Studland Beach

Studland Beach has the best EVER description in the National Trust handbook. 

It starts off innocuously enough: "Glorious slice of Purbeck Coastline...gently shelving bathing waters and views of Old Harry Rocks" before throwing in "includes the most popular naturist beach in Britain" and ending with "Studland was the inspiration for Toytown in Enid Blyton's Noddy". 

How in the name of cream of tartar have I managed to visit 75 other National Trust properties before I got round to Studland? 

It turns out that Studland Beach is also a very beautiful place: 

The beach stretches for four glorious miles, with views of the Isle of Wight and Old Harry Rocks, which you can just about see here behind this very rare sighting of the Scone Sidekick:

But I will admit: finding out that the National Trust owns a 1km stretch of beach where you can walk around completely starkers is one of the more surprising discoveries of my life, right up there with Warren Beatty being Shirley Maclaine's brother, or Bruce Springsteen having written the song Pink Cadillac. 

The Studland scone
You may be disappointed to hear that I didn't see any naturists. I didn't see Noddy either. But I DID see some scones. 

I will be brutally honest here; my heart sank when I saw this specimen. It looked a bit well-fired for my liking. But faint heart never won fair scone, so I bravely tried it...and it was absolutely delicious. It was fresh, with a lovely soft middle and a slightly crunchy exterior. A 5 out of 5 if ever I saw one. 

We stayed in Studland at the very lovely Pig on the Beach hotel - we later discovered that this had previously been Studland Manor where the Bankes family, the owners of Kingston Lacy (another successful purveyor of scones), had spent their summers. A very fitting end to our Dorset tour.

Studland Beach: 5 out of 5
Scone: 5 out of 5
Amazingness of the National Trust owning a naturist beach: 5 out of 5 

Max Gate

If I had to list the most depressing moments of my life, the time I spent reading Jude the Obscure would be right up there, along with most mornings after general elections and the League One play-off final of 2002. 

And the horror has stayed with me: I haven't read it in over 20 years and yet when a colleague recently told me her new baby's name was Jude, all I could think of was the little boy killing his siblings and then hanging himself "because we are too menny". At least you got a few happy endings with Charles Dickens.

Anyway. Hardy wrote Jude the Obscure at Max Gate, the house in Dorchester that he built in 1885. It's lovely - it certainly didn't inspire me to any thoughts of infanticide.

Hardy was already a successful author when he built Max Gate, having published Far From The Madding Crowd and other notable works. He had been an architect before his writing career took off, and he designed Max Gate and had it built by the family firm.

Max Gate has a very comfortable feel to it. He lived here with his first wife, Emma, until she died. In 1914 he married his second wife, Florence, who was 39 years his junior. He also had a lot of illustrious visitors over the years, including WB Yeats, Rudyard Kipling and the Prince of Wales.

I loved the study at Max Gate. This was his third study, apparently, as the first one was turned into a bedroom and the second one was too small and uncomfortable, but this one was just right:

There are no scones at Max Gate, but I knew that in advance. Anyway, I had already troughed my way through scones at nearby Kingston Lacy and Hardy's Cottage and even I would baulk at three cream teas in one afternoon.

If you are heading to Max Gate, make sure you visit Hardy's Cottage, located around 3 miles away - it's where Hardy was born and grew up and I highly recommend you visit that as well.

Max Gate: 4 out of 5
Scones: 0 out of 5 - there weren't any but we knew that
Misery of house compared to subject matter of artistic output: 0 out of 5

Hardys Cottage

If an acquaintance of mine were to say to me "We went to a National Trust place on Sunday. It was the birthplace of an author who has a blockbuster Hollywood film showing in zillions of cinemas around the world at the moment. It was horrendously busy - we didn't enjoy it much at all", do know what I would do? I would laugh my head off and say in my best Mr T voice: "I pity you, FOOL. Number one rule of visiting the National Trust; never, ever go anywhere on a Sunday afternoon just after it has been on the telly."

And for that reason I was very worried about my trip to Hardy's Cottage in Dorset. Thomas Hardy was not only born in this cottage, he actually wrote Far From The Madding Crowd there. I haven't seen the new film version of FFTMC but it has had rave reviews and so I figured we would be queuing for miles and having a big row until the Scone Sidekick lost his temper and drove off in a squeal of tyres without us having seen so much as a chimney pot.

But, not for the first time, I was completely wrong. It was lovely and quiet - we were the only ones on the little path to the cottage, which leads through a wood until suddenly there it is:

Thomas Hardy was born here in 1840. The cottage had been built in 1800 by his great-grandfather, who had set up a family business as a mason. Thomas suffered poor health as a child and so his mother encouraged his education, allowing him to become apprenticed to an architect. He went on to publish 14 novels and a thousand poems.

They are very much embracing their cinematic fame by proudly displaying some of the costumes worn by Carey Mulligan in the film:

And it really is an idyllic little place. It's easy to overlook how cold and dark it would have been back then when Thomas was growing up here.

Anyway. I should not have had a scone at Hardy's Cottage, for the following reasons:
1. The cafeteria isn't run by the National Trust
2. I had just had a scone at Kingston Lacy an hour before
3. There was only one scone left and it looked extremely sorry for itself:

But I did have it and the staff were very kind and insisted on heating it up for me, as it had been frozen, plus I think she charged me a reduced price. 

However, you don't go to Hardy's Cottage for the scones - even I will admit that. It's a lovely little place that makes a fascinating stop on the Hardy Country tour (Max Gate and Clouds Hill being the two other places of note). Highly recommended.

Hardy's Cottage: 5 out of 5
Scone: 3 out of 5

Kingston Lacy

You're probably getting a bit bored of me saying "I read a GREAT book about <insert National Trust property name here> and I just HAD to go there!". 

And that's a bit unfortunate, because I read a GREAT book about Kingston Lacy and I just HAD to go there. 

A Kingston Lacy Childhood is a collection of reminiscences from Viola Bankes, whose family owned the place from 1632 until 1981. It's a short book that tells of an Upstairs Downstairs world, just as Upstairs was becoming increasingly unable to sustain itself.

But in fact, the book didn't prepare me for Kingston Lacy at all. The house is incredible. But before I get onto the amazingness of the rooms, here's a bit of history:   

• The Bankes family began their connection with the place when John Bankes, Chief Justice to Charles I, bought the old royal estates of Kingston Lacy and Corfe Castle 
• Corfe Castle was the family home until it was blown up during the Civil War, despite the valiant efforts of Dame Mary Bankes to defend it
• Ralph Bankes, John's son, decided to focus on building a new house at Kingston Lacy rather than rebuild the castle
• The original Kingston Hall was two-storey and built in red brick
• Kingston Hall was remodelled by Henry Bankes the Younger in 1784 and then by William John Bankes from 1834, who worked with Charles Barry to transform it into a four-storey Italianate palazzo called Kingston Lacy
• William John Bankes was caught in an "intimate situation" with a solider in a London park in 1841 and was exiled abroad
• He continued to work on Kingston Lacy from exile, however, commissioning furniture and directing the building works
• When Ralph Bankes gave the estate to the National Trust in 1981 it was the largest bequest in the Trust's history

The two most striking things about the house are the elaborate rooms and the artworks. I am no art expert but even I was blown away by the both the number of pictures and the atmosphere that they lend to the house. In the Drawing Room for example are 50 miniature portraits painted by Henry Bone - I've never seen anything like them. They're on enamel and they look strangely 3D. There's also a Spanish picture room that is unlike any other room I've ever seen at the National Trust.

The Kingston Lacy scone
I might not be an art expert but I AM a scone expert. I had been experiencing a severe scone drought in the run-up to my Kingston Lacy visit - a full SIX WEEKS had passed since my previous scone encounter at Stourhead (I hasten to add that this was due to me not being able to go anywhere because of flu and other hassles).

Thankfully Kingston Lacy delivered - there was a choice of large (two scones) or small cream tea (one scone). I plumped for the latter and it was very nice - fresh and tasty:

As we left Kingston Lacy I thought back to the taxi driver that had dropped us off at Stourhead a few weeks ago. He was enthusiastically extolling the virtues of Stourhead and what a great place it was, before adding that he'd once been to a place called Kingston Lacy and it was rubbish. I am normally quite sanguine about these things and reason that everyone has different opinions, but in this case he was barking mad. It's an amazing place and I recommend it.

Kingston Lacy: 5 out of 5
Scones: 4.5 out of 5
Stourhead taxi driver's taste in National Trust properties: 0 out of 5

Clouds Hill

If there was an award for National Trust Property That Doesn't Look Very Interesting But Turns Out To Be Brilliant then Clouds Hill would win it.

And I'm sorry if that offends anyone but it's true. When I looked up Clouds Hill on the National Trust website, this is the first thing I saw:

Remember, this is the National Trust. Clouds Hill could have been a castle. It could have been a manor house. It could have been a hill. In fact it's a little hovel with no windows.

But I've watched enough episodes of A Touch of Frost to know that you have to look beneath the surface of these things. WHY, I asked myself, would the National Trust own a little windowless cottage? 

The answer is Lawrence of Arabia. The great TE Lawrence used this little place as his rural retreat from 1923 until his untimely death in 1935:

And in fact, until today, that is all I knew about TE Lawrence - that he was killed in a motorbike accident. Here are some other facts about him and Clouds Hill:

• He was born in 1888 at Tremadoc in Wales
• After university in 1915, he was posted to the British Military Intelligence office in Cairo
• He became an expert on Arabia and in 1922 he wrote the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, an account of his experiences 
• He agreed to write a shorter version of this text while he was enlisted in the Tank Corps, which was stationed near Bovington in Dorset
• He rented a little ramshackle woodsman's cottage nearby called Clouds Hill, where he could write and listen to music
• He received many illustrious visitors there, including EM Forster and Thomas Hardy
• He returned to the RAF in 1925 and was posted to India
• It was during this time that he bought Clouds Hill, loaning it out to friends
• In 1929 he returned and began remodelling the house - it was completed in 1934 and remains the same today
• He was killed half a mile up the road in 1935 when he swerved his motorbike to avoid some cyclists on the way back from the post office

The rooms at Clouds Hill are fascinating. It somehow manages to be austere and yet cosy at the same time. My favourite feature was the enormous gramophone - Lawrence was a music buff apparently and had the latest hi-fi equipment. You can just about see it on the right in this very poor photo:

There were no scones at Clouds Hill - there was no anything at Clouds Hill - but it didn't matter at all. It's a fascinating little place that gives an insight to a very interesting man and I highly recommend it.

Clouds Hill: 5 out of 5
Scones: 0 out of 5 (there aren't any, but I knew that)

Corfe Castle

I know nothing about falconry. You can probably choose it as a GCSE at Eton but I went to a school where you were lucky to find a tennis racquet with strings. 

But I can now add falcons to the long list of things that I've learned from the National Trust. It began when I was reading up on Corfe Castle prior to today's scone mission. "They have a Saxon and Viking falcon display!" I said enthusiastically to the scone sidekick, who was looking at the train times to Dorset and saying "HOW FAR??". 

"And then next week they have a Norman falcon display, followed by a Medieval falcon display the week after, and then the following week there's a Tudor falcon display, followed the next week by a Civil War falcon display." We looked at each other. I looked back at the website hoping it would continue on to Falcons of the 1960s, where they dress up as Jimi Hendrix and protest against Vietnam, but it stopped in the 1600s. 

But I'll come back to my education in falcons in a moment. First, let me tell you about Corfe Castle itself. 

Corfe Castle is a ruin. You probably didn't need me to point that out, but it was demolished by Parliamentarian forces during the Civil War. It was owned by Sir John Bankes and he supported the King. He died, leaving his wife Dame Mary to defend two sieges before someone within the garrison betrayed her and she was forced to leave. She got it back during the Restoration but it had been blown to pieces.

It's a big site and you can walk around the various parts of it that were built throughout medieval times - the Norman Old Hall, built by William the Conqueror, is believed to have been built on an older Saxon castle, constructed by King Alfred. It was here that Alfred's son Edward was murdered by his stepmother to put her own son, Ethelred the Unready, on the throne. William's son, Henry I, added a keep and for 500 years the castle was an important royal stronghold. Queen Elizabeth I sold it to her Chancellor, who then sold it to the Bankes family. 

It takes a bit of imagination to envisage how impressive it would have looked back in 1500. And it's quite astounding to see how much of it withstood the gunpowder; in some places the walls look like they're still falling over in very, very slow motion:

So what about the falcons? I'll be honest; I'm still not 100% sure about the difference between a Saxon falcon and a Tudor one. However, the man that was showing us the falcons was fascinating. He explained how he trains them using a traditional technique of sleep deprivation rather than withholding food - he really knew his stuff.

The Corfe Castle scone
I don't know if falcons eat scones but I definitely do, so we headed off to find the tea shop. It was a lovely little place and strangely quiet, until I looked outside and realised that everyone else was enjoying their cup of tea in the very large garden that overlooks the castle. And I found my National-Trust-Guidebook-Fascinating-Factoid-Of-The-Week: the tea room at Corfe Castle sells 23,000 cream teas every year. 23,000. Amazing.

They have an ice cream tea on the menu at Corfe Castle, made with Purbeck clotted cream ice cream. (That's CLOTTED CREAM ICE CREAM for anyone that wasn't paying attention just then.) I was sorely tempted, readers, but I realised that it would ruin this highly scientific study of mine, so I stuck with the standard version. It was delicious. The scone was huge, the cream was thick and surprisingly less sweet than I expected - it was great.  

Corfe was the 40th destination on my National Trust Scone odyssey and I've come to the conclusion that you can't really go wrong with castles. I loved Bodiam Castle and Scotney Castle as well, so I'll be adding more to my itinerary. Let me know your favourites. I might even take my scone mission international and go to Wales.

Corfe Castle: 5 out of 5
Scone: 4.5 out of 5
Medieval falcon: 5 out of 5

Brownsea Island

You know how Spiderman has a Spidey-sense? Well, I think that the scone blogger is developing a Sconey-sense, because I had absolutely no idea that there was a Sconefest at Brownsea Island yesterday and yet that was the fourth destination on my scone odyssey.

I could lie and say that I had chosen Brownsea Island for its wildlife and historical connections but really I just love a bargain and I especially love very good bargains from South West Trains as they drive me mad most of the time. Over the summer they’ve been offering a £15 return to pretty much anywhere – it usually costs £45 for me to get to Poole in Dorset by train, so £15 was a proper steal.

Of course, this resulted in the inevitable “sorry ladies and gentlemen, we’re stuck behind a slow-moving train” delay so by the time we got to Poole Quay and got on the boat that takes you across to Brownsea, I had serious concerns that it couldn’t possibly be worth the effort.

Well, I was wrong. Brownsea Island is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. GO. GO NOW.

But before you do, let’s talk scones. Sconefest meant that there was a big selection on offer: blueberry, plum, cheddar cheese and chive, goat’s cheese and caramelised onion…I should really have tried a bit of all of them but that might have ruined this important and highly scientific study.

Instead, to be consistent, I had the standard cream tea: plain scone, cream, jam and tea for £3.75. The other half had a fruit scone and then we shared an apple and cinnamon from the Sconefest counter.

It was scone perfection, people. SCONE PERFECTION. The plain one was slightly warm, lovely and chewy and I could have eaten four of them. The apple and cinnamon scone was similar in texture with subtle flavours – with a dab of cream, they were delicious. FIVE OUT OF FIVE ALL ROUND.

Of course, the view as we ate the scones may have contributed to the experience:

And that’s the thing about Brownsea  – it’s an absolute beaut of an island with a castle and a church and woodland and lovely views of the sea and Sandbanks and Harry Redknapp, well no I didn’t actually see Harry, but there was plenty else to marvel at. I thought I’d try and summarise Brownsea by mentioning four of its celebrity connections:

1. Lord Baden-Powell

Did you know that the very first ever scout camp was held on Brownsea Island in 1907, when Robert Baden-Powell and 20 boys pitched their tents there? I cannot imagine anything worse than camping and my career as a Brownie was undistinguished (I resigned in a fit of pique when they wouldn’t let me do my Jester badge – two weeks later the whole pack (or whatever we were called) did their bloody Jester badges) but I seriously cannot think of a lovelier place to camp. It has woodland, beaches, lagoons – everything. A real paradise. I can’t finish this paragraph without mentioning my friend Jane (not her real name) whose Brownie career was startlingly different to mine – she tragically lost her sister to cancer at a very young age and one of the ways she dealt with her grief was to unpick the badges off her sister’s Brownie tunic and sew them on her own. I often wonder what she’s doing now. Banking, probably.

2. Guglielmo Marconi

Yes indeed, the man known for inventing the radio was a frequent visitor to Brownsea when his friends, the van Raalte family, owned it as their country retreat. Apparently he conducted many of his experiments with wireless telegraphy at the Haven Hotel opposite Brownsea. It's quite strange to think that the man responsible for me having to listen to Magic FM every morning spent so much time in such a tranquil and peaceful place.

3. Squirrel Nutkin

I appreciate that Beatrix Potter probably didn’t get her inspiration from Brownsea but I can’t think of any other celebrity squirrels (was Tufty a squirrel?) There are 200 rare red squirrels on the island and we saw not a one of them. October is the best time to spot them, apparently. The nearest we came was a fridge magnet in the shop. We did see some baby peacocks though.

4. John Lewis

I know he’s not a person (was he a person?) but I thought it was fascinating that the John Lewis Partnership leases the castle on Brownsea. According to the man on the boat, they rent out 5 star accommodation at 2 star prices to their staff but there’s a 4 year waiting list. It’s worth waiting for, is all I can say to that. I can’t think of a nicer place to wake up in the morning. Where’s their recruitment page.

So I think I’ve made it fairly plain that Brownsea Island is awesome and you must go there. We were lucky with the weather – it started off quite cool but the island is a little sun trap so I came home looking like a lobster.

Scones: 5/5

Brownsea Island: 4.5/5