Knole Revisited

These are worrying times for the Scone Blogger. This week the Scone Sidekick asked if we could go back to Knole - this is the SECOND time in THREE years that he has asked for a say in where we go. I could be on the verge of a coup. 

But his reasons were actually very valid; last time we went to Knole it absolutely TIPPED it down with rain and there were NO SCONES - in fact, there was NO TEA ROOM, never mind any scones - and we were both very dejected.

In fact, I laid into Knole at the time for the lack of tea room. I just couldn't it work out; in 2014 they decided to close the cafe and replace it with a Portakabin and an outdoor seating area FOR TWO YEARS. TWO YEARS!

But I'd like to say sorry to Knole for my critical words back then, because today I realised the enormous scope of the renovation work that's going on; they're spending around 18 MILLION POUNDS on stopping Knole from turning into a festering pile of damp (my words) and that can't be easy. 

Anyway. I'm not going to tell the story of Knole again - you can see it on my original moany post. But I will highlight a few things we saw today that we didn't see last time.

1. Reupholstered chair (not as boring as it sounds)
My favourite factoid about Knole is that Thomas Sackville, who built the place, was known as 'Fillsack' because he was always on the take. But it paid off! A later Sackville with the same attitude managed to relieve Whitehall of a load of furniture that the royals didn't want anymore. Whitehall later burnt down and everything in it was destroyed, which means that Knole has chairs belonging to James I and the other Stuarts that are completely unique.

I wasn't allowed to take a picture of this, which is a real shame, but one of the guides pointed to a faded old chair with arms that looked brand new. AMAZINGLY, when the conservation team looked inside the seat of the chair to see what it was stuffed with, they discovered that it was full of remnants of the original fabric! Imagine that! So they took those pieces and put them on the arms to show how the chair would have looked new. It's worth going to Knole for that alone.

2. The Tower
We also got to go up to the top of the Tower and look out over Kent and down into the courtyard. It's a massive place.

3. Eddy's rooms in the Tower

The 3rd Baron Sackville had no sons - his only daughter was Vita Sackville-West. So when he died, Knole and the title went to his brother and then eventually to Eddy, Vita's cousin. Eddy's rooms in the Tower at Knole have been restored - they're very impressive in their cosiness in such a large and otherwise quite forbidding house. I'm not sure his gramophone was big enough though:

4. The Knole scone
The new cafe is very nice, although I did have a moment of panic when I couldn't see any scones. I then had another moment of panic when mine looked dry and hard when I cut into it. But it actually turned out to be really tasty - worth going back for.

I would suggest that you head to Knole soon though, if it's scones you're after. They have deer in the grounds and they are ruthless in their hunt for food, as the photo below clearly shows. They might not eat your children, but they'll certainly eat your picnic. They'll have the scones away in no time, mark my words.

Note the dog cowering under the bench 

Anyway. We then decided to drive the extra 10 miles and check out Hever Castle, or Heaving Castle as I am going to call it.

Hever is privately owned and not part of the NT or English Heritage. The reason for its popularity is very simple: it's the former home of Anne Boleyn. I seem to be following her around at the moment - I went to Blickling a couple of weeks back, which is supposedly her birthplace.

Anyway, her story is nicely told at Hever and there's plenty to look at, including some beheading swords. It was great to see so many kids asking questions about Henry VIII and Anne B - it really is a very compelling part of our history. I was particularly moved by Anne's final letter to Henry before she met her grisly end (it basically says 'I am completely innocent and you are going to burn in hell for this' but in a slightly more polite way). We didn't stop for a scone, as that would be very disloyal.

Knole: 5 out of 5
Scone: 4.5 out of 5
Risk of deer walking into tea room and helping selves to scones: 5 out of 5

Smallhythe Place

I definitely recognised the name Ellen Terry before my trip to Smallhythe Place today. I just couldn't think who she was. I'm fairly sure I had a PE teacher called Ellen Terry, but although having to teach me PE should definitely have resulted in some kind of bravery award, I'm not sure it is of major significance to the National Trust.

Anyway, it turns out that Ellen Terry was a very famous Victorian actress. If her name had been Dottie Carmichael or Mabel Sweetroses, I would have got it right away.

Here are my five favourite things about Smallhythe Place:

1. The history of Ellen Terry:

• She was born in Coventry in 1847
• Her parents were 'circuit players' - actors that moved from town to town
• Ellen started acting in 1856, playing Mamillius in The Winter's Tale
• At 16, she and her older sister Kate were appearing in London theatres - Kate was eventually the grandmother of Sir John Gielgud, factoid fans
• The artist GF Watts painted Ellen and Kate, and Ellen married him when he was 46 and she was 17
• They separated within a year - he said he couldn't live with her
• She went back to her parents and to acting
• She then took up with Edward Godwin, the architect, with whom she had two children, Edith and Edward
• Times got hard and Ellen returned to the stage again
• She parted from Godwin and married Charles Wardell, an actor
• In the same year (1878), she began a very successful acting partnership with Henry Irving at the Lyceum theatre, where they alternated between Shakespeare and popular melodrama
• After 20 years, the Lyceum also hit hard times and Ellen leased the Imperial Theatre but it wasn't successful
• She secretly married an American actor called James Carew (Charles had died)
• She started lecturing on Shakespearean heroines when she finished acting
• She had a stroke and died in 1928

There's a lovely story in the guidebook of how Ellen came to own Smallhythe. She first saw it in the late 1890s when she was driving around Rye and Tenterden in Kent with Henry Irving. She asked the old shepherd living in the house to tell her when he was ready to sell. In 1899 a postcard duly arrived with the three words 'House for Sale' on it and that was it - Ellen bought the place.

2. The house at Smallhythe:

• It was built in the first half of the 16th century
• It was the Port House to the shipyard - the river Rother used to be navigable as far as Smallhythe before the water receded
• Ellen spent as much time as she could at Smallhythe between 1899 and 1928
• Her daughter Edith (or Edy) lived at the Priest's House, one of the cottages next to Smallhythe Place
• Edy lived in a menage a trois with two other women - Vita Sackville West from nearby Sissinghurst used to call them "the old trouts"
• When Ellen died, Edy set about making Smallhythe a shrine to her mother - she created the Costume Room and filled other rooms with theatrical relics
• The National Trust took over in 1939

3. The pictures and theatrical memorabilia

There are hundreds of pictures and photographs of Ellen Terry around the house - she'd have given Kim Kardashian a run for her money. 

I definitely recognised this picture of her - it's in the National Portrait Gallery and was painted by her first husband:

And I also recognised this one, painted by John Singer Sargeant - it's Ellen playing Lady Macbeth. This one is in the Tate Gallery:

4. The Costume Room
The costume in the picture above can be seen at Smallhythe Place. It's astounding. It's made of crochet and is covered in actual beetle wings from the green jewel beetle. It was recently restored and it looks amazing. Someone on Twitter asked me if she was putting up a light fitting and someone else asked me if I was at the National Smoke Alarm Museum, neither of which I can now get out of my head:

5. The theatre
There is an actual working theatre at Smallhythe - you can go and watch everything from Much Ado About Nothing to The Wizard Of Oz this summer - and many famous actors have acted there. I tried to resist saying "more cheese, Gromit?" when I saw the name Peter Sallis, but I failed. Anyway, it's a great little place. You can also hire it for events - I may well persuade Harvey Weinstein to hold the world premiere of National Trust Scones: The Movie here when the time inevitably comes.

The Smallhythe scone
But onto the scone. I've got to be honest: the Smallhythe scone looked and tasted shop-bought to me. The Scone Sidekick strongly disagreed with me here, and I have to admit; NOBODY in their right mind would charge £5.50 for a cream tea with a shop-bought scone, so it must have been home-made. It definitely wasn't fresh though.

However, it was quite tasty - it looked dry but it was actually quite chewy - and that's really all that matters.

It's one of my favourite things about the National Trust: you go along not knowing anything at all about a person and you come away fascinated by them (see also: Cherryburn).

Smallhythe: 4.5 out of 5
Scones: 3.5 out of 5
The tablecloths in the tearoom: 5 out of 5

Quebec House

For 41 years, I was entirely ignorant of the existence of General James Wolfe. I started reading up on Quebec House in Kent, where he lived until he was 11, and felt the usual sense of failure that I didn't have the faintest idea who he was. 

And then IN THE VERY SAME WEEK, I was reading Billy Idol's autobiography and suddenly out of nowhere I found myself reading a paragraph about how he decided to name his son Willem Wolfe...after General James Wolfe!!!! WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF THAT? And let's face it, when the National Trust aligns with the platinum-haired prince of punk rock, you've got to see it for what it surely is: a sign that you must visit, immediately. So off we went.

The house doesn't open until 1pm but we managed to get on a guided tour that started earlier. Without the tour, I would have spent about 7 minutes wandering around the house looking at muskets before coming away thinking 'that was alright'. With the very excellent tour, I left with a real sense of James Wolfe and the house's history. Here are a few highlights:

The Battle of Quebec
I apologise now to all Canadians, but I had never even heard of the Battle of Quebec. Today I learned that it only lasted 15 minutes in 1759, but it was a pivotal moment in Canadian history. It was fought between the British and French as part of the Seven Years War and it saw the British take control of what had previously been French territory.

Who was General James Wolfe?
James Wolfe had followed his dad into the military at the age of 13. He became famous for his ideas and reforms, both about military strategy and about how officers should treat their men - he even wrote a book on the subject. The Battle of Quebec may have only lasted 15 minutes, but it was long enough for James to be fatally wounded. I found out later that he also fought at the Battle of Culloden, so I hope my dad isn't reading this. 

James Wolfe at Quebec House
James was actually born up the road at The Old Vicarage in Westerham, but he grew up at Quebec House. When he was 11, the family moved to Greenwich. However, he was in the army from the age of 13 so the house was very much his formative home. 

The Death of General Wolfe Picture
The picture of James Wolfe breathing his last reminded me very much of the one of Nelson doing the same. However, Wolfe's picture came first - it was painted in 1770. The original by Benjamin West is in the National Gallery of Canada, but there are plenty of copies around the house - there's even one on a tea-tray. Jacqui the guide explained that his victory/death was a huge national event and there was all sorts of stuff made to commemorate his achievements, from tea-trays to cups and plates.

Cannonballs
Jacqui pointed out two cannonballs in a display case. They were probably used in the Battle of Quebec, which is interesting enough, but not as interesting as where the National Trust found them: on eBay. And people accuse the Trust of being old-fashioned. 

Quebec House Scones
There were no scones at Quebec House but I wasn't surprised by this, for two reasons: a) I've visited 33 properties in 2015 so far and I haven't had a no-scone situation since my trip to Aberdulais Tin Works in January, so I was due a disappointment and b) my fellow National Trust sconeophile, Pete Duxon, had visited Quebec House in February and noted that it was scone-free. 

By the way, Pete took some really good photos of Quebec House - you can see them here. 

Anyway, the very lovely staff and interesting tour at Quebec House help to offset the lack of scones - it's definitely worth a visit.

Quebec House: 4 out of 5
Scones: 0 out of 5 (there weren't any)
National Trust's eBay ninja skills: 5 out of 5

Sissinghurst Castle

If you've ever thought that it would be a really good wheeze to live in a National Trust property, you should read Adam Nicolson's book, Sissinghurst.

Adam's family owned Sissinghurst Castle for many years - he is the grandson of Vita Sackville-West - before they handed it over to the National Trust in 1967. Adam's father, Nigel, died in the house in 2004 and Adam helped the undertakers to cover the body with a blanket and carry it on a stretcher to a car outside the building.

A man suddenly appeared and approached Adam. The man asked if the house was open. Adam, still assisting with loading his father's corpse into the hearse, said no, that it was always closed on Thursdays and they had things going on today. The man persisted, saying he had come all the way from Milan, could he not just have five minutes to see the gardens?

I don't know about you, but my jaw was dropping as I read that tale. It may be a rather extreme example of the downsides of life in a National Trust property but it's a sobering reminder of how your home, and to some degree your life, are not your own. You are a tourist attraction.

And before anyone gets in touch saying "THESE PEOPLE GET TO LIVE IN STATELY HOMES FOR FREE SUBSIDISED BY THE £4.95 I HAD TO PAY FOR A BOWL OF LEEK AND POTATO SOUP THAT HAD NO VISIBLE LEEK IN IT WHATSOEVER. WE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO LOOK INSIDE THEIR WARDROBES IF WE FEEL LIKE IT" I know that there are many sides to the matter. I just think it must be quite...weird.

(In fact, after I got home from Sissinghurst today I found out that the Nicolsons did indeed find it weird and eventually moved out - but more of that later.)  

Anyway. Where do I even start with the history of Sissinghurst? In the words of Maria von Trapp, let's start at the very beginning:

• There was once a medieval manor house on the site of Sissinghurst, although only part of the moat survives today
• Sir John Baker, a lawyer and politician who served Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Queen Mary, is believed to have built the entrance arch and gables in the 1530s
• His son, Richard Baker, built the tower and transformed Sissinghurst into a magnificent house - Elizabeth I came to stay for 3 days in 1573
• Sadly, the Bakers fell from grace - they were Royalists during the Civil War and things began to unravel for them
• The house fell into decline and was eventually used to incarcerate French prisoners captured during the Seven Years War
• It was put up for sale in 1928 but no-one wanted it, such was its sad state
• Vita Sackville-West, who would have inherited Knole if she had been a boy, bought the place for £12,385 with her husband, Harold Nicolson
• It had no electricity, no running water, no heating, no drains - they must have been a little bit bonkers
• They started work on the garden, getting the basic layout in place by 1932
• Their head gardener, John Vass, worked for them from 1939 to 1957 and was followed in 1959 by Sibylle Kreutzberger and Pam Schwerdt who remained until 1990!
• Vita died in 1962 - she wrote to Harold in 1961; "We have done our best and made a garden where none was."

I have admitted before that on a scale of 1-10, my interest in gardening hovers around the 1 mark, but even I will concede that the gardens at Sissinghurst are phenomenal.

But first, the tower. The view from the tower is stupendous - even on a cloudy day, the views across Kent are marvellous:

Vita had her study inside the tower and it's been preserved as she had it. It's beautiful - crammed full of books and furniture, it looks like the cosiest room on earth.

We then wandered around the gardens. My favourite was the White Garden, which was the last one to be completed. I couldn't stay in there long, because I unfortunately heard myself saying things to the Scone Sidekick like; "This is such a simple idea! Lots and lots of white plants! It must be easy to grow a hedge like that?! I could do this!", which meant that it was time to leave. I have zero patience, I have little artistic vision, and I don't like mud. Gardening is not for me.

There is also a Rose Garden, a Spring Garden, the Cottage Garden, the Herb Garden, the Moat Walk (full of azaleas), and the Orchard. 

The guidebook tells us that the Sissinghurst gardeners have a a fierce commitment to maintaining the ethos of the place, as Vita and Harold had set it out. For example, there is only one rhododendron in the Delos area, because Harold once explained that "rhododendrons are to us like large stockbrokers whom we do not want to have to dinner." Which seems fair enough.

Sissinghurst was my 87th National Trust scone visit, so you'd think that I'd know the ropes by now. But no. The tearoom nearest the car park had about four tables in it and although it didn't feel right, they had scones and that's all I was really bothered about.

Of course, anyone with half a brain would know that four tables isn't really enough to cope with the 180,000 visitors that Sissinghurst apparently gets each year. Sure enough, around the corner was a huge restaurant - the same restaurant that Adam Nicolson talks about in the book that he wrote (and the book that I read).

But it's all immaterial because the Sissinghurst scone was stunning. It looked perfect, it was fresh as could be, and it tasted fantastic. Top marks.

I loved Sissinghurst. The only bad thing is that you really need to see it at least 6 times a year to appreciate the effect of the changing seasons on the different areas of the garden. But that's not really a bad thing.

I'll finish by recommending Adam Nicolson's book, Sissinghurst - An Unfinished History. It's a fascinating account of how one family tried to influence the development of a National Trust property and the issues that arose. In the end, it seems that living at Sissinghurst just became too much of a hassle - some of their reasons for leaving are highlighted in this interview. But it's a lovely place and it has superb scones - I highly recommend it.

Sissinghurst Castle Garden: 5 out of 5
Scone: 5 out of 5
Harold Nicolson's reasoning behind banning rhododendrons: 5 out of 5

The White Cliffs of Dover

Are The White Cliffs of Dover the only National Trust property to have a song named after them? A song that played on a constant loop in my head for about 9 hours today? Or did The Wurzels ever do a number called (Let's All Go To) Horsey Windpump? If not, they should.

I was a bit dubious about going to visit the White Cliffs of Dover. Surely standing on a cliff doesn't give you the best view of it? I had already seen them through tear-filled eyes from the back of a P&O ferry in 1994, the year I went to live in Germany for ten months. Anyone that knows me is now looking at their watch and saying "blimey, is that the time" because they've heard my tales of woe a thousand times, so I'll spare you.  

But! The White Cliffs of Dover are part of our DNA here in the UK, along with roast dinners and the theme tunes to Only Fools & Horses, so off we went.

The first written record of the White Cliffs appeared in 55BC, when Julius Caesar arrived and saw hordes of angry natives standing on top of the cliffs waiting to welcome him with missiles. He carried on and landed at Deal instead. 

From then, Dover and the White Cliffs have played a role in lots of our historical moments. Henry V landed at Dover after Agincourt. Charles II landed at Dover when he returned from exile during the Restoration. The Black Death was a less welcome arrival - Dover suffered badly because of all those sailors arriving carrying disease.

Dover also bore the brunt of bombardment during the Second World War - it was known as 'Hellfire Corner'. Tunnels and caves had been built into the cliffs throughout the centuries to support the defence of the realm and these were used extensively from 1939-1945 for anti-aircraft activity.  

The walk from the train station to the visitor centre involves a steep climb up some steps. It's absolutely worth it though - the visitor centre itself is lovely, with a cafe offering plenty of outdoor seating so you can watch the ferries criss-crossing to and from Dover, while the enormous cargo ships manoeuvre their way east to west and back again.

I had my concerns about the scones today, because if you can't get great scones at the gateway to Great Britain then we're all in trouble. But I needn't have worried, because the scones at the White Cliffs of Dover were OUTSTANDING. 

They were fresh, light, fluffy and the portion was huge. Even the Scone Sidekick agreed that they were an undisputed 5 out of 5 and he is the Craig Revel-Horwood of this scone odyssey.

If I started the day with Vera Lynn in my head, I ended it with Lou Reed singing Perfect Day. I honestly cannot think of a nicer way to spend a sunny Saturday than walking along the White Cliffs of Dover and visiting the fantastic South Foreland Lighthouse. Highly recommended.

The White Cliffs of Dover: 5 out of 5
Scones: 5 out of 5
Opportunity to walk off the scone calories: 5 out of 5

South Foreland Lighthouse

If the National Trust rang me tomorrow and said "Scone Blogger, which property should we use as a shining example of how to run a highly unique yet extremely visitor-friendly destination?" I would say "I am glad you asked me that, National Trust, because I went there yesterday. It is South Foreland Lighthouse near Dover."

South Foreland Lighthouse is the best-run National Trust property I have seen in a long time. You have to work for it - it's a 40 minute walk from the White Cliffs of Dover Visitor Centre, although there's a minibus on Sundays - but it's 100% worth the effort.

What's so good about it? 

Fantastic Tour Guides 

The volunteer that led us around the lighthouse was called Martin and he must be a serious contender for National Trust Tour Guide of the Year. He was brilliant. If you had told me this morning that at 1pm I would be listening enraptured to a man explaining the traffic patterns of the Strait of Dover, I would have thought you were mad. When I win the lottery I am going to offer Martin a job following me around explaining things; "Martin, how has Greece ended up in this financial pickle?" "Martin, how can I delete people on Facebook without them knowing?" "Martin, why is Katie Hopkins so horrible?" etc. etc. He could make anything sound interesting, I reckon.

He told us that the lighthouse was decommissioned in 1988 and Trinity House (who run our lighthouses) insisted on taking out all the apparatus because they weren't 100% certain that the National Trust wouldn't switch it on one day and cause mayhem among the ferries in the Channel. It was put back in eventually and the light was turned on for one night only for the jubilee in 2012. Apparently the ferries were tooting their horns as they went past. Brilliant. 

Other facts about the lighthouse:

• It is positioned on the Dover cliffs because of the treacherous Goodwin Sands which lie 3 miles out to sea
• The Goodwin Sands were known as 'the shippe swallower' in olden days, because the ten mile sandbank is made of quicksand
• The wrecks of 2000 ships lie out there; one storm sank 50 vessels in 1703
• Beacons have been placed on the cliffs for centuries but the current lighthouse was built in the 1840s
• It was originally lit by oil until electricity arrived in 1872 
• It was fully automated in 1969 before finally being decommissioned

Quirky, Well-Run Tea-Room

The tea-room at South Foreland is called Mrs Knott's and it is LOVELY. It's in the old lighthouse keeper's cottage - the Knott family had been lighthouse keepers for many generations, hence the name.

It's done up to look like a 1950s house and they serve the tea in an array of teapots that they've either picked up in charity shops or that have been donated. It's proper tea with a strainer as well. It's a brilliant idea.

I also loved the little touches, like this Tripadvisor sign done in cross-stitch: 

The South Foreland Scone - Perfection

I suspected that South Foreland might be a happy hunting ground for the Scone Blogger, because they have a scone recipe on their web page. 

However, even in my most optimistic dreams I could not have hoped for a tastier scone. It was absolutely delicious:

(I must add here that a cream tea at South Foreland actually came with two scones, but as I had just eaten 1.5 scones at the White Cliffs of Dover visitor centre, I was unable to even order the full complement, never mind eat it.)  

So I think you've probably gathered that I was quite impressed with South Foreland. It's a fantastic place and the staff and volunteers are a credit to the Trust (especially Martin - Martin, I'll be in touch when my numbers come up).

South Foreland Lighthouse: 5 out of 5

Scone: 5 out of 5, no question

Martin the guide: 5 out of 5 

Emmetts Garden

I get very, very nervous around National Trust gardens. I'm worried that one day I will let my guard down and they will brainwash me into thinking that I am capable of creating a wondrous outdoor space. I am absolutely not capable of creating a wondrous outdoor space. I am not capable of this AT ALL. 

But I needn't have worried about Emmetts Garden in Kent. It has something for everyone. It has space to play games if you're that way inclined, it has woodland walks, it has areas like the Rose Garden where it is very clear what type of plants you are looking at so you don't feel like a dunderhead for not recognising anything. And the Rock Garden is very nice:

There's also a pinetum. The National Trust has given me many things in the two years since I joined it, but the word 'pinetum' must be in the top three. Unfortunately, it's very hard to take pictures of a pinetum - my photos mainly show a spindly Christmas tree so I'll just leave that to your imagination.

Emmetts started life as a farmstead. The house was built in 1860 and in 1890 it was bought by Frederick Lubbock and his wife, Catherine. 

Frederick transformed the gardens at Emmetts, following the design principles of Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. Frederick's style of informal planting can still be seen today. 

From 1928, Emmetts was owned by Charles Watson Boise and his wife. He bequeathed it to the National Trust in 1964.

I bought a guidebook at Emmetts today wondering how they were going to fill 32 pages without a house to talk about. But it turned out to be guidebook gold, containing really interesting background information on Victorian plant-hunting and some startling facts:

• Amets or Emmetts derives from the Old English word for ants and may have referred to the "abundance" of ant colonies in the area! Probably just as well I didn't know this before we set off.
• A Room with a View was filmed at Emmetts Garden! Not the bits in Florence, obviously.
• Frederick Lubbock's brother, John, invented the Bank Holiday! Good man! And what an apt occasion for me to be visiting.
• John loved insects and once took a tame wasp to the Pyrenees by train.

I told you: National Trust guidebook gold.

The Emmetts Garden scone
Anyway, let's move on to other golden matters. If there were such a thing as Scone Vogue and if I were editor of it, then I would be heralding the 2015 Spring-Summer scone trend as 'well-fired'. Today's scones at Emmetts Garden had definitely enjoyed a longer-than-average stay in the oven, as had the scones at Studland Beach last week. This, in my book, constitutes a trend.

And I have to say; it's a risky scone strategy. A fresh scone usually tastes nice whether it's well-baked or not. But a well-baked scone that's 2+ days old is usually a horror story involving a dental bill. 

But for the second week running, my concerns were misplaced. The Emmetts scones were really, really tasty, just like the Studland scone. I came close to awarding a 5 out of 5 but they were just a touch on the dry side, so it's a 4.5. But very enjoyable.

So a successful mission all round - delicious scones and I didn't come home with a car-boot full of azaleas. 

Emmetts Garden: 4 out of 5
Scones: 4.5 out of 5
Bonus points for reminding me of the most excellent word 'pinetum': 5 out of 5

Scotney Castle

I couldn't help but be a bit disappointed in Scotney Castle before I even got there, purely on account of it not being called SCONEY CASTLE. Such a shame.

I'm going to let them off that oversight though, because Scotney is a fantastic place. It has two main parts - the 'new' house completed in 1843 and the old house which dates back to medieval times. 

The old part was originally built by Roger Ashburnham in 1378-1380. The tower in the photo below is known as the Ashburnham Tower and there used to be four of them, just as there is at Bodiam Castle. 

The Darell family came along after that - they owned Scotney for 350 years, during which time they knocked down bits of the Old Castle and rebuilt the place to suit their needs. Their needs included a priest hole, as they were Catholics and they needed somewhere to hide Father Blount during tricky times. 

The house was then bought by Edward Hussey in 1778. He lived in the Old Castle until he committed suicide. His grandson, Edward Hussey III, had been brought up in St Leonards but he moved back to Scotney and decided to build a new home that used the old place as part of the Picturesque landscape. 

(I don't mind admitting that I had absolutely no clue what Picturesque meant until I went to Scotney. I've since found out that it was an aesthetic concept that reacted against the neat and tidy garden layouts of Capability Brown and co. Having a ruined castle within your view of a landscape was a positive, according to Picturesque thinking.) 

The house that Hussey built was designed by Anthony Salvin, who was expert in building homes in the Elizabethan style. It's really very pretty while also being a little bit I'm-going-to-pour-boiling-tar-on-your-invading-head foreboding:

And that's what I loved about Scotney - it's a real contrast of styles. You can go from medieval to real Elizabethan to faux Elizabethan to the 1950s in 10 minutes. And the house has a lived-in homely feel - Betty Hussey, wife of Edward's great-nephew Christopher, died just a few years ago but she asked that the cat was allowed to remain and so its food bowls are sitting in the kitchen as if Betty had just popped out.

(I've mentioned before that National Trust guidebooks always contain at least one WOWSERS! factoid and Scotney's WOWSERS! factoid is that Betty did the kitchen up with the proceeds of the place being used in the Richard Gere film, Yanks. Richard Gere at Scotney Castle. Who knew.)

The Scotney Castle scone
It was a cold, wet day at Scotney but the one advantage of a cold, wet day when you're visiting a National Trust property is that you are really, really, very, very pleased to see a cup of tea and a scone. 

The Scotney scones looked the part and my goodness did they live up to expectation. Soft, full of fruit, tasty as anything - it was a unanimous 5 out of 5.  

Scotney also gets extra merit for having a Scone Of The Month. April's SOTM was banana and walnut and it was ruddy delicious. 

So go to Scotney and get a ruined castle, a Victorian house built in Elizabethan style, an illusive cat, an Aga funded by Richard Gere, fabulous scones, AND a Scone of the Month - what more could you possibly want?

Scotney Castle: 5 out of 5

Scones: 5 out of 5

Banana & Walnut Scone Of The Month: 5 out of 5

Ightham Mote

Ightham Mote in Kent (pronounced Item) is 700 years old and has the only Grade I listed dog kennel in existence, which was built for a St Bernard called Dido. If that alone isn't worth the annual National Trust subscription fee then I don't know what is. 

Ightham is a little treasure of a place. You can't really tell from the photo below - am I actually the worst photographer in Britain? Am I? Actually I'm safe, it's my mother - but the house is surrounded by a moat:

This picture is marginally better:

Anyway, no-one is exactly sure who built Ightham, but the materials used in the the tower and the Great Hall date back to the 1300s. It's been extended and chopped and changed over the years but it has somehow retained a sense of wholeness. Like many other properties, you walk from a medieval Great Hall through to a chapel consecrated in 1633 through to bedrooms refurbished in the 20th century but somehow it feels right at Ightham. Maybe it's because it's on an island. 

Disappointingly, Dido the St Bernard didn't get much publicity. There was no-one leaping about in a big dog costume and no plaque explaining her life and times. Where did she come from? Did she have one of those little barrels of brandy round her neck? Sadly, I'll never know. This is the half-timbered dog kennel that was built for her in 1891 - somebody obviously loved her as it's practically a Wendy house:  

The Ightham Mote scone

One thing that definitely didn't let us down at Ightham was the scones. Ightham has one of the nicest restaurants that I've ever seen at a National Trust property - it's really spacious with very friendly staff. The scones were lovely - nicely sized, and a good texture with a bit of fruit. 

Ightham Mote: 5 out of 5
Scones: 4.5 out of 5
Dido's kennel: 5 out of 5

Knole

I picked the worst possible day to go to Knole. It was cold and wet and although that shouldn't have mattered, it unfortunately did. But I'll come to that later.

First, let me tell you about Knole itself. I had been reading Inheritance: the Story of Knole and the Sackvilles by Robert Sackville-West before I went. I absolutely love it when you find a rip-roaring read about a National Trust property - it super-charges the whole visit (see also Quarry Bank Mill and Gibside). So it was with Knole. I couldn't wait to see it. 

Knole is enormous. It was apparently at one point a 'calendar house', with 365 rooms, 52 staircases, 12 entrances and 7 courtyards. It might not have all of that today but it's still impressive:

Knole also has the most fascinating history. Here are a few snippets:

1. Knole has been passed down through 13 generations of the Sackville family 
Thomas Sackville, the first Earl of Dorset, had a nickname: Fillsack. Even by the standards of the 16th century, old Thomas liked to take advantage of his positions of authority (he was Lord Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I), and he bought the freehold to Knole in 1605 with the intention of developing it to show off his massive wealth. 

2. Knole - a fascinating example of primogeniture at work
Thomas had stipulated that Knole should be passed down from "heir male to heir male" and that did happen, sometimes. However, it often got stuck - famously so, when the 3rd Lord Sackville died and his only heir was his daughter, Vita Sackville-West, the author. As a girl, she didn't get to inherit - it went to her uncle Charles and then her cousin Eddy, much to her distress. In the past 200 years, Knole has only ONCE been handed from father to son - every other handover has been fraught with widows or daughters or SOMEONE being disenfranchised. 

3. Lady Anne Clifford - another fascinating example of primogeniture at work
Anne Clifford married Thomas's grandson, Richard, in 1609. She kept a detailed diary, basically documenting her miserable life. Her marriage had started well enough but it was essentially a business deal - she came from a powerful northern family - and she ended up having to fight for the assets she brought with her, which damaged her relationship with her husband, the 3rd Earl. When he died (from eating too many potatoes, apparently) she had to hand Knole over to her brother-in-law. However, she had the last laugh when she ended up inheriting her old Clifford estates back.

4. Charles Sackville - the Restoration rake
Charles, the 6th Earl, was a bit of a lad. His antics read like a non-stop stag do. He inherited Knole in 1677 following its 'interesting' time during the Civil War. The 4th Earl, Edward, fought alongside Charles I - as a result Knole was taken away from him, plus his younger son was murdered. Knole was eventually restored to the Sackvilles and the 5th Earl, Richard, tried to put things back in order. His son, Charles, wasn't really one for order - Nell Gwyn was his mistress for a while, before he handed her on to Charles II, and he liked having a good time. However, he also managed to impress influential people. One of the 'perks' of his role was to dispose of anything not needed at Whitehall, so he disposed of it in his own home at Knole, creating a very fine collection of Stuart furniture. Whitehall burnt down later and everything went with it, while anything saved at Knole is still there today. 

5. The end of the Sackvilles? Not quite.
Lionel, Charles's son, also managed to impress influential people - he escorted George I over from Hannover and was made 1st Duke of Dorset for his pains. He was succeeded by another dissolute Charles, who spent most of his time drunk on the Grand Tour, and cut all the trees down at Knole. His nephew John was a patron of the arts - the rather astonishing nude statue at the bottom of the staircase is his mistress, Giovanna Baccelli. The 4th Duke was killed in 1815 at the age of 21 in a hunting accident. What then ensued was nearly 200 years of a family tree with branches going hither and thither, the name changing to Sackville-West, and then the branches mingling back to produce Vita Sackville-West and eventually resulting in Robert Sackville-West, the 7th Baron Sackville, who lives at Knole today with his wife and three children. Exhausted? I am. 

Knole has also been immortalised in literature over the years. In Vita's novel, The Edwardians, Knole is renamed Chevron. And Virginia Woolf, who was Vita's lover during her strange but apparently happy marriage to Harold Nicholson, based Orlando on the Sackville history. 

The National Trust refers to 'showrooms' at Knole, which I initially found quite odd. However, it's an apt description. The rooms that are open to the public are breathtaking in their scale and in the age of their contents - chairs that James I and Charles I actually sat on, for example - but it reminded me of the Sistine Chapel. You're there to marvel at it all and not feel any sense of home or personality. And to be fair, that's what Knole has always been: a showcase.

Knole is also strangely dark. The Trust must be waging a massive, constant battle against damp and all of the problems that come with it. However, there is something very special about a property that has remained within one single family throughout history. And the rooms are awesome - they're absolutely unlike anything else, and you really must see them.    

But there's one room that's missing at Knole at the moment and that's a tearoom. As you know, I am one of the National Trust's most loyal supporters but even I have to question the decision to have an Outdoor Cafe at Knole while the indoor one is being renovated until 2016. This was the Outdoor Cafe at 2pm today (a Sunday):

As you can see, it's very outdoor and completely open to the elements. And it's not the National Trust's fault that I decided to go to Knole on a cold and wet day but let's face it, any summer in the UK is a 50:50 on the weather.

Anyway, even with my enthusiasm for scones, I didn't really fancy it. And I don't know if they had any scones anyway. 

BUT! Scone disappointment aside, Knole is definitely worth a visit and Robert Sackville-West's book is fantastic, so give it a read: Inheritance: the Story of Knole and the Sackvilles. 

Knole: 5 out of 5
Scones: 0 out of 5 - we'll have to go back in 2016
Robert Sackville-West's book: 5 out of 5