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The RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been held in the grounds of the Chelsea Hospital every year since 1913, apart from gaps during the two World Wars. Formerly the RHS Great Spring Flower Show, it was first held in 1862 in the now vanished RHS garden in Kensington, later moving to the Temple Gardens before moving to its current site. This year is its 93rd Show.

Whilst the Flower Show at Hampton Court is bigger, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is still viewed as the most important event in the horticultural calendar and is as popular as ever. In 1979 the turnstiles had to be closed due to overcrowding and since then there has been a limit on the number of tickets sold. With enormous media attention and exhibitor waiting lists longer than ever, there seems no sign of this appetite abating.

The Special Group Tour had made us all members of the Royal Horticultural Society so that we could attend the day before it officially opened – somewhere between the Royal Family and the general public.

Under advice we were there the minute the gates opened in the morning and headed straight for the Exhibition Gardens. Over the next couple of hours we managed to get a good look at all of them, photographing them and taking careful notes of the features in our favourites.

The Show Gardens – The Show Gardens are a highlight of the show and always generate a huge amount of worldwide media interest

Best in Show – The Laurent-Perrier Chatsworth Garden

Gold Medal Winners

Silver Gilt Winners

The Fresh Gardens – Engaging and different, Fresh Gardens complement more traditional Chelsea exhibits and reveal new ideas and styles.

Lyndal & Edgar’s favourites

Artisan Gardens – Truly enchanting and imaginative, Artisan Gardens reflect both traditional and modern approaches, using artisan methods and natural materials from sustainable sources – all in a small plot.

By 10.30 am the crowd had swelled to the extent that getting a good look was near impossible so we decided to check out the Royal Pavilion where the crowd was minimal.

The following day saw us at Stow-on-the-Wold, which is a delightful market town and perhaps one of the best known of the small Costwold towns.

Stow-on-the-Wold is the highest of the Cotswold towns standing exposed on 800 feet high Stow Hill at a junction of seven major roads, including the Roman Fosse Way. At the height of the Cotswold wool industry the town was famous for its huge annual fairs where as many as 20,000 sheep were sold at one time.

An ancient rhyme reads:-
“Stowe-on-the-Wold, Where the wind blows cold.
Where horses young and old are sold,
Where farmers come to spend their gold.
Where men are fools and women are bold
……and many a wicked tale is told.

The vast Market Square testifies to the town’s former importance. At one end stands the ancient cross, and at the other, the town stocks, shaded between an old elm tree. Around the square the visitor is faced with an elegant array of townhouses and shops

From Stoke-on-the-Wold it was off to the final gardens of our tour – Waterperry Gardens and then on to Kew Gardens.

Waterperry Gardens were home to the renowned horticultural college between 1932 and 1971 and the emphasis was on food production rather than spectacular ornamental gardens.

Over the past twenty years the gardens have developed and grown and many new projects have been undertaken and completed. You’ll now find a Formal Garden, the Mary Rose Garden, a Waterlily Canal and the Long Colour Border, and they recently planted a small arboretum in the meadow area beyond the canal.

Waterperry is now a lovely place to visit, where you are surrounded by beautiful tree, shrubs and flowers, classical borders, modern planting, secret corners and long vistas.

Our final stop for the day, and for the tour, was Kew Gardens where we were scheduled to have a guided tour and afternoon tea.

Some excellent driving through drenching rain by our driver, Tom, got us to the gate of the Royal Botanical Garden Kew to meet our guide who braved the rain to show us some of the notable trees and features.

The origins of Kew Gardens can be traced to the merging of the royal estates of Richmond and Kew in 1772. In 1840 the gardens were adopted as a national botanical garden, in large part due to the efforts of the Royal Horticultural Society and its president William Cavendish. Under Kew’s director, William Hooker, the gardens were increased to 30 hectares (75 acres) and the pleasure grounds, or arboretum, extended to 109 hectares (270 acres), and later to its present size of 121 hectares (300 acres).

In passing we saw many of the attractions that, due to the inclement weather, we were destined not to visit.

Seen in the distance was the Chineses Pagoda, which was one of the jewels in the crown of Georgian London. It was so unusual that a suspicious public were unconvinced it would remain standing when it was built in 1762. Designed at the height of the 18th century craze for Chinoiserie, it tapers with successive floors from the first to the topmost being 1ft less (30 cm) in diameter and height than the preceding one.

The original building was very colourful; the roofs being covered with varnished iron plates, with a dragon on each corner. There were 80 dragons in all, each carved from wood and gilded with real gold. The eye-catching dragons were the talk of the town for 20 years, before disappearing in the 1780s. They were rumoured to have been sold to pay for the Prince Regent’s debts. – however experts believe that, being made of wood simply rotted and were removed during the roof restoration.

The dragons are to be reinstated in the most comprehensive restoration of the Pagoda in its 257-year history, which is scheduled to be completed by 2017. A good time to revisit perhaps!

In passing we glimpsed The Palm House, which was built by architect Decimus Burton and iron-maker Richard Turner between 1844 and 1848, and was the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron. It is considered ” the world’s most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure.”‪ The structure’s panes of glass are all hand-blown. ‬

We also sighted the Temperate House, twice as large as the Palm House, which was built later in the 19th century. It is now the largest Victorian glasshouse in existence.

However we did manage to visit the Princess of Wales Conservatory, which was commissioned in 1982 to replace a group of 26 smaller buildings that were falling into disrepair. It was named after Princess Augusta, founder of Kew, and opened in 1987 by Diana, Princess of Wales. It is the most complex conservatory at Kew, containing ten computer-controlled climatic zones under one roof. It was also warm and dry!!

The two main climate zones are the ‘dry tropics’, representing the world’s warm, arid areas, and the ‘wet tropics’, housing moisture loving plants from ecosystems such as rainforests and mangrove swamps. The eight remaining microclimates include a seasonally dry zone containing desert and savanna plants, plus sections for carnivorous plants, ferns and orchids.

The southern end is heated more by the sun than the northern end, so this is where you find towering spikes of echiums and silver agaves from dry tropical regions such as the arid Canary Islands. The central area contains an elevated aquaria, complete with waterlily pond and the dangling roots of mangroves, plus displays of orchids and carnivorous plants. At the northern end are species from the moist tropics, including banana, pineapple, pepper and ginger. On the lower level, there are viewing windows so you can see the pond from a fish’s eye view.

There is also a ‘time-capsule’ buried at the southern end of the conservatory. Sir David Attenborough placed it in the foundations there in 1985 as part of the World Wildlife Fund’s Plants Campaign. Containing seeds of basic food crops and endangered species, it is not due to be exhumed until 2085. By this time, many of the plants it contains may have become rare or extinct.

There are about nine water dragons that live and breed freely in Zone 1. They provide a natural means of controlling unwanted insects but tend to keep out of sight of visitors.

Whereas the Palm and Temperate Houses make grand statements with their designs, the low-lying, angular ‘glazed hill’ of the Princess of Wales house is less obtrusive. The conservatory was designed to be energy-efficient and easy to maintain and was built partly underground.

The pond within the aquaria section contains the Asian form of the giant waterlily Euryale ferox. This plant has huge leaves that can span two metres and are strong enough to take the weight of baby without sinking

Our tour finished with a sumptuous afternoon tea in The Orangery. As its name suggests, the Orangery was designed as a hothouse to grow citrus plants.

The building was originally designed by William Chambers who was employed by Kew founder Princess Augusta as an architect for the Gardens and a tutor to her son (the future King George III). He completed the Orangery in 1761. Built of brick and coated in durable stucco, it is the largest classical style building in the Gardens.

Low levels of light made it unsuitable for the growing of citrus and in 1841 the building’s ailing orange trees were shifted to Kensington Palace. Large glazed doors at either end of the Orangery to improve its effectiveness and it was used to house plants too big for other glasshouses.

The Orangery was converted to a tea room in 1989. It was adapted again in 2002 to its present use as a restaurant. The building is now an airy and elegant eatery. Outside of normal opening hours it is used to host corporate or special-occasion dinners.

The coat of arms above the central bay of the façade is that of Princess Augusta, founder of the Garden. This detail was added in the 1840s, along with the royal coat of arms.

In these elegant surroundings we partook of cakes, scones and cucumber sandwiches, exchanged stories and highlights and farewelled all those except our fellow Australians and adopted Canadian, who we organized to meet for lunch the next day at Chelsea

First stop of the day was Hidcote Manor Estate and it’s gardens – one of the best-known and most influential Arts and Crafts gardens in Britain and possibly our favourite garden of all.

Created by the talented American horticulturist, Major Lawrence Johnston, its intricately designed linked “rooms” of hedges, rare trees, shrubs and herbaceious borders are full of unexpected surprises. Lawrence Johnston’s mother bought Hidcote in 1907. He soon became interested in turning the fields around the house into a garden. By 1910 he had begun to lay out the key features of the garden, and by the 1920s he had twelve full-time gardeners working for him.

He was influenced in creating his garden at Hidcote by the work of Alfred Parsons and Gertrude Jekyll, who were designing gardens of hardy plants contained within sequences of outdoor “rooms”. Many of the plants found growing in the garden were collected from his many plant hunting trips to far away places. After World War II Johnston spent most of his time at Jardin Serre de la Madone, his garden in the south of France; and in 1947 he entrusted Hidcote to the National Trust.

Hidcote’s outdoor “rooms” have various characters and themes, achieved by the use of box hedges, hornbeam and yew, and stone walls. These rooms, such as the ‘White Garden’ and ‘Fuchsia Garden’ are linked, some by vistas, and furnished with topiaries. Some have ponds and fountains, and all are planted with flowers in bedding schemes.

You can spend all day exploring the maze of narrow paved pathways and discovering secret gardens and magnificent vistas. You can find a quiet spot and sit on one of the ornate benches and watch green woodpeckers search for their lunch or listen to the calls from the buzzards circling overhead. Time it right and you might catch a glimpse of the elusive hummingbird moth. It’s the perfect place if you’re in need of gardening inspiration

Just across the road are another of Britain’s top gardens – Kiftsgate

These gardens are the creation of three generations of women gardeners. Started by Heather Muir in the 1920s, continued by Diany Binny from 1950 and now looked after by Anne Chambers and her husband, who have made it their home.

Heather Muir created the garden, which up until 1920 had consisted of a paved formal garden in front of the portico, with a field and wooded banks beyond. Heather was helped and inspired by her lifelong friend Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote Manor. She decided that the garden would develop organically as she was inspired, rather than planning everything on paper. This has given the garden a distinctly feminine feel, almost in direct contrast to the more masculine lines being employed by Johnston at Hidcote. By 1930 the steep banks were tackled and the steps to the lower garden were put in place, along with the delightful summerhouse taking advantage of the views to the west.

From the mid fifties Diany continued to add to the garden by creating the semi-circular pool in the lower garden. She also commissioned two sculptures and began to open the garden on a regular basis. The white sunk garden was also redesigned by her to incorporate a small pool and a well head fountain. The well head that frames the fountain came from the Pyrenees and is carved with bucolic activities such as harvesting, hunting and wine making in each of its twelve panels.

One of Anne’s finest accomplishments is the addition of the new water garden that was once the tennis court. This area is now an oasis of calm, where fine white stepping stones give the illusion of floating over the black pool below, leading to a grass island at the centre. To the far end, a double row of gilded bronze philodendron leaves sway gently under a cascade of running water surrounded by a curtain of yew hedging.

The Drive to the house and car park is edged with some very old lime trees, the oldest of which date back to the original planting in the first half of the 18th century. More recent replacement of weeping limes produce a sweet scent in late summer that permeates the whole garden and which the bees find irresistible. The rough grass underneath these trees is yellow with daffodils in spring.
The other side of the drive is the Bluebell Wood, a spectacular sight in early May. This south facing bank is also planted with maples and cherries for spring and autumn colour.

In front of the house are four rectangular beds planted with a mixture of rare shrubs and perennials that give interest throughout the gardening year. From the sun dial in the middle one can look back to the fine Georgian portico on the house that was transported by light railway from the manor house in Mickleton, a mile away. Down some steps to the Terrace, there is a spectacular view towards the Malvern Hills and also down to the steep banks to the lower garden and swimming pool. On this terrace large terracotta pots are filled to the brim with plants in the summer.

The double border on either side of the grass path is planted with a mixture of shrubs, small trees and herbaceous plants. The main colour tones in this summer border are pinks, mauve and purple with abundant grey foliage. The smaller portico overlooking this border was added in the 1920s by the Muirs. Several clumps of the ‘Burning Bush’ Dictamnus albus purpureus are to be found. On a still summer evening one can ignite their oily seed heads in a spectacular pyrotechnic display without harming the plant.

The principal shrubs in this small sunken garden all have white flowers, but the under planting is unrestrained in colour and in form. Spring flowering plants such as erythronium and trillium give way to a succession of summer flowering anenomes, helianthemums, dieramas and santolinas. The large headed allium christophii self seeds throughout this garden. The main white flowering shrubs that give the garden its name are deutzia, carpentaria, hoheria and staphyllea.

The double rose border is filled with a mixture of old fashioned, specie and modern roses. The scent in high summer is overpowering. The path running down the middle is edged with the pink striped Rosa mundi, many of which have reverted to its parent, the Apothecary’s rose. To extend the interest throughout the year, plantings of astilbes, asters and grasses add further texture and form.
The original Kiftsgate rose grows in this border enveloping three trees and is a magnificent sight in early July with sprays of white flowers cascading to the ground.

Off bright and early the next morning to the next unscheduled event on our magical mystery tour we passed Silbury Hill on the way to Avebury Henge

At 30 metres (98 ft) high, Silbury Hill is the tallest prehistoric human-made mound in Europe and one of the largest in the world; it is similar in size to some of the smaller Egyptian pyramids of Giza. Made of chalk it is now grassed over but originally would have gleamed white and been visible for miles. Its original purpose is still highly debated but legend has it that it was the final resting place of King Sil.

Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest stone circle in Europe. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary Pagans.

Constructed around 2600 BCE, during the Neolithic, or ‘New Stone Age’, the monument comprises a large henge (a bank and a ditch) with a large outer stone circle and two separate smaller stone circles situated inside the center of the monument.

Its original purpose is unknown, although archaeologists believe that it was most likely used for some form of ritual or ceremony. The Avebury monument was a part of a larger prehistoric landscape containing several older monuments nearby, including West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill.

Leaving Avebury Henge we passed one of the famous White Horses of Wiltshire. The Cherhill white horse is the second oldest of the Wiltshire horses. Very well placed high on a steep slope, the horse is easily visible from below and from a distance.

The Cherhill white horse is the work of a Dr. Christopher Alsop of Calne, sometimes referred to as “the mad doctor”. He is said to have directed the marking out of the horse from a distance, calling instructions through a megaphone. Dr. Alsop’s design for the horse may have been influenced by the work of his artist friend George Stubbs, famous for his paintings of horses and other animals.

This white horse once had an unusual feature, a glass eye. The center of the eye was formed from upturned bottles pressed into the ground to reflect the sunlight. Thus the eye apparently had a bright gleaming appearance, and was visible from a considerable distance. Unfortunately vandals kept taking the bottles and, after replacing them on several occasions, they have now been replaced by a concrete eye.

We arrived at the Abbey Gardens in time for lunch. Situated beside the 12th century Abbey Church in the center of medieval Malmesbury and straddling the River Avon, Abbey Gardens was one of my favourite gardens. The main part of the garden was not as large as some of the other gardens we had visited though it did have an extensive dell. It was beautifully maintained, crammed with interesting things and very quirky.

Ian and Barbara Pollard purchased the 16th Century Abbey House in 1994. Empty for 3 years after its previous owners had vacated, it needed a good deal of work and love to bring it back to a comfortable family home. Following the restoration of the house they decided to create a garden that might attract visitors from around the world.

Over the following years they dedicated every waking moment to the garden, rarely going outside the garden gates. Featuring formal knot gardens, spring bulbs, tulips (third of a million), hostas, laburnum tunnel, colonnade walk, roses (largest collection in the UK), japanese maples, fruit trees, double herbaceous borders, irises, alstroemerias, herb garden, monastic fish ponds and with woodland and riverside walks where wildlife from water voles, the occasional otter, goldcrests, longtailed tits, treecreepers, kingfishers, woodpeckers to sparrowhawks, buzzards and swans appear – there is plenty to see!!

Over the years the Pollards have become well known as “The Naked Gardeners” both because they often garden naked and have Clothes Optional Days, when the gardens are open to those who wish to spend their time (within the garden boundaries) without their clothes – though this is not compulsory. The day we visited was not one of these days!

Unfortunately the Pollards have separated amidst claims of naked infidelity and there are fears Abbey House Gardens could be lost when the 16th century mansion is sold – disappointing thousands of naked tourists who visit every year as well as the many millions of visitors who have admired the garden.

Our next stop was the village of Bibury, was once described by William Morris as ‘the most beautiful village in the Cotswolds’.

The village center clusters around a square near St. Mary’s, a Saxon church. Some of the Saxon remains inside the church are replicas as the originals are housed in the British Museum.

One of the village’s main tourist spots and overlooking a water meadow and the river is Arlington Row, a group of ancient cottages with steeply pitched roofs that were built in 1380 as a monastic wool store and converted into weavers’ cottages in the 17th century. Henry Ford thought Arlington Row was an icon of England. On a trip to the Cotswolds he tried to buy the entire row of houses to ship back to Michigan.

A couple of horses who escaped and took off down the road delayed our travel to the next garden. Their owners chased them for a number of miles down the busy road until someone with a bit of horse sense managed to block them

Coughton Court has been the home of the Throckmorton family since 1409. The Throckmorton family is the oldest catholic family in England having remained Roman Catholics since the reformation.

Various members of the family were involved in, or connected with, pre-Reformation plots and conspiracies including the Throckmorton Plot of 1583 and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Although Royalist sympathisers during the Civil War, the family was one of very few recusant families to survive the turbulent 16th and 17th centuries with their estates intact. They went on to become leaders in Catholic emancipation in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

The Throckmorton Family Gardens at Coughton Court are still owned and managed by the family. Clare McLaren-Throckmorton together with her daughter, acclaimed garden designer Christina Williams, has devoted the past 15 years – with the support of a dedicated team of gardeners – to developing what is now one of the finest gardens in Britain.

Behind the Tudor gatehouse house you will find the courtyard with its fine Elizabethan half-timbering, where a knot garden leads to lawns and fine vistas of the Warwickshire countryside.

The house stands in 25 acres of grounds. The centerpiece is the famous walled garden, with a concentration of roses and herbaceous plants. There is something for everyone in horticultural terms: a bog garden, formal lawns, vegetable garden, orchard, riverside walks, and a formal garden in the courtyard.

Close by, the Catholic Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Elizabeth was commissioned by Sir Robert Throckmorton, 8th Baronet, soon after the emancipation acts were passed which permitted the building of non-Anglican places of worship.

Tomorrow it is on to Hidcote and Kiftsgate – what a treat!!

To add a bit of variation to the itinery, Special Group Tours had added some surprise visits they thought we might like.

The morning of the third day saw us heading for East Grinstead and The Bluebell Railway, which is a heritage line running for 11 miles along the border between East and West Sussex. It is the first preserved standard gauge steam-operated passenger railway in the world to operate a public service.

It operates between Sheffield Park and East Grinstead, with intermediate stations at Horsted Keynes & Kingscote, and is managed and run largely by volunteers. The attention to detail in preserving the stations, waiting rooms and luggage at each of the stations is a real trip back in time.

Of particular interest to Ed (and lots of photos for Mike) is their Railway Museum. Having preserved a number of steam locomotives, even before the cessation of steam service on British mainline railways in 1968, it has the largest collection (over 30) of steam locomotives in the UK after the National Railway Museum. The Society also has a collection of almost 150 carriages and wagons, most of them pre-1939.

Our very relaxing train trip, through some beautiful countryside, saw us arrive at Sheffield Park Station and the renowned Sheffield Park and Gardens. The gardens have evolved through centuries of landscape design, with influences of ‘Capability’ Brown and Humphry Repton. Four lakes form the heart of the garden, with paths circulating through the glades and wooded areas surrounding them.

Each owner has left their footprint on the gardens, which can still be seen today in the layout of the lakes, the construction of Pulham Falls, the planting of Palm Walk and the many different tree and shrub species from around the world.

Our final stop for the day was Vann Gardens owned by the Caroe family for over 100 years. The house is steeped in history with additions to the original timber-framed 16th century house in every century, the most recent in 1907 by WD Caröe.

Nestled in the Surrey countryside near Godalming, this five-acre garden is formed by a series of “rooms“ which surround and complement the family home.

The unique Water Garden by Gertrude Jekyll in 1911 links a succession of small ponds fed by the cascade from the quarter-acre pond, crossed by stone paths and bridges banked with lush vegetation and 1,500 water-loving plants supplied by Miss Jekyll. The stream flows down to a wild White Garden, a blanket of snowdrops in February succeeded by narcissi, white fritillaries and martagon lilies, before disappearing into the coppiced woodland beyond.

To the north, the stream enters the garden and runs through the Yew Walk (1909) in a rhyll banked by dry-stone Bargate walls and enclosed by large yew hedges with beds each side. This formal room has been replanted with foliage plants and bulbs to give year-round interest. In the double mixed borders in the vegetable garden plants of special interest to the horticulturist abound and pears and peaches fruit on the crinkle-crankle wall. Both the house and garden are Grade 2 registered by English Heritage

Whilst Vann is an interesting garden the most inspiring part of it is the current owner, Miss Caroe, who not only is a practicing doctor but also, despite being well into her seventies, manages the garden with very little help.

Days 1 and 2
Gathering in the hotel foyer with our luggage, we met up with Kate from Special Group Tours and sorted ourselves out into buses and guides. Kate had five tours leaving that morning – all heading for different destinations and occasionally crossing over at some of the larger gardens. With the exception of the Boston Gardening Club, we were all in groups of 12 or less, each with a driver/guide.

Our group numbered twelve – six Americans, five Australians and one Canadian and soon fell into three groups – four Americans from St. Louis, the commonwealth contingent and an American couple who were so difficult everyone gave up trying. Our guide was Tom, an affable Brit who now lives in America but does these mid year tours in Britain to catch up with his family.

First garden to visit was the fabulous RHS Wisely. Our first purchase was two large umbrellas as the weather had chosen today to end it’s dry spell, starting with showers and degenerating into steady rain. Despite this we loved our visit to Wisely. So many different areas, beautifully set out and well labeled so we could take note of the plants we liked. Stunning long vistas divided the wild garden from the shrubbery with garden rooms in the middle including the rose garden and the lavender garden. The huge glass conservatory in the middle of the lake housed tropical and semi tropical plants and an area was set aside for a series of display gardens demonstrating different uses of plants and natural materials.

Having gained a number of ideas we headed for the coffee shop for what was to become our standard lunch – soup and farmhouse bread – before heading for our next destination, Penshurst Place.

As it was now raining pretty steadily we decided to tour the 14th century manor house before heading into the garden. The House, once the property of King Henry VIII, was left to his son King Edward VI and granted to Sir William Sidney in 1552. The Sidney family has now been in continuous occupation for more than 460 years.

Penshurst boasts one of the finest medieval Barons Halls in Britain. This great stone hall, decorated with the usual weaponry and banners has changed little from medieval times. Though they have closed in the aperture on the roof to keep the weather out you can easily visualize the central roaring fire that supplied warmth and cooking facilities.

A quick tour through the rest of the castle with it’s withdrawing rooms, tapestry room, galleries and the Elizabethan room (where Queen Elizabeth I did a lot of business) and then, with the rain easing slightly, it was out into the garden.

Including the parklands, the grounds cover 48 acres of grounds with 11 acres of formal Grade One listed Garden. Opening directly in front of the House, the 16th-century Italian Garden, with an oval lily pool and classical statue at its center, is designed to be enjoyed from the State Rooms. To the left an archway under the Garden Tower leads you past the blue and yellow borders, planted in the colours of the Sidney family coat of arms, to the paved garden. Over one mile of yew hedging divides the remainder of the Garden into a series of ‘rooms’, each with its own season and colour

Our stay that night was in The Royal Wells Hotel at Tunbridge Wells. Our room turned out to be a suite with a magnificent freestanding copper bath – so glad we had two nights in this welcoming Hotel.

The next morning it was off to the legendary garden of Sissinghurst, which is owned and maintained by the National Trust. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is Grade I listed. This was evidenced by the crowds of people!!

Sissinghurst’s garden was created in the 1930s by Vita Sackville-West, poet and gardening writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. The garden itself is designed as a series of “rooms”, each with a different character of colour and/or theme, divided by high clipped hedges and pink brick walls.

Some of our favourite areas were the sunken garden, the nuttery and the lime walk. The white garden, though not in full flower, was interesting even if just to see this talked about and widely emulated room. Other things to see include the 15th century Elizabethan gatehouse tower (fabulous views of the garden), the complex of Oast Houses (Hop Kilns) which were previously used in the brewing process and now house a museum, an orchard and an extensive vegetable garden, which supplies the two cafes.

Having had a large breakfast – and with the promise of scones and homemade jam for afternoon tea – we bypassed lunch, boarded our bus and set off for Hole Park (with a quick diversion to have a bit of a wander through one of the Cotswold Villages).
This privately owned Queen Anne manor house and garden was bought in 1911 by the current owner’s great grandfather, Colonel Arthur Barham, who redesigned and replanted the gardens, creating a valley garden and a series of garden rooms with gates.

Driving down a rolled gravel drive lined by an avenue of mature horse chestnut trees, we arrived at the forecourt on the front of the house where we were met by Edward Barham, the owner, and his two black Labradors. He gave us a conducted tour of his estate finishing up at the small café where his wife, Clare, served us tea – truly a family affair.

The extensive garden covers 15 acres with over 200 acres of parkland and is maintained by the current owner, Edward and two gardeners. It is only open during the summer months, the rest of the year being set aside for maintenance and family time.

Immaculately trimmed yew hedges, many with geometric topiary shapes, surround much of the formal gardens. These are clipped entirely by hand and shelter sweeping lawns as well as herbaceous borders, a rose garden, an egg pond, numerous sculptures and seats and a memorial gate dedicated to Colonel Barham eldest son who was killed at Ypres in 1915. Outside the rooms are long vistas, many of which open up to breathtaking views over the Weald (woodland) of Kent.

The vista in front of the house is particularly striking looking out over a lily pond within the garden, rolling parkland outside the garden and an obelisk framed by hedges in the distance. A brick ha-ha ensures that the view is uninterrupted

Behind the house you leave the formal area and wander down a gentle slope into quite a different world. The woodland walk takes you through the wildflower meadow into the heart of a dedicated bluebell wood. So spectacular is the display that visitors monitor a ‘bluebell barometer’ and turn up in their thousands when it hits level four.

Grass and bark paths wind their way through an area planted with many rare and unique trees as well as rhododendrons, azaleas and magnolias. A small stream feeds a densely planted bog garden at the bottom of the valley.

It was with some reluctance that we left the woodland dell and headed up for afternoon tea but hunger was a deciding factor. A wander through the walled garden and the millennium garden and then it was back on the bus and a return to our hotel for drinks and dinner.

Tomorrow we are off to an undisclosed destination before visiting the Vann Gardens in the afternoon

Our last choice of an English B&B on this trip proved to be a great one.

The Dower House was built in the 1880’s by the owner of the Rousdon Estate which is situated approximately a mile to the south of the property on the top of cliffs overlooking the sea. It is believed that the house was originally built for his mother-in-law, hence the name Dower or Dowager House.
After All Hallows public school relocated to the Rousdon estate from Honiton in 1938 the Dower House became the headmaster’s residence.

We woke to the sounds of the countryside outside our window and after a substantial breakfast tackled the job of cleaning out the car and repacking prior to handing it back. It had virtually been our home for the past eight weeks and we would rather miss it.

Our path took us through more beautiful Devon countryside to the New Forest

and on to Fleet, the town I lived in in the early sixties.

Whilst the main street hadn’t really changed that much our search for the house proved fruitless. The area that I thought was right was covered with newer houses so I fear the house is no longer. We crisscrossed over the Fleet canal, which made us feel quite nostalgic – maybe the location for our next narrow boat experience!!

On to Heathrow and Hertz where we were met by Chris who Special Group Tours had arranged to meet us and take us to the Regency Hotel in Queen’s Gate, where our tour was due to start the next morning. We offloaded our extra bags (much to the displeasure of the Head Concierge, who marched me off to show me how small their baggage room was) and were shown to our small attic room where we had our first encounter with a Memory Foam mattress – hmmmm!

Slightly annoyed by the attitude of the hotel we decided to walk down Queen’s Gate and find a pub for dinner rather than dine in their restaurant. Despite it being a lovely walk we couldn’t find a pub that wasn’t standing room only so reluctantly returned to the hotel and the Pavilion Restaurant.

The meal was unmemorable but we did run into Pat, Hilary and Judy from Australia who, together with Linda from Canada, where to become good friends and travelling companions over the next eight days

After a substantial breakfast watching the boats go by on Penzance harbor, we headed on the first of our stops for the day – St Michael’s Mount.

The Mount is a small tidal island in Mount’s Bay, Cornwall, and is linked to the town of Marazion by a man-made causeway, passable between mid-tide and low water.

I was viewing this expedition with some trepidation, as the causeway was underwater and the small boats bobbing up and down in the swell looked somewhat unstable to a person with dicky knees. However the crossing was accomplished, we landed at the small village at the base of the Mount and all that remained was the climb to the top!

There is plenty to see at the base of the Mount. Chapel Rock, on the beach, marks the site of a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where pilgrims paused to worship before ascending the Mount. There is a row of eight houses at the back of the present village; they were built in 1885 and are known as Elizabeth Terrace. A spring supplies them with water. There are also buildings that were formerly the steward’s house, a changing-room for bathers, the stables, the laundry, a barge house, a sail loft (now a restaurant), and two former inns. A former bowling green adjoins one of the buildings.

There is evidence of people living on the Mount during the Neolithic (from circa 4000 to 2500 BCE years). The earliest buildings, on the summit, date to the 12th century, the harbour is 15th century. and the village and summit buildings were rebuilt from 1860 to 1900, to give the island its current form.

Historically, St Michael’s Mount was a Cornish counterpart of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France. It was given to the Benedictines, religious order of Mont Saint-Michel, by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century and was a priory of that abbey until Henry V went to war with France in 1424 and the Crown seized the priory.

In the succeeding years the Mount changed hands a number of times. Some of the more notable occupants were

• Henry Pomeroy, who led a group of Prince John’s supporters, seized and held the Mount, on behalf of Prince John, whilst King Richard 1 was on a Crusade in the Holy Land in the 1190’s.

• John de Vere13th Earl of Oxford, who was one of the principal Lancastrian commanders during the English Wars of the Roses, seized it with 400 men and held it during a siege of twenty-three weeks against 6,000 of Edward IV’s troops in 1473. The following year he was forced to surrender to the King.

• Perkin Warbeck occupied the Mount in 1497 when he embarked on his ill-fated attempt to seize the English crown. By claiming to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, (one of the young Princes in the Tower) Warbeck was a significant threat to the newly established Tudor dynasty, and gained support outside England. Ultimately failing in his quest he was eventually imprisoned in the Tower and hanged at Tyburn. Dealing with Warbeck cost Henry VII over £13,000 and severely depleted his coffers.

• Humphry Arundell, a Puritan and governor of St Michael’s Mount, who led the rebellion of 1549. The Act of Uniformity had been passed, and it abolished the diversity of religious practices that had existed up to then and dictated one form of worship “The Book of Common Prayer, with services only allow to be in English (not Cornish). Humphry Arundell was captured and, with other rebel leaders, hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.

• Sir Arthur Bassett, one of four brothers who supported the Royalists during the civil war. He played an important role in the civil war in the West Country and held St Michael’s Mount against parliamentary forces. He escorted King Charles II, who is believed to have stayed at the Mount before taking a boat for the Scilly Isles, to safety before surrendering in April 1646 when he was forced to cede the Mount.

In 1659 John St Aubyn became the proprietor and the castle lost its military role and became the family home. However the new owners used it only as a summerhouse for the next two hundred years.

In 1755 the Lisbon earthquake caused a tsunami to strike the Cornish coast. The sea rose six feet in ten minutes at St Michael’s Mount, ebbed at the same rate, and continued to rise and fall for five hours. Though the wave was of no great height, it was still substantial enough to suck the sea out for 150 feet or more, before surging back in to drench the causeway linking St Michael’s Mount to the mainland, and giving tourists a soaking. Witnesses said it was preceded by a surge of static electricity and people’s hair literally stood on end!

At the end of the 19th century, the 1st Baron Saint Levan commissioned a cousin of his, Piers St Aubyn, a London architect, to make the Mount into a family home. Piers St Aubyn left the original church building on the top of the rock and added a large mansion to the southeast side ensuring that the addition did not alter the existing dramatic skyline of the Mount.

The St Aubyn family owned St Michael’s Mount until 1954 when the property, together with a large endowment, was given to the National Trust by the 3rd Lord St Levan, and the castle and its grounds were opened to the public. The family retained a 999-year lease to inhabit the castle and it is still the official residence of Lord St Levan. The 4th Lord St Levan left the island in 2003, to enable his nephew James St. Aubyn, plus wife Mary and four children, to take over the family lease.

Despite the climb to the top, where you climb the mediaeval Pilgrim Steps and at times clamber over rocks, the end result is well worth it.

There is a sign beside the cobbled path: The Giant’s Heart. According to legend, a giant called Cormoran, lived here. He used to steal poultry and livestock from the mainland, as well as an occasional child to eat, before he was killed by an ingenious local boy called Jack. The Giant’s Heart turns out to be a tiny dark heart-shaped stone in among the cobbles. This is the origin of the story “Jack the Giant Killer” which was set in the time of King Arthur.

Beyond the stone ramparts and rows of cannons on the western side of the castle stands a granite stone pillar. This is where St Michael is believed to have appeared to a group of fishermen in AD495, and why the Mount became a place of pilgrimage from the 6th century.

Many relics, chiefly armour and antique furniture, are preserved in the castle.

The rooms in the castle feature paintings and portraits by artists like Gainsborough, Hudson, Kneller, and John Opie together with collections armour.
The gardens are lovely and an excellent example of what can be done in a totally inhospitable climate if you choose the right plants and use protected niches for the less hardy. Like the Castle, the gardens require some pretty serious climbing over some rocky paths as they are built up a steep slope.

The harbour has a pier dating from the 15th century, which was subsequently enlarged and restored. Queen Victoria landed at the harbour from the royal yacht in 1846, and a brass inlay of her footstep can be seen at the top of the landing stage. King Edward VII’s footstep is also visible near the bowling green. In 1967 the Queen Mother entered the harbour in a pinnace from the royal yacht Britannia.

One of the most noteworthy points of interest on the island is the underground railway, which is still used to transport goods from the harbour up to the castle. It was built by miners around 1900, replacing the packhorses, which had previously been used. Due to the steep gradient, it cannot be used for passengers and the National Trust currently does not permit public access or viewing of the railway.

After a less fraught return, the harbour at the Mount is well protected from the seas, we attained the other side – we had to step aside for the ambulance carting off one hapless tourist who had failed to negotiate the steps!

We then set off for Lyme Regis and the lovely Dower House B&B and, being the wrong night for River Cottage and too late for the local seafood restaurant, settled for an evening meal at the historic inn, The Anchor, at Beer.

After a rather too leisurely breakfast with David and Rosemary we set off for Penzance with plans to visit two of Cornwell’s most famous gardens, the Lost Gardens of Heligan and Trebah, on the way. I had seen the series of television programs made on the restoration of the Lost Gardens and was very keen to see the actual garden and Trebah was highly recommended by David and Rosemary.

Ed and I were surprised that anyone ever found the Lost Gardens. Even with a GPS we couldn’t! We careered around the area, trying to turn in impossible places and plunging down lanes so worn they were almost tunnels. Every now and then we would come across similarly confused people until, finally, we came across a small sign pointing the way and arrived at our destination.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan are now one of the most popular botanical gardens in the UK. They were created by three generations of the Cornish Tremayne family from the mid-18th century up to the beginning of the 20th century. Each generation added to the gardens, which were considered to be very innovative and housed a number of rare and exotic plants including a collection of rhododendrons purchased from Joseph Hooker in 1851. Joseph Hooker was Charles Darwin’s close friend and a great English botanist. The new species of Himalayan rhododendrons were among his great discoveries.

The gardens include these aged and colossal rhododendrons as well as camellias, a series of lakes fed by a ram pump over a hundred years old, highly productive flower and vegetable gardens, an Italian garden, and a wild area filled with sub-tropical tree ferns called “The Jungle”. The gardens also have Europe’s only remaining pineapple pit, warmed by rotting manure, and two figures made from rocks and plants known as the Mud Maid and the Giant’s Head.

Before the First World War the garden required the services of 22 gardeners to maintain it, but that war lead to the deaths of 16 of those gardeners, and by 1916 the garden was being looked after by only 8 men. In the 1920s Jack Tremayne (the last of the direct line) decided to live in Italy and lease out Heligan.

The house was tenanted for most of the 20th century, used by the US Army during the Second World War, and then converted into flats and sold, without the gardens, in the 1970s. Against this background the gardens fell into a serious state of neglect and were lost to sight, disappearing under a blanket of vines and ivy.

A member of the Tremayne family, John Willis, lived in the area and in 1990 was responsible for introducing record producer Tim Smit to the derelict gardens. He and a group of fellow enthusiasts decided to restore the gardens to their former glory.

The restoration proved to be an outstanding success, not only revitalising the gardens but also the local economy around Heligan by providing employment. The gardens are now leased by a company owned by their restorers, who continue to cultivate them and operate them as a visitor attraction.

We clambered down steep slopes and across rope bridges and only the thought that if we waited any longer we would miss Trebah Gardens caused us to leave.

We raced across the country heading for the coast and finally, at the end of the road, we came to the gardens. Trebah is a 26-acre sub-tropical garden and, of all the gardens we have seen, is one of my favourite gardens.

It was first laid out as a pleasure garden in 1831 by Charles Fox, who paid meticulous attention to the exact positioning of every tree. His son-in-law, took the work further and Trebah nowboasts nine official UK Champion Trees. A tree becomes a champion when it is either the tallest specimen of its kind or has the largest girth or even both.

From 1939 to 1981 the garden fell into decline. During the Second World War, Trebah was used for military purposes and the assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy was launched from Polgwidden Beach, at the foot of Trebah Garden. There is an inscription on a Memorial Slab at the foot of the gardens: “To the officers and men of the U.S. 29th Infantry Division, who embarked from Trebah in June 1944 for the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach. We will remember them.”

In 1981, on their 64th birthday, Tony and Eira Hibbert bought Trebah as their retirement home. They were persuaded to give up the first three years of retirement to restore the garden. When Major Hibbert agreed to three years, little did he know it would become a quarter century. The decision, he eventually wrote, “has given us the happiest twenty-four years of our lives and had we not taken up the challenge we’d have been dead long ago of gin poisoning and boredom.

The garden was opened to the public in 1987 and by 1989 visitor numbers had reached 36,000. The Hibbert family then gave the house, garden and cottages to the Trebah Garden Trust, a registered charity, to ensure that the garden could be preserved for future generations.

Trebah is a wonderful garden with imaginative and beautifully coordinated plantings. It leads down the valley to the beach with streams and waterfalls and the most magnificent trees.

We must have been the last people to leave and the gates were being locked as we left. Thankfully Penzance was not too far away and we collapsed in our room at the Penzance Hotel for a few drinks and room service.

Tomorrow we start heading back to London with a few side trips – the first being St. Michael’s Mount, which we can see out of our window.

We left David and Rosemary to their Open Garden Day and wound our way through some impossibly narrow country lanes to Hestercombe Gardens.

Hestercombe is a unique combination of three centuries of garden design which have been faithfully restored to their former glory

The Georgian landscape gardens were designed between 1750 and 1786 as a circuit with a number of carefully orchestrated views, each composed as if they were a landscape painting – hence the description – Landscape Garden. All the buildings and seats are positioned so that you get beautifully framed pictures of the garden with its lakes and cascades.

The Great Cascade is the centerpiece. Behind it is the wilder Woodland Garden and the Valley of Cascades, in front is the peaceful Pear Pond.

In 1873 Hestercombe underwent considerable remodeling of the house including the creation of the Victorian Terrace, the Orangery and the Dutch Garden and in 1903 Sir Edwin Lutyens was commissioned to create a new Formal Garden below the existing Victorian Terrace. He was one of the great British architects, who designed many English country houses.

Hestercombe Gardens, with the brilliant handling of varying levels, represents the peak of his collaboration with Gertrude Jekyll, a brilliant plants woman, who has been a major influence in garden design creating over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.

The Formal Gardens were very run down in 1973 when the Somerset County Council initiated what was to become one of the first major garden restorations in the country. Helped by Gertrude Jekyll’s notes and diaries they restored the formal gardens to their former glory.

In 1995 the Hestercombe Gardens Project started the restoration of the Landscape Garden. The lakes, which had become completely silted up, were dredged, the original views were opened once more and the remaining buildings restored.

We spent hours at Hestercombe admiring, in particular, the hard landscaping of Sir Edwin Lutyens formal garden with its rills, arches, arbours and alcoves. The stonework is truly beautiful and Ed has been taking careful notes!! The East and West Rills frame the Grand Plat with a Pergola enclosing the garden at the bottom yet allowing it to remain linked to and be part of the surrounding countryside.

It probably wasn’t the best season for the plantings, which we found to be a little uninspiring and questioned the wisdom of faithfully following Gertrude Jekyll’s notes rather than the spirit of her planting, which was innovative. One wonders what she would have done with today’s plants.

We were running out of time when we set off for Hillside Farm, an open garden with the Open Garden Scheme. We only spent about an hour there, wandering through their woodland walk and grass meadow. This was the first time they had opened and the garden shows great potential. In particular we liked the grass meadow in the orchard and can see a version in our(?) easement.

On to the Rose and Crown, a Traditional 15th Century Village Inn with its low ceilings and beams and a lovely place to relax in. A well deserved evening meal after our hours of walking and then back for drinks in front of the fire with an exhausted David and so to bed.

Well the rainbow the night before did not symbolize fine weather and we set forth on our drive through the mountains of Wales in a fine drizzle, which increased as we travelled. Every now and again the clouds would lift and we would see breathtaking scenery before it closed in again. Ah well, I guess you can’t have it all your own way!

We went to Portmeiron but it was looking drab and rundown (could have been the rain) and they wanted an entrance fee, so we gave it a miss and headed for Barmouth Bay. It is obviously a pretty seaside resort but steady rain didn’t show it at its best and we ended up picnicking in the car.

We passed Harlech Castle. ‘Men of Harlech’ is a song and military march which is traditionally said to describe events during the seven-year siege of Harlech Castle between 1461 and 1468 and is widely used as a regimental march, especially by British Army and Commonwealth regiments.

At last we arrived in the little town of Llanwrtyd Wells to stay the night at Shirley and Norm’s B&B. Plasnewydd Bed and Breakfast has been run as a B&B for three generations and was very warm and welcoming with a good fire and good advice on restaurants.

The next day the rain had eased and we saw some wonderful countryside driving through the Brecon Beacons National Park.

The country changed as we neared the coal mining area and the town of Blaenavon and home of the National Coal Museum.

We went on the underground tour, which takes you down 90 meters in a cage and around a section of the original underground workings. Before we left we were kitted out in the same equipment the miners wore – helmet, cap lamp, belt, battery and ‘self rescuer’ (portable oxygen source ). Mine regulations state that no batteries of any description can be taken down a mine so everyone on the tour was denuded of their cameras, phones, watches etc. Talk about the electronic age – they passed round a big bag, it took about 10 minutes to collect them all and there must have been thousands of dollars worth!
The tour takes about 50 minutes and our guide was a former coal miner, whose father and grandfather had also worked down the mines, so was a wealth of knowledge. We saw the coalfaces, engine houses and stables where the men and horses used to work.

Our guide described what it was like before the industry was regulated and the miners were paid with a token, which could only be redeemed at the company store. Children as young as six worked the doors in pitch-blackness, opening them when they heard a trolley coming and closing them behind it. He had us all turn off our torches so you could experience the total blackness where you can’t see your hand even when you hold it right up to your face. Quite a sobering experience. It is one thing to read about it and quite another to stand there in the damp, cold, dark and listen to the stories.
It was an excellent museum with a number of historic buildings with interesting exhibits. Set into the hillside above the colliery, the mining galleries house simulated underground workings and a multi-media presentation telling the story of how the Welsh mining industry evolved, which is very cleverly done.

We came out of the pit into (almost) sunshine and drove on down to Taunton, crossing the Severn Inlet on the suspension bridge and through some lovely country to our next stop, Hartwood House. David and Rosemary welcomed us with wine and biscuits and we strolled around their garden, which was due to be opened the next day in the Open Garden Scheme.

They used to run garden tours and are extremely keen gardeners so were very informative as to where to go and what to see. Their garden is delightful and full of interesting plants and trees. The house is fabulous and we spent some time in front of the wood fire in the living room chatting to David before going up to our extremely comfortable room . We went to bed very glad we were going to be spending two nights there.

We headed over to Chirk, a small town just on the Welsh side near Shropshire and found our B&B in the usual way: first we passed the almost hidden entrance, then a desperate plunge into a side lane, a shuffling six move turn in the lane to get around, and spotting what appeared to be the back entrance, squeezed our way in like a badger down its burrow, hoping we had the right one.

It was a fairly quaint little cottage run by Derek, a retired policeman and his wife Rosemary. We had a comfortable night after dinner at the Boathouse Pub near the marina, and next morning went to a laundromat and supermarket before taking over the boat.

This time it was the “Ruby” (we had hoped we might get the “Mary” !) We were starting to get the hang of the long boats and I picked up a couple good tips from Paul as he manouvred us out of the basin after an altogether more thorough handover than the last one. Also found it useful on this trip to make more use of the bow-thruster – ie the deckie (Lyndal) gets the barge pole out and pushes the bow around by poling on the bottom !

The Langollen Canal had about a one knot flow of current and was more frequented than the Union up in Scotland, so was practically weed free. Spring had advanced with all the trees in fresh leaf so the countryside was quite delightful.

The first afternoon we headed up towards Langollen which is the upper terminus of the canal, but we decided to tie up early so after negotiating a short tunnel and a foot bridge which we had to wind up like drawbridge we moored a little further on and settled down for a pleasant evening.

The next day we crossed the Pont-cellyn viaduct, an iron trough just wider than the boat, the tow path on one side and nothing between you and eternity on the other – quite an experience.

It was the long weekend and every man and his boat was headed up to Langollen so we abandoned the town as a destination and tied up on the first nice reach we came to. Here the canal is halfway up the hillside so we had a green slope with wooly sheep above us on one side and the river valley down below on the other.

In the morning we found the next turning basin and went back over the viaduct, past the base and headed into Shropshire via another viaduct and quite a long tunnel. We filled our water tanks, referred to in ‘canal talk’ as ‘taking on water’ – a procedure which one should do every day if you want your toilets to continue to work. We picked a nice mooring a little short of the two locks which we had to negotiate on the way to Ellsmere.

Lock Day was at hand ! We were in quite a dilemma as to how just the two of us were going to handle this as all the training videos showed crews of no less than four – two on the boat and two working the locks. Well turned out nothing could be easier when there is a bit of traffic, as there was today. The experienced boaters just want to get us novices through and out of the way so you find lots of people to help you. Today we were going down and the procedure is one boat up and one down, so you wait for one to come up, the gate opens and they come out and you go in, gate closed, let the water out and down you go. Since there was another boat waiting to come in at the bottom, when we opened the gates, I hopped back on (Lyndal was driving) and we just motored out and kept going. Five hundred meters on we came to the second lock which worked out just the same way.

We motored past the town of Ellsmere, through another tunnel and found a very pleasant mooring beside Blake Mere, one of a series of small lakes starting with Ellsmere beside the town of the same name. It was such a nice spot we stayed there all the next day as well, a decision helped by an accurate forecast. For wind and rain.

On the Wednesday we motored on down the canal past Cole Mere, the last of the lakes, turned round and went back to a nice spot amongst fields of sheep. That afternoon the weather cleared up and we walked along half a mile to a canal side pub. It was a very wobbly walk as the tow path was not maintained here so we confined ourselves to one beer !

On Thursday it was back through the locks ! This time it was going up. The traffic had reduced to just the one boat waiting on the other side so we handled the locks largely by ourselves, I operated the first and Lyndal drove the boat, and we exchanged jobs on the second. All went smoothly so we were pretty chuffed. The weather incidentally was very English – alternate rain, hail and sun.

We filled the water tank in Ellsmere, getting up to the taps with some difficulty against the wind, Lyndal working furiously with the barge pole – you should get one for Pam, Mike – haha! We did better than the lady we had talked to earlier, who yesterday, in the wind, had gone three times round the Ellsmere basin trying to get to the taps until finally her son fell in the canal and people took pity on them and came out to give them a hand.

We motored back to a mooring we had picked out on the way up, only to find that damn Mary had pinched our spot, so had to moor outside the marina for the night. It turned out to be a comfortable mooring and next day handed the boat back and headed for Gwydyr Forest Park, Barmouth Bay and Snowdonia.

We spent a comfortable night at Eva’s and chatted over breakfast. In many ways she is quite a remarkable woman, deeply religious and extremely hardworking. Left with two children and an unprofitable small farm she turned the farmhouse into a B&B, living in a small area in the back. Over the years she concentrated on educating her children (both graduated from University, one in Electrical Engineering and one in Psychiatry) and then she started developing holiday cottages on her land. She now has two, her son has a house and so does her daughter and she rents them all out as well as running her extremely popular and well patronized B&B.

After breakfast we headed for Waterford and for the House of Waterford for a tour of their factory and to have a look at their showroom. This is the factory that they do all the bespoke pieces for trophies and commissions, among them the trophy for the Ashes, the Masters and American football.

The men (and one woman) working there are all master craftsmen. To become a master craftsman you must complete a 5-year program as an apprentice craftsman, it then takes another 3 years apprenticeship to become a master, followed by another 2 years to become an engraver. It is a lifetime career and many of the men we met had worked there all their working lives, as had their fathers before them.

We watched craftsmen make the wooden molds for the unique trophies and the master craftsmen glass blowers make the bowls, the master craftsmen cutters (who must memorize over 200 patterns) and the master craftswoman engraver. Each discipline requires separate training and Waterford allows no flaws, if there is the slightest imperfection in a piece, despite the fact that 100s of hours of work has gone into it, it is smashed and the glass reused.

One of the most beautiful and moving things amongst many beautiful things was the piece depicting a compelling photo of New York Fire Department chaplain, Fr. Mychal Judge’s, body being carried out of the World Trade Centre rubble.

The sculpture was created by one of the Waterford artisans from broken glass in the recycle bin. It took him 200 hours and he did it as a tribute to the victims of 9/11. “I want people to see the pain on the faces of the firemen and police officers carrying Father Judge out,” he said. “At the same time, I want them to see the peace in Father Judge’s reflection. There is peace among death and destruction.”

The 20 pound, 2-foot by 3-foot sculpture is valued at $75,000 and the original was accepted by the New York Fire Department on behalf of the Sept. 11 victims.

Leaving Waterford we drove down to Kilomena Gardens near the town of Wrexham. These are private gardens, which are open to the public at certain times. It was a very interesting garden with lots of quirky things but struggling, as it was out of the way and had no funding. Our visit wasn’t helped by the fact that it started to rain and hail just after we got there!

After about an hour we headed back up to Dublin for the night and the following morning, nice and early, we left Ireland on the Ulysses.

We arrived in the early afternoon in time to visit the world famous Bodnant Gardens. The gardens are superb and include formal gardens, ornamental ponds and pools, a formal herbaceous border, an enclosed laburnum arch and many rose gardens. It has an amazing collection of Magnolias, Camellias, Clematis and Hydrangea but is most famous for it breeding program, especially of varieties of Rhododendrons and Azaleas.

Dotted everywhere are arches and seats to sit and admire the view

Begun in 1875, it is the creation of four generations of Aberconways and is divided into two parts: the upper level (around the house) features huge Italianate terraces, specimen trees and formal lawns,

with paths descending to at lower level “The Dell” with a wooded valley, stream and wild garden below. Included within the Dell are the Old Mill, the millpond with the millrace and an attractive spillway waterfall into the River Hiraethlyn, to give the babbling brook through the Dell its proper name.

The garden, but not the House or other parts of the estate, was presented to the National Trust, with an endowment, in 1949. The House was the home of the late Lord Aberconway, and members of his family continue to be actively involved in the management of the garden, its tea pavilion and car parks on behalf of the National Trust.

We spent a number of hours there and then it was on to Chirk. Part of the drive was through the Gwydir State Forest which was lovely. We stopped and checked out the Chirk Marina and got ourselves ready to go canal boating again!!

The South West of County Kerry forms a peninsular, which thrusts out towards the wild Atlantic Ocean. Around this peninsular is one of the great drives of the World – the Ring of Kerry.

We headed out from our hotel into a rainy morning however it soon broke up and although very windy was fairly clear. Not far on our way we were tempted down a side road by a sign to a “Lake View”. The view never appeared – will we ever learn? After going a fair way up a narrow lane looking for a place to turn around (a chronic problem/drama in UK and Ireland) we eventually recovered to the highway and continued on our way via grand mountain scenery to the north coast where we diverted down to the shore and the village of Rossbehy.

A grand view was promised on this side road – this time delivered with a vengeance. We set off out of the tiny seaside village and found ourselves headed up the side of the mountain on a precipitous goat track with a sheer drop on our right, so steep we were literally leaning forward in our seats. We stopped a couple of times – on the track, nowhere else – and triple checking in Park and Brakes On, tiptoed to the edge to take in the “grand view” which fulfilled all expectations.

Praying no one was coming the other way – our prayers were answered – we continued on and recovered to the main road. We wended our way on via Caherciveen to Port Magee at the far end of the Kerry. This little port was named after the notorious (and successful) 18th century smuggler Captain MacGee (a retired army officer no less – haha).

Here we followed signs to “the highest cliffs in Kerry “. We arrived at a café etc. with parking and we were ushered in by a gentleman and neatly stripped of 2 Euro apiece to take in the view – pitched just right I must say – not too little, not too much. We were pointed up a nicely graveled track towards the cliffs and headed off on foot into a 90-knot headwind (only a slight exaggeration).

The view was fabulous and after we had taken it all in for some time, while clinging to the rails, we headed back down the path considerably faster than we came up. The bloke was still happily parking cars and collecting Euros so since he obviously was not an employee I asked him if it was his farm were were on? He said yes and I remarked “Farming tourists instead of sheep?” which he confirmed and added with a chuckle “The sky’s the limit!”.

Naturally after being frozen on the cliff we were in need of the coffee and a hot chocolate provided by his wife’s cafe – altogether an excellent business model.

From there we continued on via Waterford down to Caherdaniel (stunning views),

through the town of Sneem

and up to Kenmare,

through Molls Gap,

past Ladies View (named after the Ladies in Waiting to Queen Victoria, who were taken there to view the lake during the Royal Visit to Muckross House) and through Killarney National Park. It was a marvelous drive and in the end had to be disciplined in not stopping too often so we would get round in daylight. The National Park was particularly beautiful.

Finally got back to Killarney and then on to Mallow. We hit the ‘rush hour’ and only some ingenious map reading and diversions got us through and on to Eva’s B&B (turn at the Shrine). Needless to say after seeing the Shrine we behaved ourselves impeccably!!

We needed have worried. Eva turned out to be most hospitable, greeting us with tea and scones and apple cake and a beautiful room looking out on to the garden.

Some time ago I saw a program “Lyndley Milan’s Taste of Ireland”. One of the places she featured was Ballymaloe House and Ballymaloe Cooking School.

Ballymaloe House is a family-run country house hotel famous for its hospitality and superb food. The Yeats Room is one of Ireland’s top restaurants, winning numerous awards.

We were lured in by this offer:

Lazy Sundays at Ballymaloe – Breakfast included
Relax and enjoy a lazy Sunday at Ballymaloe. Check in on Sunday afternoon, relax by the log fire or take a stroll around the gardens and enjoy our traditional Sunday buffet in the evening. Our traditional Sunday buffet night dinner consists of a wide selection of fish and meat patés, shellfish (clams, cockles, mussels, crab, shrimps and lobster as available), locally smoked fish (eel, mackerel, salmon), home-produced vegetable salads and freshly cooked local meats (beef, pork, turkey, ham, lamb, ox tongue etc.) The buffet is a house specialty and served by the Allen family. All food is prepared during the afternoon.

How could we not take the bait!

The 17th century house is built on to an Anglo-Norman castle, built around 1450, and is situated in a 400 acre estate. It has the feel of a gracious country house and is full of fresh flowers and paintings. The rooms are very comfortable – ours was called the Castle room and situated in the oldest part of the building, the tower

You can have afternoon tea in the drawing room by the fire or, as we did, in the conservatory filled with scented geraniums and winter jasmine, which looks on to the gardens and river.

There are benches dotted through out the gardens where you can sit or you can wander through the extensive woodland gardens – which we did.

The buffet was truly superb. I started with a fresh pea soup and Ed had a beef consommé – then it was on to the seafood. Whilst the oysters and prawns were nothing by our standards, the pates, mousses and accompanying sauces were outstanding. There was beef, lamb, pork, turkey – all beautifully cooked and accompanied by individual garnishes and sauces to complement them. Vegetable dishes and salads were interesting and different. By the time the desert trolley came around we were slowing down but still managed to sample a few! They had remembered that Ed was lactose intolerant and adapted dishes to suit.

We had French wines to accompany the meal so staggered upstairs convinced we couldn’t eat or drink for days. Funny how we managed to make breakfast! This was also wide ranging with wonderful creamy porridge and delicious breads as well as carefully sourced eggs, bacon, sausages and kippers for those who want them.

The Ballymaloe Cooking School is just down the road and can be visited along with the organic farm they run to supply the school and restaurant.

Its story really begins when Myrtle Allen opened the Yeats Room at Ballymaloe. Myrtle’s ethos was simple yet ahead of its time: local produce, in season, full of flavour and simply cooked. Darina Allen was a young student in Dublin considering her path in life. Harbouring a desire to cook with fresh, seasonal ingredients she sought out Myrtle Allen who was making a name for herself – and went on to win a Michelin star.

She ended up marrying Myrtle Allen’s son and assisting her with the cooking classes she was running at Ballymaloe. Her imagination fired, she decided to try her hand at teaching her own classes out of her home and so Ballymaloe Cookery School was born.

Today, Ballymaloe Cookery School regularly ranks highly on various listings of the world’s Top 10 Cookery Schools. We looked at doing a class there but ironically the only one that fitted in and had vacancies was, you guessed it, bread making!

Ballymaloe is situated in Shanagarry in East County Cork. It is a very picturesque part of the world and we took our time driving through the various little villages on our way to Muckross House in Killarney.

Muckross House is a nineteenth century Victorian mansion set against the stunning beauty of Killarney National Park. The house stands close to the shores of Muckross Lake, one of Killarney’s three lakes and has a breathtaking outlook.

It was built in 1839 and took five years to complete. The principal rooms are furnished in period style and portray the elegant lifestyle of the nineteenth century landowning class. In the basement are the kitchens and servant quarters – miles from the dining room and with a myriad of bells!

During the 1850s, Muckross underwent extensive garden works in preparation for Queen Victoria’s visit in 1861. It was then sold and the new owners went on to develop the garden further, putting in a Sunken Garden, Rock Garden and a beautiful meandering Stream Garden. There are numerous woodland walks and walks down to the boathouse and along the edges of the lake.

We spent a very enjoyable four hours there exploring the house and gardens (and doing some damage in the wonderful craft shop) and then headed for Killarney to rest up for the drive around the Ring of Kerry.

We set off early on the long drive to Corofin in County Clare, the home of the Clare Heritage & Genealogy Centre, for our meeting with the indomitable Antoinette. The day was drizzly, cold and misty so we didn’t detour (we will have to watch the sun go down on Galway Bay another time). We stopped off at Kenny’s Drinking Emporium for lunch – a unique Irish combination of bar and café and not as dissolute as it sounds.

Antoinette had done an amazing job of detective work, trawling through hundreds of documents to find out the information and, despite many seemingly dead ends, not giving up. She handed us a document about 2cm thick with birth, death and marriage certificates, census reports and details of land ownership. Realizing we needed more sustenance (a drink) to tackle this, we headed for our hotel, The Old Ground.

The Old Ground was a central point to the Republic’s tumultuous beginning. Sinn Fein used the hotel as their campaign headquarters from 1917 onwards and the IRA used the building as a meeting place. Following kidnappings and ambushes of their members, the Black and Tans and Royal Irish Constabulary ransacked the building and burned most of the furniture on the lawn. Further retaliations followed, culminating in the bombing of a pub that served British Soldiers killing a number of them. In the official reprisal Old Ground was burnt and nearly destroyed. Restored once again to a hotel (Charles Lindberg stayed there) it is now a popular place to stay. Ed says the general ambience reminds him of some of the old Queensland hotels of the sixties with old-fashioned décor but roomy and very comfortable.

With drink in hand we set out to plan our moves for the next day. I started entering everyone into the family tree so we could see how everyone linked up and Ed started on the land holding maps trying to pinpoint where everything was on today’s map. We went down to Paddy’s Bar for sustenance but it was bedlam and the wait was long so we retreated to the hotel dining room which was exactly like one of the old Queensland hotels!

Next day we headed for Killrush and Kilkee. We knew that Michal Hassett (great grandfather) grew up on a farm on the Killrush Kilkee Road owned by his father John. We managed to narrow it down to about half a mile of road. We had a description of the house and found a derelict house from about that period. Who knows, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t but it gave us an idea of what the house and land looked like.

We drove through Kilkee where all the Hassett’s lived, married and died. It is a very pretty coastal town and now quite a holiday town

From there we went into the Kilkee Information Bureau to get some information on old cemeteries and Hassetts, Houghs and Liffeys. This led to a somewhat hilarious treasure hunt across the district with everyone being very helpful and hospitable. We were offered everything from clues, to cups of tea, to meals and, if we had asked, probably a bed. We met Hassetts, Houghs and Father Kenny and followed directions which, delivered in an Irish accent and taking into account Ed’s deafness, had us totally confused:

“You go down the road out of the village and past the cross. There is a house with a new barn door, that’s not it. A wee bit further, there are two roads. Don’t go down the bog road but look for the windmill that hasn’t been built yet and it is the second house along”.

Me: Is the cross on the right or left had side.

“But it would be on both sides”

So we set off with me looking for crosses on both sides and Ed looking for crofts. As we approached the crossroads we realised that this was the cross- no wonder she looked at me strangely when I asked if it was on both sides! . We found the house with the new barn door and a half built windmill. We avoided the deadly bog road and found Bridie Hassett in the second house along!

It was from Bridie that we got our best clue. She told us about a Joseph and Roisin Bonfield who farmed in Moneen, the area that great, great grandfather Thomas Bonfield farmed and where Bridget Bonfield grew up.

We found the farm, knocked on the door, and met Joseph, my third cousin. The farm had been in the family for 150 years. Mutual excitement and over cups of tea (and apple tart) we exchanged information about the two families and showed photos.

Their new house. The original was knocked down last year

Ed thinks Joseph looks very like Dad and Sandra thinks he and I have very similar facial features!
The original shop that they sold produce from over a hundred years ago was still there and just down the road was the nearby cemetery where the Bonfields (Bonfils) were buried

We visited the Parish Church of Carrigaholt where Michael and Bridget were married

and conducted a rather fruitless search for more clues on John Hassett in the Kilferagh Cemetery.

We headed back to the Old Ground with lots more information, some leads and a copy of the local phone book.

The next day it is on to Ireland’s most famous cooking school, Ballymaloe House, to stay the night and participate in their traditional Sunday night buffet.

“Derry is the only remaining completely intact walled city in Ireland and one of the finest examples of a walled city in Europe. The Walls constitute the largest monument in State care in Northern Ireland and, as it was the last walled city to be built in Europe, stands as the most complete and spectacular.

The Walls were built in the 17th century as defences for settlers from England & Scotland. The Walls are intact and form a walkway around the inner city. They provide a unique promenade to view the layout of the original town which still preserves its Renaissance style street plan. There are four original gates to the Walled City to which three further gates were added later. Historic buildings within the walls include the Gothic cathedral of St Columb, the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall and the courthouse.
It is one of the few cities in Europe that never saw its fortifications breached, withstanding several sieges including one in 1689 which lasted 105 days, hence the city’s nickname, The Maiden City.”

After breakfast we parked in town and went to look at the wall and museum. We soon struck two local representatives of Irish hospitality. As we looked at our street map an elderly gentleman stopped and cheerily pointed us in the right direction. Not much further on as we discussed various landmarks another gentleman introduced himself and offered to escort us to the very spot! This was Pat and we had a nice chat as we walked along and met one of his friends coming the other way and had a chat with him as well.

We had a look at the Memorial Hall and then the museum, which is partly within the old fortifications. This had a very interesting display of the story of Ireland from prehistoric times and, in the old tower, the remnants of a ship of the Spanish Armada which had been wrecked on the north coast not far from our ferry crossing of yesterday. There were many interesting arms and personal items recovered from the wreck site. It had been a Spanish merchant ship, which was conscripted into carrying armaments for the Armada and was among the half of the original 130 ships which failed to make it back to Spain. Most of those were wrecked on the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland.

We then walked the wall of the old town. Looking out over the terrace houses of old Londonderry you cannot forget that this city was the scene of tragic events in the Troubles of the 20th Century and a feeling of those times still lingers. However we also felt while travelling around that while people haven’t forgotten, they are moving on.
We then motored down to the Harvey Point Hotel near Donegal where Lyndal had managed to pre-book a suite at half price. The photos tell the story, and indeed it was quite comfy to say the least.

Next day we went to see the town and the ancient Donegal Castle

and then to the town of Killybeg, the largest fishing port in Ireland, in pursuit of a seafood lunch.
“Big Breakfast” was still weighing on us so we drove on along the coast in pursuit of a view. Well, like an ever receding mirage the grand view eluded us as were led on by promises listed on maps and roadside signs. We finished up on the wild and barren extremity of south west Donegal County, totally tree-less and populated only by peat cutters and (maybe) smugglers/wreckers!

We finally got back to Killybegs to find that, like many fishing ports, fresh seafood meals were not to be had (should have known). So we settled for fish & chips, which we ate on a bench overlooking the harbour and the sturdy fishing boats that battle the Atlantic seas.

Killybegs is also the home of the Donegal Carpet Factory, which has been hand making carpets for over 100 years. We did a tour of their remaining factory. There were four manufacturing houses at one time in County Donegal but three of the four facilities closed during The Great Depression and in 1987 the last facility closed. Local Donegal people petitioned the government to help re-open them and in 1999 they were making carpets again for places such as Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin Castle and the University of Notre Dame. The carpets are thick and sumptuous and very beautiful but commissions are few and far between as the cost is prohibitive.

We headed back to the luxury of Harvey Point rather wishing we had spent more time there instead of chasing views. A walk around the still lake convinced us!

Next day on to Ennis in County Clare and “The Quest” for Lyndal’s rellys.

Voted by us the ‘best B&B so far’, Marlagh Lodge is an early Victorian house on the edge of Ballymena and is the sort of place you could stay for a week. Originally built as the Dower House for nearby Crebilly House, the Lodge is a classic of its era, double fronted with high-ceilinged reception rooms on either side of the entrance and spacious bedrooms.

Once partially derelict, it has been painstakingly restored by Robert (an organist and piano player) and Rachel (on opera singer) with love and meticulous attention. Comfy bedrooms, lounges, fires and classical music wafting through the house make it very welcoming. There are books everywhere (within half an hour I had found a dozen I would like to read) but it was already midnight!

After the most delicious breakfast, starting with Robert’s own ‘Marlagh Lodge Tummy Warmer’ (creamy porridge with Bushmills whiskey, brown sugar and cream) , we had a chat with Louis (the rooster) Madge, Myrtle and Korma (the hens) and headed off for the nine glens and the Antrim Coast.

First stop was the lovely Walled Garden at Glenarm Castle. The Walled Garden is one of Ireland’s oldest walled gardens. Originally created to supply the Castle with its fruit and vegetables, the Walled Garden is now filled with flowers and specimen plants and is interesting year round, but when we were there it had fabulous displays of spring bulbs along with the apple and pear blossom.

For the next four hours we followed the Antrim Coast Road, which is one of the most famous road trips in the world. Most of the road winds through the countryside, following the scenic coastline. Some parts are even built between large 100m high cliffs and the sea.

As we drove, we passed the Glens of Antrim. These nine valleys radiate from the Antrim Plateau to the coast and are extremely beautiful. We passed the headlands of Garron Point and eventually arrived in Cushendall, a small coastal town. It lies at the meeting point of three of the Glens of Antrim: Glenaan, Glenballyemon and Glencorp.

Much of the historic character of this 19th century settlement remains. In 1973 it was designated as the second Conservation Area in Northern Ireland, and includes the largely intact Irish Georgian buildings of the town’s four original streets.

At Cushendall the road heads inland, but we kept following the coast by taking the spectacular Torr Road, a bit of a goat track but we specialise in those! The narrow road is winding and climbs its way up to Torr Head. It was a beautiful sunny day and we could easily see Scotland, which is only 16 miles away.

Next on our agenda should have been the famous Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge but we missed the turn. We had been warned it was quite a walk and wanted to make sure we caught the ferry over Lough Foyle in time so kept going to the Giant’s Causeway

This is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns that were formed some million years ago by an ancient volcanic eruption. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. At some spots the columns are about 12 meters high, and 28 meters thick. So spectacular it alone was worth the trip and the Irish tale of the two warring giants who formed the causeway was very plausible!
Heading through Bushmills (sadly passing up on the Whiskey Distillery) to Portrush, we passed the Dunluce Castle ruins. These ruins are located on a spectacular headland. The castle is surrounded by extremely steep drops on either side and is only accessible via a bridge connecting it to the mainland. Portrush itself is a pretty seaside resort town. The main part of the old town is built on a mile–long peninsula and is known for its sandy beaches

Magilligan Point guards the mouth of Lough Foyle and is home to Lough Foyle Ferry, Martello Tower and The Point Restaurant where they serve the best Seafood Chowder. According to Marty it is the best in the world and he is not far wrong!

We caught the ferry to Greenhill and wound our way to Derry through some beautiful countryside.

We arrived at Troy Hall to be greeted by a patiently waiting Michael Doherty. Troy Hall is circa 1890s and is the original grand manor house. No hot water wasn’t a good start to our stay but, having left a number of messages for Michael, it came on about 10pm and we sank into the comfy beds so we would be ready for our exploration of Derry the next day.

We headed off from York in the afternoon and for the first time encountered heavy motorway traffic because we were passing by all the major cities of the Midlands: Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. The locals call it the biggest moving carpark in the world!

It was a bit of a grind but we finally made it to our B & B at Colwyn Bay on the north coast of Wales. Colbourn’s Hotel was a nice old-fashioned seaside B&B, there was even a wide sandy beach – at low tide, and our hosts Michael and Leslie gave us a very warm welcome and directed us to the nearby Toad Hotel for dinner.

Next morning Michael told us about “1940 Day” being held in the town square so we went up for a look to find a lot of happy people parading about in 1940’s dress and uniforms plus restored jeeps etc. and, star of the show, a Spitfire. We walked around this wondering was it real? ; and how did they get it into the main street of Colwyn Bay?

Well turns out it was a replica made to replace a genuine RAF gate guard Spit which had been restored to flying condition. A group of Spitfire enthusiasts had later acquired this replica and set about improving it by fitting genuine Spitfire parts: gun sight, instruments & controls etc. For a small donation you could pretend to be an old Spit pilot and have your photo taken – naturally I was up for that!

Then it was on to Hollyhead to catch the car ferry via a quick look at Conwy castle on the way. The ferry was a bit bigger than our Straddie barge (it is the largest car ferry in the World and can carry 1342 cars and 2000 passengers) and gave us a comfortable three hour run to Dublin.

On arrival we checked in to Brooks Hotel and went out to find a meal. Saturday night Dublin was packed with Dubliners and tourists so we found a spot on a sidewalk café and watched the world go by.

On Sunday morning we walked up for a look at St Patrick’s Cathedral and then caught one of the Hop On / Hop Off Bus tours for a look at the city sights. The first place we got off was Kilmainham jail. The older part of the prison was completed in 1796 and is a pretty grim old place and is the part where the condemned men were kept. An additional improved part was added in the Victorian era but this was closed for maintenance and we did not see it.

This is a sacred site for Irish Republicans as seven of the principal leaders of the 1916 rebellion were executed by firing squad in the prison on 3rd & 4th May 1916. These events led directly to the 1918 – 1922 rebellion, the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the eventual Irish Republic. Sadly the establishment of the Irish Free State was followed by a very ugly civil war.

Following this sobering interlude we remounted the bus tour and got off next at the Guinness Brewery. Their newly converted Guinness Storehouse is a most impressive building. The core of the building is shaped like a giant pint glass, and consists of seven floors. Along each floor, you get to see how Guinness is made. The top floor, which holds the Gravity Bar, is the most fun. You get a complimentary pint of Guinness and the most spectacular view of Dublin. We happily consumed our pint while looking out over the city – together with about 5,000 other people (I’m exaggerating just a bit).

We completed the bus tour seeing such sights as the illustrious Trinity College, Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Castle. The weather by this time was freezing and we were pleased to retire back to the Hotel.

The next day was as pleasant and warm as the previous day had been cold and windy. We made a leisurely drive up to Coalisland to meet Christine’s family stopping on the way at the Bernish lookout, which has the most spectacular views over the Irish countryside, and on the way called in at a 3 chambered burial cairn dating back to 3500BC i.e. 5500 years old! The cairn is very well preserved and one of only a few three-chambered cairns in Ireland.

Christine’s cousin (and bridesmaid) Lisa and her mother had organized for us to have dinner with the family, which was very hospitable. We finally got to meet Nanny Maureen, who turned out to be just as lovely as Christine had described, and caught up with Dara and Phillip who had been out for the wedding. Various members of the family kept popping in and out and altogether it was a great night.

We finally left about 10 o’clock to head for our B&B where our host, Robert, was waiting up for us with a cup of tea

Arrived in York. Can overlook the fact that our room at the hotel is through a maze of corridors at the back of the hotel and a total fire hazard because we are just across the road from York Minster, which is amazing.

Dropped our bags off and headed for the wall. We walked the high section behind York Minster heading for the Black Swan, which is one of the oldest pubs in York. We never made it to the Swan because at the bottom of the steps was the York Model Shop! With a gleam in his eye and muttering “Good job Mike isn’t here” Ed headed into the shop with me following muttering, “We are going to need a shipping crate to get home”.

To my surprise Ed bought nothing and we continued on through the Shambles.

The Shambles’ is sometimes used as a general term for the maze of twisting, narrow lanes, which make York so charming. At its heart is the lane actually called the Shambles, arguably the best-preserved medieval street in the world. It was mentioned in the Doomsday Book of William the Conqueror in 1086!

The lane was a street of butchers’ shops and houses, many complete with a slaughterhouse at the back of the premises. The pavements are raised either side of the cobbled street to form a channel where the butchers would wash away their offal and blood twice a week. In some sections it is possible to touch both sides of the street with your arms outstretched and the houses are very close at the top to prevent sunlight reaching the meat.

We arrived back at York Minster and went to Evensong. They had a visiting choir and the service was very beautiful. They have a wonderful organ and I’m sure when it booms out all sinners repent, as the sound is overwhelming

That night we went to a pub called ‘The Hole in the Wall’ and, because we were in Yorkshire had a Yorkshire pudding. Very different to the ones we know as it was a dish and the roast beef was inside.

Next morning, whilst I was still surfacing, Ed disappeared to ‘go for a walk’. He appeared sometime later with a large bag containing – you guessed it – models! Apparently the shop is absolutely fabulous and has scale models of almost everything – so Cath; if you ever come to York, hang on to Mike!!

We walked the other section of the wall and came across a guy walking his pygmy hedgehog along the wall – no doubt not game to let him loose in the grass, but not really what you expect to see.

From there we went to the Jorvik Viking Centre which is situated on the site where, between the years 1976-81, archaeologists from York Archaeological Trust revealed the houses, workshops and backyards of the Viking-Age city of Jorvik. As part of the exhibition you travel in a cart through a reconstruction of Viking-Age streets, as they would have been 1000 years ago, complete with noise and smells!

Back into the modern day streets of York, we picked up our modern day car and headed for the seaside town of Colwyn Bay to catch the Irish Ferry.