metal hut (the epitome of luxury, but it did contain a stove) allowed the shepherd to stay with the sheep as they moved from field to field. 

















Of course, I missed my bus back to Wimborne Minster, so I threw myself on the mercy of some of the National Trust employees, who were most gracious and wonderful. (I owe lots of people in England some tours of Kentucky, some bourbon and Ruth Hunt candy) One of them gave me a lift to the train station in her Lotus, but I was too preoccupied with trying to figure out which train I would be able to take to really appreciate the car. (not too surprising given my general lack of automotive interest) The journey back to Oxford was slightly quieter than the morning trip down, as all around me, sunburned bodies whimpered and dozed.