Kinver Edge and the Rock Houses

I genuinely thought, as I set off on my 185th scone mission, that the National Trust couldn't really surprise me anymore. Don't get me wrong; every property has its own scandalous story or architectural quirkiness that makes it unique, but there's definitely a pattern when you visit stately houses or moorland or archaelogical remains in a big field.

I probably should have known that Kinver Edge and the Rock Houses would be different. For one thing, it sounds more like a band than a National Trust property - 'GIVE IT UP GLASTONBURY! ALL THE WAY FROM KIDDERMINSTER, IT'S KINVER EDGE AND THE ROCK HOUSES!' - but I hadn't really given the place much thought. I'd seen some photos and couldn't grasp what I was actually looking at, so I think I just stopped thinking about it at all.

And then I got to Kinver Edge and realised that it's even weirder in real life than it is in the photos. On the one hand you have huge red sandstone cliff-faces that belong in the Grand Canyon or in films like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. But instead of finding rattle snakes or Clint Eastwood shooting at you, there's a quaint little English cottage porchway sticking out as if you're walking down a street in Devon. You're more likely to meet Miss Marple than Lee Van Cleef.

I did not Photoshop this and it's not two photos joined together.
It's a cottage that has been built into the rock.

It really is the strangest thing:

The volunteer guides were excellent, as is the guidebook. From them I managed to learn a bit of the history of the area: 

• Kinver Edge is an outcrop of rock, two miles long, on the Staffordshire-Worcestershire border.
• There has been human habitation on the Edge for a very long time - an Iron Age hill fort can be found on the very top.
• Nanny's Rock, on the west-facing cliff, was home to Margaret of the Foxearth who died in 1617. Nothing more is known about her unfortunately but with a name like that she'd have been great on keyboards in the band.
• Holy Austin Rock (I don't want to overdo the band thing here but yeah, drummer) might have been a hermitage for a monk at one point - what is known is that by 1861 there were 11 families living there.
• Kinver village was home to a thriving iron industry in the 19th century - it only lasted 50 years but brought many workers to the area who needed a home, hence the rock houses were inhabited by a large number of people.
• Some of the rock houses were natural caverns but others were excavated to provide houses, the sandstone being easy to chisel away when more space was required.

• In 1917, 200 acres of land on Kinver Edge were given to the National Trust by the Lee family who had bought it specifically to hand it over for preservation.
• It was one of the first 'open space' properties that the NT took on.
• The last family to leave the rock houses moved out in the late 1950s when the property was considered unfit for habitation.
• That particular family had lived in the Upper Houses on Holy Austin; the Middle Level and Lower Level had been abandoned earlier, although tea and cakes had been served to visiting 'trippers' on the Lower Level until 1967.
• In the late 1980s the rock house sites were deteriorating and big decisions had to be made on what to do with them. Holy Austin was chosen as the site for restoration and is the area that can be visited today.

The Kinver Edge scone

As I wandered around, wondering if I was in the Mojave Desert or 12 miles from Wolverhampton, I knew one thing for certain: the scone was going to be terrible. It just seemed so unlikely that they'd have any facilities for proper catering. 

In fact, I was surprised that they even had any scones, but they did, and so I bought one and carried it into the tiny little tea garden where I was joined by about 3,000 enthusiastic wasps. 

Ha, I thought, this looks a little bit more like a rock bun than a scone. How very apt. And then I took a bite and it was a brilliant scone. It was crisp and tasty, a conclusion that the 3,000 wasps agreed with. I was so happy that I cut off a chunk of scone, loaded it with jam, and let my waspy companions roll around gleefully in it.  

So there you have it. If you haven't seen Kinver Edge and the Rock Houses live you must go immediately. 

Kinver Edge and the Rock Houses: 5 out of 5 (I'd give it more if I could)
Scone: 5 out of 5
Score for the jam from the entire wasp community of the West Midlands who joined me on today's visit: 5 out of 5

Other visits I have made in the West Midlands: Dudmaston, Moseley Old Hall, Wightwick Manor. 

Shugborough Estate

I'd been hearing great things about Shugborough near Stafford. However, the tipping point for me actually beetling up there as fast as I could wasn't the scones or the impressive mansion. It was this photo:

I will explain it to you, just in case your eyes are going wibbly with the whole AMAZINGNESS of it - it's basically Lord Lichfield (aka Patrick Lichfield, fashion and society photographer) with his weather-defying bouffant hair, aviator sunglasses, jaunty scarf, and leather jacket, on a motorbike. With Britt Ekland.

There is a connection, just in case you think I have finally taken leave of my senses: Lord Lichfield's family owned the Shugborough Estate until it was given to the National Trust after his grandfather died in 1960. Our debonair friend above actually had apartments in the house until his own death in 2005.

In fact, Pat's apartments were the highlight of my visit today, so without further ado let me tell you about Shugborough:

1. Patrick Lichfield's apartments
Top tip: make sure you go and get a timed ticket for Patrick's rooms as early as you can. I had been tipped off by one of my tribe of National Trust scone fans, Natalie Randall, that I would need to look lively, and she was right - I was nearly thwarted by a COACH PARTY. I ask you.

Anyway. You can't take pictures in the family apartments but you can see where he lived and worked (including a kitchen that is straight outta 1986). The walls are covered in pictures - of Princess Margaret and her friends on holiday (she is lying on a chaise longue while they all stand around her - I'm going to try that with my own friends at the soonest opportunity), Princess Anne on a motorbike, Patrick himself, other royals, Patrick himself, Mick Jagger, oh look there's Patrick again etc. 

2. The mansion
The Shugborough Estate was bought by the Anson family in 1625 (Patrick Lichfield's surname was actually Anson) but it wasn't always so grand. Two brothers really established the estate we see today; 

• George Anson (aka Admiral Lord Anson) was a hugely courageous and successful sailor - he was the second British person to circumnavigate the globe (after Francis Drake) on a treacherous journey that took almost four years and ended in 1744. He had 961 men when he set off but his crew was decimated by scurvy and dysentery and all sorts of other disasters. He made a huge amount of money from attacking Spanish ships, however, and it was that money that was used to extend Shugborough.
• Thomas Anson, brother of George, was the elder son and heir of Shugborough. He spent George's money building and landscaping Shugborough to create an estate fit for a successful family.

The Library was one of the rooms built by Thomas Anson - you'll
just have to pretend you can't see the tool box or the table.

• Thomas was eventally succeeded by his great-nephew in 1789, who worked with the architect Samuel Wyatt to make further improvements to Shugborough
• But then along came his son, another Thomas, who was made Earl of Lichfield in 1831. He frittered away the family fortune (there's always one), ended up in financial ruin, and had to sell off a lot of Shugborough's furniture, artworks, and books.
• Subsequent earls tried to manage the debts and keep the estate going, but it was offered to the National Trust in 1960. Staffordshire County Council maintained it for many years until the NT took control in 2016.

4. Highlights of the gardens
Thomas Anson also installed a number of buildings and monuments within the gardens. The Chinese House was probably my favourite - it was built to house Admiral Anson's collection of artefacts that he brought back from China. 

I also liked The Ruins - especially the sign explaining that the Ruins were almost ruined when the National Trust took over and had to be rescued.

It's also customary on this blog that there is always a feature of the estate that I don't actually see and today it was Hadrian's Arch - I did mean to walk up there but somehow the day ran away with me:

5. The Cat Monument
The cat momument was slightly disappointing, if I'm truly honest. It's not known if the monument celebrates a cat that circumnavigated the globe with Admiral Anson, or a different cat who just stayed at home. If one cat really did survive four years on a boat, when hundreds of sailors didn't, it deserved more than just a monument.

And that's just part of what Shugborough has to offer - it's a big, varied estate that could keep you entertained for hours. I would go as far as to say that it's one of the best National Trust properties that I've ever been to.

But did they deliver on the all-important scone front? Shugborough had been getting RAVE reviews from my fellow scone aficionados - a honey scone that had been on offer last weekend had sent everyone WILD (well, two people). 

So I'm very pleased to report that the Shugborough fruit scone was indeed absolutely superb. Fresh, fluffy on the inside, crisp on the outside, and served with Rodda's that didn't need a pick-axe. Perfect. 

BUT! In the words of be-wellied Irish comic Jimmy Kricket, THERE WAS MORE: Lemon & Cranberry scones were also available (next to a copy of the Book of Scones - they know the way to a girl's heart at Shuggers). There was nothing else for it - I had to risk looking like a glutton and try one. It was delicious - light, very lemony, and fresh. They know how to bake scones at Shugborough.

I am aware that Patrick Lichfield would NOT approve of this horrendous photo
but I was so keen to start eating that all composition went out of the window

I will close with a mention of Patrick Lichfield's autobiography. I am only on page two but it already promises to be a ripping yarn. Sample line: "Officially he was the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, Viscount Lyon and Baron Glamis, Tannadyce, Sidlaw and Strathdichtie, Baron Bowes, of Streatlam Castle, County Durham and Lunedale, County York. We called him Big Grandpa."

By the way - the book is called 'Not The Whole Truth'. It says a lot about me that when one of the volunteer guides mentioned the book's title today I conspiratorially asked "do you think he made a lot of it up then?" to which he replied, patiently and courteously while probably inwardly asking himself why they let people like me in to stately homes, "I think more likely he left a lot out?" 

Anyway - I'll update late with any fascinating factoids. Stand by!

Shugborough: a resounding 5 out of 5
Scone: 5 out of 5
Derring-do of Admiral Anson's cat that sailed around Cape Horn and went to China while mine lies on the spare bed all day: 5 out of 5

Biddulph Grange Garden

If I had to pick a job from history that I would have hated, 'coroner for plague victims' would be quite high, as would anything to do with sewage. 

But I would also put 'Victorian plant hunter' on that list. Weeks of being thrown about on a rickety boat to some godforsaken place; potentially being eaten by something (or someone) while you thrashed about in the undergrowth searching for specimens; lovingly drawing your findings; carefully storing them for the voyage home; losing the lot when your ship got stuck in Godwin Sands half a mile off Dover; turning up weighing 5 stone at your patron's house clutching a single dead plant that they take one look at and say "the Duchess of Porkington's man found that two months ago" before slamming the door in your face? I'd have taken my chances up a chimney, frankly.

Luckily the Victorians were a bit braver than me. Biddulph Grange Garden near Stoke-on-Trent was the creation of one James Bateman, a horticulturalist and landowner. Starting in 1842, James and his wife Maria spent twenty years creating a 'world garden' from scratch, planting specimens from the four corners of the globe. 

The Bateman family eventually had to sell up, but the National Trust acquired Biddulph in 1988 and have restored it to its former glory. You need a good 2-3 hours to walk around it and see exactly what a Victorian world garden would have looked like. Some of my highlights: 

China
Most pictures of Biddulph Grange Garden focus on the 'China' area, and for good reason. It's stunningly pretty, laid out to resemble a real-life willow pattern scene. There's also a gilded water buffalo (see picture above) and a giant frog sitting on a wall.

The plants in the China area were brought back by the plant hunter Robert Fortune. They include one of the oldest golden larches in the UK, along with Japanese maples and cedars. 

Italy
An Italian garden in Victorian times involved formally arranged flower beds and a stepped terrace, as seen here:

Egypt
I'm not a massive fan of topiary, but I thought the Egypt area at Biddulph was very effective, with its pyramid and stone sphinxes. Unfortunately you'll have to imagine the pyramid clipped out of yews as I clipped it out of this photograph for some reason.

The Dahlia Walk

I unexpectedly discovered a massive respect for dahlias today. It's October but there they were, blooming bravely away even as the temperatures dropped. Yay dahlias.

The singing tree

I was aware of someone singing at Biddulph almost as soon as I set off around the path. I eventually found the source of that singing: it was a tree. I read later on the website that it's a sound installation as part of a 'Dangerous Discoveries' art project. I completely missed this project, which made me a bit sad. On the other hand, I've spent several hours thinking that I'd seen a singing tree, so it's not all bad.

The Biddulph scones

I'm not sure scones were a feature of the traditional Victorian world garden, more's the pity. However, Biddulph was the 97th stop on the National Trust scone odyssey AND my first scone mission in four weeks, so I desperately wanted it to be a good one. 

And I was in luck. The Biddulph scone was FANTASTIC. I would actually go so far as to rank it in the top three National Trust scones of all time - it was fresh, it was crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. I loved it.

I also visited nearby Little Moreton Hall today. For some reason, I decided to buy the LMH guidebook in advance and read it before I went - this caused me all sorts of problems with my self-esteem, as you can read in that post - but it made a big difference to my visit. If I had read the Biddulph guidebook in advance, my trip would have been a lot better. I missed seeing 'The Ape of Thoth' for example - I'm not sure what that is, but it sounds brilliant. So guidebooks in advance in future.

Biddulph Grange Garden: 5 out of 5

Scones: 5 out of 5
Singing tree reminiscent of The Singing Bush from The Three Amigos: 5 out of 5