Hindhead Commons & the Devil's Punch Bowl

The word 'devil' makes a place sound really interesting, doesn't it? There are loads of towns that could benefit from this idea - Devil's Staines, or Slough of the Devil, to name just two locations of my own regular acquaintance.

Unfortunately the Devil had eaten all the scones today at Hindhead Commons and the Devil's Punch Bowl.  

They had some in the oven, apparently. I could have waited for them but the place was mobbed full of cyclists, a bit like Box Hill, so it would have felt wrong to sit there hogging a table for 20 minutes, waiting. I settled for some Victoria sponge, which was lovely, and got over my disappointment.

The weather wasn't brilliant today either, but we wandered around anyway and learned three very interesting things:

1. How did the Devil's Punch Bowl get its name? 
The Devil lived in Surrey at one point apparently, and he used to jump around the hills to annoy Thor, the god of thunder, who also lived nearby. Instead of getting an ASBO sorted out, Thor used to throw thunder and lightning at the Devil, who one day retaliated by scooping up a load of earth and throwing it at Thor. That scooped out bit became the Devil's Punch Bowl.

The alternative version is that when the mists gather over the depression it looks like a punch bowl. And it's quite big, so only something like a giant or the Devil could have created it. You can pick your favourite version.

2. Mist moves about in columns

I often berate my history teachers on this blog for failing to teach me much history. Today I turn my attention to my geography teachers, but in all honesty it's not them, it's me. I went into my first senior school geography lesson expecting capital cities, all ready with my Addis Ababa, only to discover that geography is actually about weather. Weather! And rock formations! I never really got over the shock and I can honestly say that I learned nothing in four years, which is terrible.

I'm telling you this because I was fascinated today to see the mist moving in wispy but very determined columns across the Punch Bowl. I was expecting a flat blanket sitting on top but instead there were spectral misty towers gliding into the trees, just like ghosts. It was quite something and made me sorry that I had spent all my Geography time writing on my pencil case.

3. The history of the A3

The biggest surprise of the day, however, was this:

It looks like a fairly normal part of Hindhead Commons, right? Well, not exactly. This used to be the A3. Imagine three lanes of traffic crashing along here, before the Hindhead Tunnel was opened in 2011. 

I loved the informative sign explaining the history of the A3 - how it used to be a favourite spot for highwaymen until it was rerouted to the area shown in the photo above in 1822. So it remained for 200 years before being closed off, and now it's being reclaimed by nature (and the National Trust).

I've been very fortunate over the past 14 months - out of 56 properties, I've only had five that failed to deliver any scones; Bath Assembly Rooms, Knole, Nuffield Place, Hughenden and now the Devil's Punch Bowl. A couple more didn't have any but hadn't promised them in the first place. That's not bad going. Onwards and upwards to our next destination.

Devil's Punch Bowl: 3 out of 5 - he ate our scones, the meanie
Hindhead Common: 5 out of 5 - for its A3 history
Scones: 0 out of 5 - there weren't any

UPDATE: I went back to Hindhead Commons and the Devil's Punch Bowl in 2023 to see if they could provide any scones second time around! And they did!

Hinton Ampner

The approach to Hinton Ampner in Hampshire is a bit like Planet of the Sheep - there are absolutely loads of them stood along the driveway watching you go past, with their impassive yet knowing eyes. Hinton is famous for its ghostly history but I'd take my chances with the ghosts any day. 

Anyway. Hinton Ampner is a lovely place, once you get past the sheep:

I hope they don't mind me saying this though, but it doesn't really have The M25 Factoid that most National Trust properties have. By that I mean; when I say to the scone sidekick "let's go to X", his first question is always "where is it?" followed by "what's there?". He hates the M25, so if the answer to the first question involves driving one measly junction of it, the answer to the second question better be good. And Hinton Ampner doesn't really have anything to make you think "I MUST see this".

It's a truly beautiful property though, with pretty and homely gardens, and we were both really pleased that we made the trip. The history in brief:

• Ralph Dutton handed the property over to the National Trust in 1985
• His ancestors had lived on the estate for 500 years
• The first house had been built in the 1500s and was said to be haunted
• It was demolished in 1793 and a Georgian house was constructed instead
• Ralph's grandfather renovated the house in a style that Ralph detested
• In 1935, Ralph inherited Hinton and restored it to its Georgian glory
• He filled it with historic furnishings to fit the Georgian theme
• But the house caught fire in 1960 and Ralph had to start again
• This means that the house you see today is actually the newest house in the care of the National Trust - it was built in the 1960s, which is after the Beatles' childhood homes and everything! And there's The Factoid! Hurray!

You had to ask permission to take photos in the house and I just couldn't be bothered, so I didn't take any. I'm sure the rules were something simple like 'don't use a flash' or 'don't climb on the sofa to get an aerial shot' so why they couldn't just put that on a sign somewhere I don't know.

The Hinton Ampner scone
Anyway. Let's move on to the scones because I did get a photo of those. The scones at Hinton were melt-on-the-tongs, which is why they look a bit dented in the picture below. A stale scone doesn't crumble when you pick it up though, so I was very hopeful. And I wasn't disappointed: the plain scone was lovely, while the fruit scone was a complete triumph. Even the scone sidekick declared it a 5 out of 5 and he's normally harassing me to give a 2.

I'm going to finish with another observation on the Hinton Ampner sheep. I said earlier that it was all a bit Planet of the Sheep as they stood at the side of the drive staring, but I actually don't think we have anything to worry about - they're too lazy to take over the planet and enslave us all. Look at them:

Hinton Ampner: 5 out of 5
Scones: 5 out of 5
Get-up-and-go of the sheep: 0 out of 5

Runnymede

The Magna Carta is one of the things that my school didn't quite get round to covering during the 14 years of my education, along with other potentially quite useful stuff, like how to type or how to work out my mortgage repayments.

So I headed off to Runnymede today ready to be educated. This is the memorial to the Magna Carta:

Please note that the children and man in the picture were not vandalising the monument, as I obviously would have objected if that had been the case and not just stood there taking photos of their backs. They were doing rubbings of the text: 

In case you too went to a school that didn't bother with Magna Carta, here's what I learned:

• King John came to the throne in 1199
• A lot went wrong and he ended up defeated in battle and losing his lands on the Continent
• The Barons of England got fed-up with bankrolling his losses but there was no obvious contender to the throne that they could bring forward to replace him 
• Instead, they tried to call him to account and force reform by creating a Charter of Liberties
• King John was forced to put his seal on the Magna Carta at Runnymede on 12 June 1215
• However, he had no intention of honouring it and tried to annul it
• The furious Barons offered the throne to Louis, son of the King of France
• John died in 1216, however, and his son, Henry III, succeeded to the throne when he was only 9 years old
• Henry's minority council decided to resurrect the Charter
• Support for Louis and his claim to the throne dwindled and he went home
• The Magna Carta was reissued with modifications and entered the statute book in 1297, becoming the first constitutional document in the world
• The Magna Carta has since become the basis for the development of international democracy
• Clause 39 provides the basis for law and individual rights with the text; "No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, outlawed, banished or in any way destroyed, nor will we proceed against or prosecute him, except by lawful judgement of his equals and by the law of the land."

The importance of Magna Carta seems to be recognised everywhere but here in the UK. There's a copy of it in Salisbury Cathedral - if you ever go to Mompesson House then you can pop in and see it. It's always surrounded by people and 90% of them are from overseas.

Runnymede is also the site of the Kennedy Memorial, which was opened in 1965 by the Queen, Jackie Kennedy, and other members of JFK's family. A few years ago I went to Arlington in Virginia where John F Kennedy is buried and the Runnymede memorial had the same atmosphere of stillness. It's quite something.

The Runnymede scone
I hate to admit this but having just seen the birthplace of democracy and the sombre memorial to a man brutally cut down in his prime while pursuing freedom, it didn't really seem quite right to go and stuff my face with a scone.  

Luckily, I had already done it - I started my visit with a quick stop in the tearoom, which was recently taken over by the National Trust. It has particularly friendly and helpful staff and they're very generous with their scones. They were a bit dry though and for the second week running the cream was more flaky than clotted. Maybe that's what happens in September - thousands of children are rounded up and forced back into school, 8,000 spiders decide to try and get into your house, and Rodda's cream turns flaky. C'est la vie I suppose.

Anyway, Runnymede is well worth a visit. The Barons chose a beautiful spot for the sealing of the Charter and the memorials are nicely done.

Runnymede: 4 out of 5
Scones: 3.5 out of 5

Flatford Revisited

You may be wondering why I returned to Flatford Bridge Cottage today, when I have approximately 500 National Trust properties still to see.

If you've been to Flatford, you'll know why. It's a stunningly beautiful little place. John Constable based many of his greatest paintings on Flatford and his scenes are still recognisable today, thanks to the National Trust who look after the buildings and countryside in Constable Country.

It gets my vote as the most idyllic spot in Britain. I would gladly and willingly pay the National Trust £58 a year for the upkeep of Constable Country alone. In fact, I'd probably pay them ten times that amount, but don't tell them.

Anyway, I covered the general story of John Constable and Flatford in my first post about Flatford and its scones in November 2013. But here are a few pictures from today's visit:

A rare sighting of the Scone Sidekick at Flatford Bridge Cottage

Flatford Bridge Cottage, River Stour and apple-laden tree

Flatford - scene of the The Haywain (see below)

The Haywain, by John Constable

There was one moment of heartbreak for me today. Last time I came to Flatford I helped bake the scones. I remember being amazed at how the outside of the scone was so crisp, while the inside was soft and fluffy. 

Well, it turns out that this wasn't down to me. The fruit scone today was exactly the same. I've eaten around 60 National Trust scones since I last visited Flatford and I haven't come across any other scones that achieve crisp vs fluffy perfection.

Flatford Scone of the Month
Flatford is on my World Scone Heritage List because it is brilliant at scones but also because they have a Scone of the Month. I arrived at the tea counter ten minutes after it opened - today being 1st September - and was HONOURED to be the very first person to buy an Apple & Blackberry scone. I'd seen about a billion blackberries in the hedgerows round Flatford and the tree next to the tearoom was about to keel over under the weight of all the apples, so it made perfect sense. It was delicious:

Flatford scone of the month - Apple & Blackberry

I'm going to end by giving you another helpful tip (the first tip being GO TO FLATFORD): I recommend staying overnight. I had noticed on my first visit that the granary once owned by John Constable's father is now a B&B called, cleverly, The Granary. It claims to offer "3* accommodation at 2* prices in a 10* location" and I wouldn't argue with that. Here it is:

The Granary at Flatford

We had a lovely evening wandering around the area and the best night's sleep I've had in ages, because apart from the odd quack there wasn't a sound.

Sunset near Flatford

So you haven't been to Flatford/Constable Country, go as soon as you can. If you've already been, go back. It is without doubt one of my favourite places in the world.

Sutton Hoo

I grew up in the East Midlands. This meant that every night for 18 years I had to watch a local news programme called Look East. Except there was nothing local about it; it was all King's Lynn this and Bury St Edmunds that and Felixstowe the other. For a twelve year old girl doing her homework in a house near Kettering, Ipswich may as well have been Papua New Guinea. 

But guess what! It turns out Ipswich wasn't that far away after all! I just looked it up and Sutton Hoo, the site of an Anglo-Saxon king's burial ground, is 109 miles away from my old school! In America, that's practically NEXT-DOOR! You could be there in two hours! Amazing!

What a shame then that we didn't have to learn about the Anglo-Saxons when I was at school...oh wait a minute, we did. Yes, my teachers spent a good 20 hours or so making us read textbooks about pre-Roman Britain, when all the time we could have got on a bus and gone 109 miles down the road to see it brought to life.

I spent my day at Sutton Hoo in a bit of a fury, as you can probably tell. It's the perfect place for an educational tour - the burial ground itself needs a bit of imagination but the museum explains everything. 

Let me summarise the history of Sutton Hoo:

• Sutton Hoo shot to stardom in 1939, when a local archaeologist called Basil Brown unearthed the remains of a massive wooden ship, 90 feet long, that had been buried on the site.
• Basil had been asked to excavate the area by its owner, Mrs Edith Pretty, who had often wondered what the mounds on her land contained.
• In 1938, he explored a few of the mounds and found evidence of a burial site - each of the mounds had clearly been plundered, probably in Elizabethan times.
• In 1939 he returned to excavate Mound 1 and, just 3 days into the dig, he uncovered iron rivets like those found in other excavations of Anglo-Saxon and Viking ship burials.
• He was amazed at the size of the boat that he was uncovering. In the middle was a shaft that suggested the site had been robbed.
• However, the burial chamber had not been breached and the team were soon uncovering gold jewellery, coins, weapons, leather and more.
• The most famous item is the great iron helmet (picture of the replica above), which is now in the British Museum, along with many of the other treasures.
• The burial site is thought to be that of King Raedwald who died in 625 AD.
• In 1992, Mound 17 was excavated and a double grave was found, containing a young man and a horse. 

The museum at Sutton Hoo tells the story of the site very well and there are replicas of some of the finds, plus a treasury containing genuine artefacts.

And then you can walk around the actual burial site itself. I did at this point think of some of the kids that I was at school with and how they'd probably have run up the mounds and caused destruction, so it was probably just as well we didn't get to go.

This mound once contained a smaller ship burial - it has been rebuilt to its former size to give you some idea of how the site would have looked when there were 20 mounds looming out of the earth:

And this mound, which hasn't been restored, is where Basil Brown found his ship:

The Sutton Hoo scone
It was an all-round day of education for me, as I also learnt something else: if you have to deliver bad news then just cut to the chase and do it quickly (I didn't get this from Sutton Hoo though, this came from The X Factor). So here goes: the Sutton Hoo scone wasn't great. It was very dry and although it was nowhere near as bad as the Wakehurst scone, it just wasn't very enjoyable to eat. The clotted cream was really strange too - it had solidified for some reason, and it just flaked into little tiny bits like a really old soap.

It was a real shame because it was a very good-looking scone and the tearoom was great - it's big and there's a lovely outdoor bit.  

But I recommend Sutton Hoo - the treasures might be in the British Museum but you really do get a sense of what old Basil Brown and Edith Pretty must have felt, stood in a Suffolk field, brushing away at the soil and not knowing that they were about to make one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time.

Sutton Hoo: 4 out of 5
Scones: 3 out of 5
School trip organising skills of my teachers: 0 out of 5

Paycocke's

I had a Saturday job when I was 16, in a sadly now defunct childrenswear shop. One day the manager of the shop stuck a piece of paper on the kitchen noticeboard showing our target for the year and the wondrous fame and fortune that awaited us if we beat the target and won Store of the Year.

I got quite excited about it until the other women in the shop put me straight; "Forget it. We won't win Regional Store of the Year - that'll go to Market Harborough because they've just opened and new shops always beat their targets. And National Store of the Year is always Oxford Street." And with that they went back to eating their crispbread, I returned to my More magazine, and we said no more about it.

I wonder if National Trust property managers ever feel aggrieved like this. Take Paycocke's, for example; do they ever read about Waddesdon Manor adding a new car park and a fleet of shuttle buses for visitors, or Chartwell opening a new purpose-built cafeteria, and think "WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A STREET IN A VILLAGE IN ESSEX. IT'S A MIRACLE WE'RE STILL HERE AT ALL. WE HAVE NO ROOM FOR CAR PARKS OR EXTENSIVE VISITOR CENTRES."

To be honest, they've probably got better things to do than worry about Chartwell. Paycocke's may be smaller than most properties but it's a fantastic place and I highly recommend it. 

It was built around 1500 and is located on a relatively busy road in a village called Coggeshall. Yet somehow it has survived 500 years of change and development and is still standing sturdy. 

It was built for Thomas Paycocke, a wealthy merchant who made his fortune from wool - East Anglia was very big on cloth back then. 

The house was passed to the Buxton family through marriage. As the cloth trade began to fall into decline in the 1700s, the house was bought and then split into three tenements. It came close to demolition, until Lord Noel Buxton brought it back into the family. He renovated it and donated it to the National Trust in 1924.

There was a sign on the wall with a poignant quote from Lord Noel:

Paycocke's also gave me a rare moment of historical supremacy over the Scone Sidekick. We wandered into one of the rooms in the house and I immediately turned to him and said; "This is linenfold panelling. It was used in houses owned by rich people. They also have it in Sutton House in Hackney." For some reason the Sidekick decided that he still needed to consult the notice on the fireplace and begrudgingly read out "It's linenfold panelling as also seen in Sutton House in Hackney." I'd have done a lap of honour and high-fived the guide if there had been room. 

The Paycocke's scone
The tearoom at Paycocke's was lovely - it only opened in 2013 and it has a pretty little outdoor bit and then an indoor part within the house itself, which I always love - but I don't think the scone was homemade. It reminded me of the River Wey scone, which definitely came out of a packet, but it didn't matter at all. It was just marvellous to sit outside in the little courtyard on a Sunday morning and marvel at Paycocke's survival and my burgeoning knowledge of Tudor panelling styles.  

Paycocke's: 5 out of 5
Scone: 3 out of 5
Making me feel like Simon Schama with my vast historical knowledge: 5 out of 5

Uppark House & Garden

Have you ever been at a National Trust property when someone has shouted "THE ROOF'S ON FIRE!", before encouraging you to join a human chain and remove as many treasures as you can from the house before the ceilings collapse and everything is consumed by flames?

Me neither. But that's exactly what happened at Uppark House in West Sussex on 30 August 1989.

It was a builder using a flame to finish some lead work that set the house ablaze. National Trust staff, visitors, members of the family living at Uppark, plus the fire service had about three hours to rescue as much as possible - at one desperate point firemen were pulling curtains down and ripping wallpaper from walls. 

If I was in charge of a National Trust property that burned down, I would now be doing one of two things; I would either be hiding in Acapulco, living under an assumed name and jumping into a cupboard every time someone said the words 'national' or 'trust'. Or I would still be under sedation somewhere.

But luckily I was not in charge and the Trust rallied itself for the mother of all restoration projects. It was the contents that saved the day for Uppark - the house itself was completely gutted by the fire and there were people who thought it should be pulled down. But where to put all of the contents that had been saved? In the end, Uppark was restored, although it took six years and a lot of money.

They deal with the fire very well at Uppark. In every room there's a picture of what looks like a scene from the Blitz, but is actually the same room in 1989. It's really quite staggering. 

There's a lot more to Uppark than the fire, however. Here's a quick summary:

• Uppark House was built around 1695 by Ford Grey, Earl of Tankerville.
• Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh bought it in 1747 and remodelled the interiors.
• His son, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, was a bit of a lad - he had a liaison with Emma Hart, who eventually became Emma Hamilton and mistress to Lord Nelson, and she used to dance naked on the tables at Uppark, until she became pregnant and Sir Harry got rid of her.
• Sir Harry married his dairy maid, Mary-Ann, when he was 70+ and she was 20.
• Mary-Ann remained at Uppark with her sister, who died in 1895.
• Sarah Wells, mother of H.G., was housekeeper for Mary-Ann and Frances for a while, but she was "perhaps the worst housekeeper that ever was thought of" according to her son.
• There was no heir when Frances died, so it was handed to family friends who obligingly changed their names. Today it is still inhabited by some Meade-Fetherstonhaughs. 

No photography was allowed in the house, hence the lack of pictures. 

The Uppark scone
But I do have photos of the scones. Readers, I think the National Trust might be onto me. Of my last six visits, FIVE properties have now scored top marks for their sconeage. It's unheard of, frankly, and I'm worried about my reputation as a discerning sconnessieur.

Uppark didn't help me much: the scones were absolutely top class today. They were fresh, perfectly sized, melt-in-the-mouth...just top drawer. Well done, Uppark scone baker. 

Uppark: 4.5 out of 5
Scones: 5 out of 5
Optimism in face of total adversity: 100 out of 5