Castle Drogo

Which National Trust property has been the biggest surprise for you when you first set eyes on it in real life? There are loads of contenders - the quirkiness of A la Ronde or the romantic beauty of St Michael's Mount are two for starters.

For me, though, I'm going with Castle Drogo in Devon as my surprise package. Castle Drogo's claim to fame is that it was the last castle to be built in England and when you see it in photos it ticks all the castle boxes: big, solid, made of granite, has a castellated roof for firing arrows at pesky invaders. 

But when you finally see it in front of you, you realise it's a very modern take on a castle. It was built between 1910 and 1925, so the modern look shouldn't be a surprise. But it's like someone has taken a normal castle and then gone at it with a chainsaw to smooth out the usual edges and give it a square and boxy shape:

Admittedly, it looks less boxy when you get up close to it. But then it appears almost as if half the castle has sunk into the ground and you're only seeing the top section. It messes with your mind a lot, put it that way:

So, the question is: WHY? Let me try and explain:

Julius Drewe makes his fortune and retires at 33!

Julius Drewe was a grocer by trade. His mother was a member of the family who owned Peek, Frean & Company, inventors of the Bourbon and Garibaldi biscuits. Julius set up Home and Colonial Stores, which became phenomenally successful - by 1903, it had 500 stores. By then, however, Julius had retired, at the venerable age of 33. There is a family legend that he turned down the offer of a peerage for £100,000 on principle that honours shouldn't be bought. Instead, he decided to plough some of his money into something that he decided could be bought: an ancestral estate dating back to Norman times.

Julius finds his noble ancestor, Drogo de Teigne!

A genealogist had informed Julius that he was possibly connected to a Norman baron known as Drue or Drogo de Teigne. The village of Drewsteignton on the edge of Dartmoor was named after him and so that is where Julius decided to buy some land, build his castle and claim the ancestral heritage that was rightfully (probably) his.

Julius commissions Edwin Lutyens to design Castle Drogo!

The celebrated architect Edwin Lutyens completed over 400 projects during his career. He is most famous for the Cenotaph in London and Rashtrapati Bhavan (formerly Viceroy's House) in New Delhi, as well as a whole host of other houses, offices, war memorials and churches. In 1910, he was well into his stride, having already transformed a ruined fort into a holiday home on Lindisfarne. Julius commissioned him to build Castle Drogo with a large budget and work got underway.

Edwin Lutyens designs everything!

What is astonishing about Lutyens is that he designed everything, even the latches on cabinets in the kitchens (he loved kitchens apparently). How he found the time for such detail when he was simultaneously out in India trying to architect an entire city is beyond me.

Julius and Edwin ensure the castle is comfortable!

Like the outside, the interiors of Castle Drogo are strikingly old-modern. The walls are granite and look austere and cold but the castle always offered central heating and other modern conveniences.

You can see how very liveable the whole building must have been:

Castle Drogo passes to the National Trust

Julius insisted that Castle Drogo had a flat roof and this caused leakage problems from the get-go. Eventually, it all just got too much for one family to manage; the guidebook tells how Anthony Drewe, grandson of Julius, wrote a letter to the National Trust to ask if they'd be interested in taking on the property. The letter contained just one sentence - "I write to enquire whether the National Trust would be interested in acquiring this house, together with the Teign Gorge stretching over to Fingle Bridge?" - and in 1974, the castle and 600 acres of land were given to the National Trust.

I was pleased to see some 'stunt scones' doing their thing

The Castle Drogo Scone

It must be incredibly difficult to run the Food & Beverage operation at the National Trust. If you take just today as an example: I started out in Heddon Valley on the North Devon coast in the morning. It was a truly beautiful spot but the cafeteria was really basic - the woman had to put the kettle on to make me a cup of tea. There were no scones but it didn't really matter; they had flapjacks and brownies to keep the walkers happy.  

Castle Drogo, on the other hand, is at the opposite end of the F&B spectrum. The visitor centre is big and visitor-centrey, with a large cafeteria serving all sorts of food and drinks. This prompted me to throw caution to the winds and wander round the castle first - I NEVER do this as I'm always too worried that all the scones will be eaten by a swarm of locusts who followed me into the car park.

Castle Drogo was the fourth and final stop on my mini Devon road trip: as well as Heddon Valley, I'd also been to Lundy, which had been lovely but no scones, and Lorna Doone Valley, which had delivered a scone but it hadn't quite been a five-star performer.

So I was overjoyed when the Castle Drogo scone turned out to be excellent. It was fresh and tasty and a good size. 

Only a few final scones to go!

Castle Drogo: 5 out of 5

Scone: 5 out of 5

Oscar-worthy performance of the stunt scones: 5 out of 5

Lorna Doone Valley

I've now visited 237 National Trust properties in my quest to meet every NT scone in the land. If I sort the properties by how much time I spent researching the place in advance, then Lorna Doone Valley in Devon would be at the top by a long distance.

The reason for this is very simple: before I set off, I decided to read Lorna Doone, the novel. It is a very long book; 552 pages in fact.

But before I tell you about Lorna Doone the novel, I have to tell you that reading it didn't really prepare me for Lorna Doone the valley. It's very much a walking property, with lots of different routes that can take you in various directions. For example, you can walk 5 miles to the very lovely Watersmeet, or do an 8-mile loop to take in the medieval settlement of Badgworthy, which inspired the book.  

But I hadn't really appreciated any of this in advance and I hadn't left enough time to complete any of the walks. I'd already done a jaunt through the very lovely Heddon Valley earlier this morning and I was on my way to Castle Drogo, so time was a bit limited. 

Maybe a lot of people turn up clueless like me, because when I arrived a very nice NT guide was waiting in the car park to provide walking directions. He pointed up a distant hill and then, on seeing my worried face, changed his tack to something a bit easier. And so my leisurely walk took me through a field alongside the river:

It's a really beautiful area. On my way back along the path, I took this picture below and it looks just like a painting.

If you haven't read the book and want a quick summary then I can oblige. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor was published in 1869 but is set in the late 17th century. It focuses on John Ridd, a farmer's son, whose father is murdered by the Doone family, a bunch of villains who live in an enclave in the area. John is brought home from his boarding school after the killing and on the way he happens to witness the Doones kidnapping an aristocratic young child. The child grows up as Lorna Doone. 

Later, when they are both grown up, she meets John and they begin a secret relationship. John eventually liberates Lorna from the Doones but then her true parentage is revealed and she goes to London. The story is set against the Monmouth Rebellion, where James Scott (who was Duke of Monmouth and the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II) attempted to depose his uncle, James II, from the throne. This ended in the Bloody Assizes and the beheading of James Scott. Judge Jeffreys, who led the Bloody Assizes, is featured in the book. Anyway - a lot happens during those 552 pages before you get a very dramatic ending. 

The novel is a real love letter to the area and it's fantastic that the National Trust is protecting and preserving it. You don't need to read the book to appreciate the region but it definitely helps.

Lorna Doone Valley Scone

I had really loved Heddon Valley during my first visit of the day but it had not been able to provide me with any scones. Yesterday's trip to Lundy had been sconeless as well. I was therefore feeling very anxious about Lorna Doone Valley - had National Trust scones become an endangered species? Or had I just managed to leave all the sconeless places til last? Was this project about to fizzle out?

The cafeteria at Lorna Doone Valley is called The Buttery and it's in a lovely location by the River Badgworthy. I was extremely relieved and pleased when I saw a pile of scones on the counter. My scone was pleasant enough - it was a bit heavy and possibly a little underbaked but to be honest I was just glad to see it. 

I later did some research on the author of Lorna Doone, one Richard Doddridge Blackmore, to find out exactly where he had lived in Exmoor. I was quite shocked to discover that although he had spent some of his childhood in Lorna Doone country, from the age of 22 he had lived in Teddington, which is just down the road from my own home. I might have to go over and find his grave and thank him for his book. I'll keep you posted if I find it. 

Lorna Doone Valley: 5 out of 5

Scone: 4 out of 5

Handiness of RD Blackmore's final resting place: 5 out of 5

Heddon Valley

I now have just SIX more National Trust properties to visit on this 10-year quest to try all the NT scones across the land. I could - and let's face it, I probably will - write a very long post about everything I have learned from this project.

But here's a quick preview of the main thing I have learned so far: if the scone is underwhelming but the property is great, you're fine. If the property is a little underwhelming but the scone is great, you're fine. You only really have a problem if the scone and property are both underwhelming. And do you want to know how many times that has happened in 10 years, readers? None. No times. It has never happened. To paraphrase the great Sandie Shaw, there's always something there to be happy about.

Heddon Valley in Devon is a great example of this. I unexpectedly loved Heddon Valley today. It went straight into my Top 20: a beautiful little spot perfectly set up for walking, with hills and cliffs and beaches all around.

The history of Heddon Valley is an interesting one. It was bought by the National Trust in 1965, having previously been part of a grand design by a solicitor called Benjamin Lake. He bought it as part of the Martinhoe Manor Estate in 1885 with plans to turn it into a fashionable holiday resort. He poured lots of time and money into it but it all went horribly wrong and he ended up in prison for embezzlement (you can read more about it here).

Hunters Inn, which is still there today, was built by Benjamin. It had originally been a thatched cottage serving ale to locals from the 18th century. Benj had it rebuilt to look like a Swiss chalet, as the terrible picture below tries to show:

There are numerous walks that you can do in the area. The easiest one is a mile-long walk from the NT carpark down to Heddons Mouth, with its little beach. 

Heddons Mouth also gives you the lovely experience of having the sea on one side and green countryside on the other (a bit like Penrose in Cornwall). I even recorded a little video for you! Get me! I'll be on the TikTok next!

But onto the scones. If you are a regular reader, you will know that it's Scone Blog protocol to always have the scone as soon as I arrive at a property, just in case they run out/have a power cut/get hit by bad weather and have to close early (all of which have happened to me). But today I got to Heddon Valley early, so I did the walk first. 

My walk had been so perfect that I didn't even think about scone availability. But as soon as I walked into the visitor centre, I realised the kitchen was a small operation and I might have a problem. (When I asked for tea, the lovely woman had to put the kettle on.) I was right: the only available sustenance was brownies or flapjacks. I don't know what I have against chocolate brownies - somehow they always feel to me like 15 Mars Bars and all their calories squashed together in one stodgy brick - so I went for the flapjack.

Was I sorry not to get a scone at Heddon Valley? Of course, but Heddon had already given me a lot to be happy about, plus I still had plenty of scone potential ahead, with both Lorna Doone Valley and Castle Drogo on my list for the day.

So my recommendation is to visit Heddon Valley if you can - it's a beautiful little place. 

Heddon Valley: 5 out of 5
Scone: 0 out of 5 - there weren't any
Getting to Heddon Valley very early and being the only person on the path: 5 out of 5

Lundy

It takes a bit of commitment for a visitor to get to Lundy Island in Devon. A boat trip lasting just under two hours takes you from Ilfracombe harbour. You can then either get the boat back again a few hours later or you can stay in accommodation on the island. 

The large boat at the jetty is how you get to Lundy Island.
It stops running in October though and you need to get a helicopter instead. 

I had worked out before I set off that I probably didn't actually need to go to Lundy at all. It's owned by the National Trust but the island is run by the Landmark Trust, an organisation that rescues interesting buildings and makes them available for holiday rental. The rules of the National Trust Scone Blog state that I only need to visit properties where the scones are provided by the NT itself.

But before anyone says "National Trust Scone Blogger, you really don't make it easy for yourself", let me tell you that this fastidiousness is caused by one thing only: FEAR. I am so fearful that I will slump over the finish line on this project, only for someone to say "You haven't been to Lundy. I was there in July and they have a huge NT cafeteria serving 15 types of scones," that I am covering places that probably don't need to be covered, just to be on the safe side. 

So I went to Lundy and it was well worth it. Let me tell you a bit about it.

Lundy History

• Lundy is just 3 miles long and half a mile wide.
• The burial ground near the Old Light lighthouse contains four Christian memorial stones from the 5th-8th centuries.
• The de Marisco family seems to have leased the island in 1150. In 1155, Henry II became king and tried to give Lundy to the Knights Templar but the de Mariscos refused to hand it over. They used it as a base for piracy.
• In 1238, William de Marisco was implicated in a plot against Henry III. He was captured, found guilty of treason and hung, drawn and quartered.
• To avoid further trouble, Henry III ordered the castle to be built and it was completed in 1244.
• Lundy was then owned by a lot of people, including Sir Richard Grenville (of Buckland Abbey fame) and countless others. It's not clear why so many people decided to take Lundy on, only to dispose of it again - probably because it was so expensive to maintain.
• William Hudson Heaven bought Lundy in 1836. He had - look away now, Restore Trusters - inherited sugar plantations in Jamaica and received compensation when slaves were emancipated. However, he ran out of money and set up the Lundy Granite Company. It thrived for a few years before the enterprise collapsed.
• In 1968, the island was up for sale again. This time, wealthy philanthropist Jack Hayward of Wolverhampton Wanderers fame stepped in and gave £150,000 so it could be bought and given to the National Trust. 

Lundy Landmarks

Lundy has had many owners and each has contributed to the island's development in different ways. I highly recommend the guidebook for a full run-down. Some of the buildings you can see today include:

• Castle
• South Light lighthouse
• St Helen's church
• Millcombe House, built by William Hudson Heaven and known originally as The Villa
• Old Light - the original lighthouse opened in 1820. Lundy is located in the Bristol Channel and was always a shipping hazard. Old Light wasn't successful - it got obscured by fog and workarounds had to be found:

Lundy Scones

Lundy also has a shop and a pub but that's about it as far as sustenance goes. The Marisco Tavern never shuts apparently - it only serves alcohol during licensed hours but it's the only building to keep its lighting on even after the generators have stopped and everything else is dark.

The Marisco Tavern was originally the shop. It was built during the 1860s to serve the 300 men who worked in the quarry and it offered a "Refreshment Room" as well as supplies. (My Scottish Great Auntie Nessie always referred to a drink as a "wee refreshment" so she'd have approved of that.) Once the quarry had gone, it retained its dual purpose as pub and shop.

The Marisco Tavern, if you need a refreshment.

I didn't see any scones on display today and I didn't have the heart to ask if they had any. Instead, I had a piece of Victoria sponge and it was fine.  

Lundy Wildlife

Scones weren't the only thing to elude me today. Lundy is famous for its wildlife, especially its puffins. I was extremely excited about seeing some puffins but I realised a few weeks ago that this wasn't going to happen. Puffins spend the winter out at sea, bobbing about and eating fish. They only come inland in March to mate and nest and have their young. In August they go back to sea again, like little mini sailors. I hadn't missed them by much. But I'd definitely missed them.

Everyone on the boat was hoping to see a dolphin - we didn't. The boat announcer told us to beware of the Lundy ponies, adding with some interesting certainty "because they bite". I didn't see them either. I did see a seal though, so that was very exciting.

In short, I highly recommend Lundy Island to you. It might not have any scones but it's a great place to spend a few hours or even a few days if you like very dark and quiet nights.

Lundy Island: 5 out of 5
Scones: 0 out of 5 - there weren't any
Someone playing the recorder very loudly - mind you, this was late in the afternoon. Maybe they just wanted us all to go home: 0 out of 5

East Soar

It's the final countdown, scone fans! Only 10 National Trust properties to go on this scone quest. East Soar on the Devon coast was one of the final 10 and I knew it was going to be a problem. Firstly, it was the most difficult one for me to get to. But secondly, I HAD ALREADY BEEN THERE. I visited East Soar in 2019 but had been stupidly negligent about its facilities and no scone purchase had been attempted.  

Luckily for me, I have the support of my friend Kathy. We have been best friends for a long time and have helped each other through our chosen endeavours. Example of Kathy's chosen endeavours: an Ironman triathlon. I watched her doing her huge swim, I cheered her as she sped past me on her bike, and I shouted support as she ran past me several times while completing a marathon. Example of my chosen endeavours: driving around Devon looking for a scone. Yes, I do often wonder why she is friends with me but I am beyond grateful that she has persevered these past 30 years. 

Anyway. East Soar is a great place for coastal walks but it also contains a lot of history. There's a very good podcast episode by an archaeologist called Bill Horner who explains how the East Soar National Trust car park was once part of RAF Bolt Head. It played an important role in World War II - its location enabled incoming enemy aircraft to be intercepted.

There's also a lot of wildlife in the area. Highland cattle, Dartmoor ponies and all sorts of other species can be spotted as you walk along:

Kathy was on holiday in the area and had done a recce of the East Soar scone facilities during the week. She texted me with some concerns that there might not be any and I had to explain that it didn't matter: the National Trust handbook states that refreshments are available at East Soar and, as I couldn't be 100% sure that they weren't NT, I had to go there. Even if all I found was a hole in the ground, this blog needed to report that the hole contained zero scones. To be fair, she hid her bafflement well.

She didn't hide her National Trust Scone Panic though: as soon as we got to the Walker's Hut, she basically turned into me. I was sanguine about the chances of finding a scone in a barn but she was utterly determined that East Soar would deliver. It was like having an out-of-body experience and watching an action replay of yourself at 200+ National Trust cafes over the years.

The Walker's Hut is located on a National Trust farm and is a lovely little place serving a good array of cakes and drinks. There's an honesty box for the money and you help yourself:

Kathy's determination was rewarded - what I thought were baked potatoes turned out to be scones. It's almost exactly 30 years since we collected our A'level results - frankly, I think she might have been more relieved by today's scone than she was with her 3 As :)

It was a very nice scone as well - light, fluffy and very fresh. Kathy wanted to give it a 4.5 but if you are a regular reader you will know that I have a Crumbleometer that automatically deducts a point if a scone disintegrates into more than six pieces during preparation or consumption. The East Soar scone did fall apart a bit but it was still delicious.

If you'd like to know more about my Devon road trip of 2019 where I probably came within 300 feet of the East Soar scone but failed to realise it at the time, you can read about nearby Overbeck's (also starring Kathy), as well as Cotehele, Lydford Gorge, Buckland Abbey, and Antony. We even stopped at Wembury and South Milton Sands, even though I knew we probably wouldn't find any National Trust scones on the beach (I was correct).

Only nine scones to go!

East Soar: 5 out of 5
Scone: 4 out of 5
Watching someone else having the Scone Panic: 4.5 out of 5 

Knightshayes

Imagine for a moment that you have a lot of money and want to build a new home for yourself and your family. Who would you commission to design it for you? Sir Norman Foster maybe? If you like a lot of steel and glass - think the Gherkin or City Hall - then Norman's your man.

Now imagine that Sir Norman builds your modern house as agreed and then presents you with detailed pictures of his plans for the interiors. You decide that it's too much - too much steel and glass, Norman! So you fire Sir Norman and hire another architect that you think will be more restrained. But they have to come up with something that fits Norm's structure and it's still too much for you. So you spend the next few years covering up all the modern work you paid a modern architect to do.

This, in extremely simple terms, is what happened at Knightshayes. The Heathcoat Amory family hired William Burges, an architect deeply immersed in medievalism and the Gothic aesthetic, to design their house and then didn't like his work. And then John Crace, hired to replace Burges, didn't get it right either.

Why am I telling you this? Because the story of Knighthayes is actually two stories: the fascinating story of the Heathcoat Amory clan AND the story of Burges/Crace architecture and how the National Trust has recreated Knightshayes as those men had envisioned it.

Let's start with the Heathcoat Amorys:

• The story of how the Heathcoat Amory family ended up in Devon is an extremely timely tale. John Heathcoat was born in Derby in 1783. He was an inventive and hard-working man who created a bobbin net machine in 1805.
• But some people weren't keen on progress and in June 1816 a group of Luddite wreckers broke into his Loughborough factory and smashed up 55 lace frames.
• He decided it was time to move. He turned down £100,000 compensation to start again in the Midlands and focused on building his business in Tiverton in Devon, with many of his former employees following him there on foot. 
• His Tiverton Lace Manufactory was a huge success. Tiverton has since produced the lace for the wedding veils for royal weddings. 
• The business passed to John's grandson when he died and the Heathcoat Amory name was born. John Heathcoat Amory was the builder of Knightshayes. He preferred his leisure pursuits by the sounds of it, although he had a lot of public duties and was made a baronet by Gladstone.
• John's son, Ian, and his brother Ludovic took on the business and Knightshayes after that, although Ludovic died from wounds received in France in 1918. 
• After Sir Ian came another Sir John. In 1936, he married Joyce Wethered, the golf champion. She continued to live at Knightshayes until she died in 1997 and there is a little mini museum to her in the house:

Williams Burges at Knightshayes

But let's move on to William Burges, the architect who designed the exterior and interiors of what we see today at Knightshayes.

Let's take one of the bedrooms as an example. It is now known as the 'Burges Room'. Burges had designed it as  "a riot of colour" but when the NT took over, it was completely neutral and all architectural features had been removed. They've restored it to his plan:

Image borrowed from the NT

Every National Trust guidebook has its showstopper factoid - the one you have to read three times to make sure you understood it correctly. The showstopper factoid here is that the Burges Room was opened by Jimmy Page, the Led Zeppelin guitarist, as he is a collector of Victorian Gothic and lives in Burges' former home in Kensington. 

The Great Hall is another example. It was built according to Burges' designs, although the roof stencilling he had planned was scaled back by John Crace. But the family didn't like it. They removed the stencilling completely, demolished the screen and reduced the fireplace.  The NT has put them back:

I particularly liked the frieze in the dining room:

Knightshayes itself is a real showstopper of a National Trust property. It's big and impressive with artworks and architectural features to keep you interested for hours.

The gardens are also very extensive. The last Sir John and Lady Heathcoat Amory were keen gardeners and spent a lot of time improving them.

The Knightshayes Scone

I went to Knightshayes with my very fantastic friend, Kathy. She is an extremely fit triathlete with a lifetime of experience in taking on tough challenges. But could she manage four National Trust cream teas in one weekend? I explained to her that my many years of intensive training in this discipline would make it easy for me but if she was struggling at any point, she only had to say the word. "I think I'll manage," was the gist of her response.

Our visit to Knightshayes took place during an extremely hot weekend. We'd already blamed the heat for the Lytes Cary scone the day before (it wasn't the best) and then Kathy noticed a message on the NT website saying that the Knightshayes kitchen would be closed on the day we were visiting and the food offering would be limited. Staff shortages and heatwaves are clearly taking their toll on National Trust F&B teams. 

I wasn't expecting to find any scones at all but we were in luck. We sat in the very nice stables and enjoyed a fruit scone that wasn't fresh but it was tasty. 

The scone we had later at Barrington Court was better and then we called into Montacute on Monday and found a fantastic scone, so our Somerset mini road-trip ended well. 

I'll close by sharing another exciting finding from Knightshayes: National Trust sew-on badges! I had never seen these before and I immediately wanted to start the National Trust Scone Quest all over again so I could create a giant picnic blanket covered in them. It'd be like being in the Brownies again.

Knightshayes: 5 out of 5

Scone: 4 out of 5

The idea of Brownie-style badges: 5 out of 5

Wembury

I initially thought that Wembury would be a great place to visit, as I could make lots of jokes about how I sang "I...am-on-my-way-to-WEM-BRY" all the way there a la Chas n Dave in their 1981 Cup Final ditty, Ossie's Dream.

But Wembury was the 7th and final stop on this 2019 Tour of Devon and my long-suffering sister had been driving up and down tiny country lanes for four days straight, so I decided to spare her the spirited singing.

It turned out that Wembury is nothing like Wembley (obviously) - it's a lovely little spot not far from Plymouth that offers some of the best rock pools in the country as well as inland and coastal walks. There's also a Marine Centre that runs watersports and other activities.

If nearby South Milton Sands reminded me of Skiathos then Wembury reminded me of Cornwall - it was very rustic, as if it hadn't changed in fifty years.

The Old Mill Café is right on the beach (see below). I wasn't sure if it was tenanted (in which case I don't strictly need to include it in my National Trust Scone Quest) but to be safe I dropped in anyway and had a very nice cup of tea (they had no scones).

It was a beautiful hot day and the place was packed - we arrived at 10.30am and the car park was already 90% full - but I can totally see why. A beautiful little spot.

Wembury: 4 out of 5
Scones: didn't have any but I think is tenanted so is bonus stop anyway
Happiness at fitting Chas n Dave into a blog post: 5 out of 5

Other stops on the Devon Tour 2019 (Part 2): Antony, Cotehele, Lydford Gorge, Overbeck's.

Overbeck's

Some National Trust properties are very difficult to reach. Lindisfarne and St Michael's Mount are the obvious examples, what with the small hurdle of 'the sea' being in the way. A tide timetable is a basic requirement for both of those before you set off.  

But I'd also put Overbeck's in Devon up there. That sat nav that has never let you down? You'll be threatening to throw it into the sea as you inch up single track roads, swearing that surely no tourist attraction could ever be down this ridiculous path.

And then you find it and all is forgiven, Google Maps:

I hope the NT doesn't mind me saying this, but the house itself is probably fourth on the list of highlights at Overbeck's. The amazing views, the beautiful gardens, and the lovely tea-room would certainly be higher on mine. 

This is the view of the Salcombe estuary from the top of the garden:

But there is a house and I will gladly give you some history of it:

• Overbeck's was originally called Sharpitor 
• The house you see today was built just before WWI - a man called Edric Hopkins had bought the place in 1895 and laid out the gardens 
• It was a convalescent home for soldiers during the War - the owners at the time, the Verekers, had lost a son at the Battle of Mons and ran the place using their own funds and voluntary contributions
• Fifteen of the 1,020 soldiers that stayed at Overbeck's ended up marrying local girls
• It was bought by Otto Overbeck in 1928 - he was a research chemist by trade
• He actually discovered Marmite before it was discovered, if that makes sense, and  he invented a non-alcoholic beer but the government taxed it, which stopped it being commercially viable
• His big invention was an 'electrical rejuvenator' - users applied electrodes to their skin and the years dropped off. He planned to live to the age of 126 using his ingenious device but he didn't quite make it, dying when he was 77. I imagine this might have made marketing a bit more challenging. 
• Otto died in 1937 and left the property to the National Trust, stipulating that it should be renamed Overbeck's

The gardens are fabulous. The Statue Garden is very structured and neat, with beautiful colours and fragrance: 

There's also a banana garden, where the shelter from the elements also supports other impressive tropical plants:

The Overbeck's Scone
But let's move on to the scone. I'm taking the education of future scone buffs very seriously as I enter the final year of my National Trust Scone Odyssey. I was therefore delighted to be joined on this expedition by two young aficionados called Olivia and Amy, who also brought their parents along.

In fact, very little training was required by the girls (the parents were a different matter). They were spot-on in their final assessment - the older fraternity wanted to award 5s willy-nilly, or try and take marks off for wasps (what??), but Olivia and Amy were firm on 4.5 out of 5. This is exactly what I would have given, and they managed it without six years of trekking around the country consuming 8 gazillion calories. Great work, apprentices.  

The Overbeck's scone: fresh, tasty and full of fruit:

The tea room is also inside the house itself, which is always a bit special, but this one has the added bonus of spectacular views down over the estuary. It really is the most perfect place to eat scones and drink tea on a sunny afternoon. 

Overbeck's: 5 out of 5 for the amazing views and gardens
Scone: 4.5 out of 5
The very Instagram-friendly plate: 5 out of 5

South Milton Sands

If anyone is looking to start their own National Trust blog, you could do a lot worse than focus on National Trust beaches. 

I went to South Milton Sands as part of my National Trust Scone Tour of Devon 2019 (Part Two). I knew there was a beach cafe there and although I wasn't sure if it was a) tenanted, in which case it's not mandatory for this project or b) a purveyor of scones, I decided not to take any chances. We were on our way to nearby Overbeck's anyway, so we dropped in.

Thank God we did. It's a beautiful beach. It was a baking hot day and I honestly felt like we'd been transported over to Skiathos.

The Mediterranean atmosphere was helped by the very nice food and relaxed vibe exuding from the Beach Cafe. They didn't sell scones but they did lunches, coffee, beer, wine, cakes. We had excellent ice cream.  

So if I have inspired you to kick off the National Trust Beaches Blog, here are a few other coastal places that I have chanced upon over the past six years. They're all fantastic and will get you started (Studland has a nudist section, so you might want to start there if you're looking for something a bit different):

• Baggy Point (North Devon)
• Birling Gap (near Eastbourne)
• Brownsea Island (near Poole)
• Chapel Porth (Cornwall)
• Dunwich Heath (Suffolk)
• Studland Beach (Dorset)
• The Lizard (Cornwall)
• White Cliffs of Dover (Kent)
• White Park Bay (Co Antrim)

South Milton Sands: 5 out of 5

Scone: didn't have any, but I think it's tenanted anyway so doesn't count

Lydford Gorge

I did a very British thing at Lydford Gorge in Devon. My long-suffering sister was my companion for Part Two of the 2019 Devon National Trust Scone Tour. I had lectured her into previously unknown levels of boredom about the need to bring her trainers for the Lydford leg of the trip. I even recapped at length about it on the morning of the visit.

So it was quite a tricky moment when, just as we swung into the carpark, I looked down and realised that I was wearing ballet flats. We went into the reception booth and it turned into one of those sitcom scenarios where everywhere I looked were signs saying "THE ROCKS ARE SLIPPERY - STURDY SHOES ARE ESSENTIAL", and all I could hear was NT staff telling other visitors wearing massive walking boots "you'll have NO PROBLEM as long as you have DECENT SHOES!"

A very enthusiastic man gave us directions on the various options for reaching the waterfall. This is where I did the British thing: I listened and nodded, I thanked him profusely, I walked confidently through the gate, then I did a sharp turn into the tea room. I ordered some scones while I did what any sibling would do in this situation - I tried to work out how I could blame my sister for this debacle. Having failed on that as well, I 'fessed up and shared my concerns: I probably needed to go back to the hotel and get my trainers, otherwise I might plunge to a tragic death and our parents would blame her. 

I don't know if the enthusiastic man saw us pulling out of the car park only 15 minutes after he'd given us directions (directions that definitely didn't involve getting into a Renault Clio and driving off towards Tavistock). I hope not.

But his words were not wasted; the very next morning we were waiting for the kiosk to open so we could pick up where we had left off.

We weren't disappointed. Here are some highlights:

• Lydford Gorge was created 11,500 years ago - when the glaciers retreated the meltwater created the steep gorge that we see today
• The rocks themselves have been around for over 350 million years
• Lydford Gorge contains a 'river capture' - the River Lyd 'captured' the River Burn 450,000 years ago, which changed the course of the Lyd and resulted in Whitelady Waterfall
• Whitelady is 28.2 metres high (the highest in the SW of England)
• It was named after a spirit that is meant to appear if you are drowning in the river - unfortunately there's some debate about whether she appears to save you or to tell you that you're done for
• The Devil's Cauldron can be found at the other end of the Gorge - it's a bubbling pothole that visitors can walk over in summer
• Over the years the Gorge has been home to mills and mines until it was bought by Daniel Radford after 1871
• His family bequeathed the Gorge to the National Trust in 1943

The Lydford Gorge Scone
But let us return to the Lydford scone, which we had eaten on that first day of footwear fail. It was a fine-looking specimen and I had very high hopes for it. I cut into it and immediately feared the worst, however: it looked a bit dry and I had a strong suspicion that it wasn't fresh. 

In fact, it tasted very nice. It had a slightly soft texture as if it had been kept in a container (I've been wrong about this before though, so maybe it hadn't). But I did enjoy it.

As we drove away after our second (successful) visit, I did a Google search for Lydford Gorge. It turned out that an unfortunate visitor had broken their ankle there the day before and had to be rescued, not too long after we had postponed our attempt. I hope that poor person is recovering.

Lydford Gorge: 5 out of 5
Scone: 4.5 out of 5
Restraint of my sister: 5 out of 5

Buckland Abbey

Buckland Abbey had two illustrious owners in the 1500s. The first was Sir Richard Grenville, an Elizabethan adventurer whose dad died the most Tudor of deaths; he went down with the Mary Rose when it sank in 1545.

The second owner was Sir Francis Drake. He bought Buckland from Sir Richard, although apparently he had to do so through a third party, as Grenville hated him. 

But let's start at the very beginning:

Buckland Abbey starts out as, erm, an abbey

Buckland was a Cistercian abbey founded in 1278 by Amicia, the dowager Countess of Devon. Cistercian abbeys were set up to revive the principles of St Benedict, bringing back poverty, chastity, and obedience instead of the opulence and corruption that would ultimately be the undoing of the monasteries.

The Great Barn is still there

There's a large barn next to the house that would have stored all of the goods that the monks produced; wool, cheese, honey, wood and fruit.

Dissolution spells the end for the monks
Buckland avoided the first cull when Henry VIII started the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536. However, a rather dodgy custodian was put in charge and it was only a matter of time before he handed the place over in February 1539, doing very well for himself out of the closure.

Richard Grenville the Elder snaps the place up
The Crown sold Buckland to Richard Grenville the Elder for £233 in 1541. He intended it for his son Roger, but when Rog met a tragic end on the Mary Rose his young son Richard was next in line and inherited when he was eight.

Richard Grenville the younger isn't very interested in sitting at home
The younger Richard wanted a life of adventure, so when he finally came of age he sold some land at Buckland and took off. He began with a bit of solidering in Hungary and then became Sheriff of Cork before evolving into a privateer, a privateer being someone that sails off to find new lands and riches on behalf of the Queen with her support. He did eventually 'settle' at Buckland - he converted the abbey into a home, while also hunting down Catholics and hanging them, for which he was knighted.

The lovely floor in the Great Hall is original - I like Richie G's taste

Richard sells up, goes back to sea, ends up dead
The very well written guidebook tells how Richard came out of retirement to go back to sea, possibly because he was jealous of Sir Francis Drake's success in circumnavigating the globe and returning with treasures that made him very popular with Elizabeth I. It also tells how he disobeyed orders during his last voyage in 1591; "Sir Richard was shot, most of his crew died, and his ship was pounded to splinters". So there we are.

Sir Francis Drake buys Buckland
Was Francis Drake a pirate? Was he a slave trader? Was he a pious man who was relatively benevolent to his prisoners? Was he constantly chasing the spoils and annoying his cohorts by always somehow ending up with the loot? He was all of the above, according to a book I bought at Buckland called 'Behind the Pirate's Mask'. Here are some factoids:

• He came from humble beginnings - he was born near Tavistock in Devon in 1542 or 1543 to a family that rented a farm from a nearby monastery
• His father is believed to have been a sailor and was an early convert to Protestantism
• The family had to escape to Kent during a Catholic uprising and it was there that Francis got a job with the owner of a small sailing ship who travelled between England and the Netherlands
• When the ship owner died he left it to Francis, who sold up and returned to Devon
• He joined his cousin, John Hawkins, on slave trading missions to the New World in 1566
• They got into battles with the Spanish - this experience hardened Drake against the Spanish, which justified (in his mind) his subsequent pirate activity in stealing treasure from their ships as they carried gold from South America back to Europe

• In 1577 he set sail in the Pelican with the Queen's support - for nearly three years he and his fleet sailed around picking up Spanish gold and other wealth, before returning to Plymouth in 1580 
• Drake thereby became the first Englishman to lead a circumnavigation of the globe, and only the second person to achieve it after Magellan
• Apparently there were some misgivings about Drake's tactics at the time, but the Queen had seen a 5000 to 1 return on her investment from the trip and so in spring 1581 Drake was knighted aboard the Golden Hind and was a national hero

Model of the Pelican, which was renamed the Golden Hind

• He bought Buckland with his share of the spoils and moved there with his first wife (she later died and he married again).
• In 1587 Drake was sent to Cadiz to destroy the Spanish fleet that was gathering strength - once again he brought back a huge haul of treasure and made Elizabeth I very happy.
• In 1588 Drake famously helped defend the coast from the Armada, ensuring that of 130 Spanish ships that came to attack, only 53 returned to Spain.
• In 1589 he took to the sea again to attack what was left of the Spanish fleet but the mission ended in failure; 11,000-16,000 English sailors lost their lives. Elizabeth I was furious and Drake didn't go to sea for a few years.
• In 1594 he was commissioned to go the Indies again but that mission also failed and Drake died of dysentery, ending up with burial at sea

The legend of Drake's drum

I didn't see the replica of Drake's drum - maybe it wasn't on display or maybe I just wasn't paying attention and walked right past it - but it's the stuff of legend. Drake had a snare drum that he took with him on voyages. He apparently ordered the drum to be taken back to Buckland, vowing that if England was ever in trouble then the drum should be beaten and Sir Francis would return to save the day. It has reportedly been heard on several occasions.

Buckland after Sir Francis 
Sir Francis Drake had no children and left his property to his brother, Thomas. Buckland continued to be inhabited by Drakes for many years - they were "booted out" during the Civil War according to the guidebook but returned in 1646. 

By 1750 Drake's descendants had moved out to another residence and Buckland fell into disrepair. It was restored and Drakes returned to live there again, although by now they had names like Sir Francis Fuller-Elliot-Drake. When the last Drake inherited in 1937 (Captain Richard Owen-Tapps-Gervaise-Meyrick) the house caught fire and had to be restored again. It was then put up for auction - a Captain Arthur Rodd bought it and handed it to the National Trust.

Buckland today: house and museum
I particularly liked Buckland because it does two things at once; rooms like the Great Hall give you some idea of where and how Grenville and Drake lived, but it's also very much a Francis Drake museum with artefacts and pictures. 

Plaster cast for the statue of Drake that stands in Tavistock.
It's very big.

There was also an added bonus waiting for us; a famous portrait of Drake was on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. Painted in 1581, it shows him in all his finery following his successful circumnavigation of the globe.

The Buckland scone: Sic Parvis Magna indeed
My heart sank a bit when I saw the Buckland scone. It looked a bit small, especially when compared to some of the other Devonian scones I'd had in recent times (Antony being one example). 

But Drake's motto was Sic Parvis Magna, which means 'Greatness from small beginnings', so I ploughed on. And the scone did turn out to be very tasty. 

I just Googled 'Sic Parvis Magna' to make sure I'd spelt it correctly and it's a very popular tattoo apparently.

I'll end with this. If you're a regular reader, you'll know that for six long years I've been at sea working on this blog, wondering whether I'll ever finish the odyssey. I found this prayer at Buckland by the very pious Sir Francis, which says: "Grant us to know that it is not the beginning but the continuing of the same unto the end, until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth true glory". Even if he was a pirate, and even if sailing around the world is not quite the same as eating 200+ scones, I'm taking it as inspiration from one quest seeker to another. Thanks, Frank. Onwards to true glory.

Buckland Abbey: 5 out of 5

Scone: 5 out of 5

Unexpectedness of the Scone Blog branching out into tattoo inspiration: 5 out of 5