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. 

Arlington Court

I don't want to scare anybody but I do want to make clear that, should the National Trust decide to call it a day and hand all of their properties over to their most ardent fans, then I will be taking Arlington in North Devon. It's a doomsday scenario, I grant you, but it pays to be prepared.

It's not the most beautiful house in the NT collection but it is located in a stunningly quiet, peaceful little corner of Devon with a lovely estate AND a museum full of carriages that I would be able to comandeer to drive me around the place.

But first here's a little history:

• Arlington was owned by the Chichester family - they were first established in the 1300s and branched off in various directions. Sir Francis Chichester, of solo circumnavigation of globe fame, was a relation.
• The Chichesters were Catholic and endured a lot of hassle over the years, paying fines and losing property. Then in 1793 John Palmer Chichester became a Protestant, much to the annoyance of the rest of the family.
• Several houses were built over the years, including Tudor and Georgian homes, but the house that we see today is a neo-Classical structure 
• The last Chichester to actually live at Arlington was Rosalie - she gave the place to the National Trust in 1945 and lived there until her death in 1949

The house has beautiful rooms - I loved the library and the White Drawing Room: 

The White Drawing Room

But a definite highlight of Arlington is the National Trust Carriage Museum. I went to Charlecote a few years ago and saw a sign pointing towards a 'Carriage Display'. I'm ashamed to say that I tried to casually stand in front of the sign so my trusty sidekick wouldn't see it - I really didn't think carriages would be my thing and it sounded like something he'd definitely want to look at for 9 hours. But I was FASCINATED by them. I think my love of Jane Austen had taught me enough to pique my interest in phaetons and barouches and so on.

Arlington actually goes one better; it is home to the National Trust Carriage Musuem. It was created when the Marquess of Bute donated eight carriages in 1964 and the Trust needed somewhere to put them. Arlington was chosen as it had a stables that hadn't already been turned into a cafeteria/scone emporium.

The main event in the museum is the Speaker's State Carriage, but you're not allowed to take pictures of it. I borrowed this one from the NT website and I'll just hope that they don't sue me:

When I am given Arlington, I will heading to Sainsbury's in this.

There are lots of other, less ostentatious carriages on display. I was a bit taken aback when the volunteer guide said "if you could refrain from actually getting in the carriages, that'd be great". It happens, apparently. 

Anyway. The guide book says that over 325 styles of carriage were catalogued over the years, as designs changed quickly to suit different needs. Below is a Punch Carriage (so-called because its outline looks like Mr Punch). It was built for a doctor who would need to be able to jump in and out quickly, with a little desk for writing notes:

That's not the way to do it - apparently the Punch Carriage didn't really catch on

I found my favourite in a photograph. Who knew that you could entrust your infant child to the services of a goat? I thought they just ate things off your clothes line: 

What you definitely do realise from looking around the Carriage Museum is that there was no such thing as a comfortable coach, especially back in the day of poor roads. I retreated back to my Ford Fiesta with the greatest of relief and appreciation, I can tell you.

The Arlington scone
Before I departed from my future home though, I called in to the team room for my scone. Arlington was the final stop on my Summer 2019 World Tour of North Devon National Trust Scones and it had a lot to live up to; Watersmeet and Dunster Castle had both delivered five star sconeage. 

But deliver it did - it was a beauty of a scone; fresh, tasty and full of fruit.

Look out for Part Two of my 2019 World Tour of Devon!

Arlington: 5 out of 5
Scone: 5 out of 5
My happiness at thought of buying a cat that can travel around the Arlington estate in a goat-powered carriage: 5 out of 5

Baggy Point

In the 22 years since I graduated and joined the world of work, there have been something like 1,120 Fridays. There have been some very good Fridays - most of them involving at least one pub, it must be said - and some very sad Fridays and some please-God-can-it-just-be-the-weekend-already Fridays.

But I'd be willing to bet that the day I spent at Baggy Point near Croyde in North Devon would be up there in the Top 20 Fridays of my life.

It involved an early start. My world tour of North Devon National Trust scones was drawing to a close and I had a lot to fit in, so I headed to Croyde Beach to take in the morning air and hopefully find a cup of tea before I continued my nerve-jangling drive around the roads of the Devon coast. 

I was immediately reminded that there are few nicer things in the world than a path leading to a beach. So simple yet so full of promise, whether you're four or forty-four or ninety-four. 

But this particular path led me through a campsite, which presented me with a problem. Friends, I am not a camper. I am renowned, although pretty much unique, among my acquaintances for my antipathy towards camping, but as I stood at the entrance to that campsite I knew the moment of truth had arrived. "OK," I thought. "This is where I realise I've been wrong for 30 years and I'm going to immediately ring everyone up and beg them to lend me a tent and take me to the Pooh Cottage Holiday Park in Budleigh Salterton." 

I needn't have worried; the sight of two lads trying to pack their belongings into a car with nothing but a very limited amount of common sense and a very liberal use of the F-word left me in no doubt that I had made the right call all along. Thanks boys. 

Anyway - I continued down onto the beach, which was empty apart from some surfers and one family whose kids had clearly decided that 7am was the correct time to start a day by the sea. It was just glorious:

Admittedly, the weather was on my side but even on a cloudy windy day I'd have loved it; I sat there for over an hour listening to the sea and the birds.

But time was ticking and so I headed up to Baggy Point, the headland above Croyde. It was a gorgeous walk - hardly anyone else was around and all the cares of the world felt like they belonged far, far away.

I eventually returned to Croyde and to the Sandleigh Tea Room, which was recently taken over by the National Trust, for my Baggy Point scone. It was risky - I can't imagine they get many people requesting a cream tea at 10.30am - but time was running short.

The scone looked fantastic but it tasted soggy, in that way that scones tend to taste soggy after they've been kept in an air-tight container. It was a shame but I suppose you can't be good at everything.

Regardless of that, I cannot recommend Croyde and Baggy Point enough. Go early to the beach and at a reasonable afternoon hour for the scone.

Baggy Point: 5 out of 5
Scone: 4 out of 5
Bonus points for fresh strawberries: 5 out of 5

Dunster Castle & Water Mill

If there was a sport called 'guess how old this castle is?' then I would be rubbish at it, just as I am rubbish at 99% of all other sports. (I'm saving the 1% for the as-yet-unknown one that I will master.) 

Dunster Castle near Minehead in Somerset is a perfect example. I saw a picture of it and decided it was the work of some 20th century madman who had made a pile of money out of toilet rolls and built himself a castle so he stood a chance of getting Queen Mary round for tea.

In fact, Dunster is very old. Here are the facts:

It was originally built by the de Mohuns after the Norman Conquest
William de Mohun was a knight who came over with William the Conquerer and built a castle on the site of a Saxon hill fort. However, not much is actually left of it - the gateway below is the only piece that dates from the 1200s. It's an impressive piece though:

The Luttrells built what we see today

The de Mohuns sold up to the Luttrell family in 1376. The Luttrells built the gatehouse in 1420 and a new Jacobean castle in 1617. Henry Fownes Luttrell carried out a major landscaping project in 1755 and then in 1868 George Luttrell commissioned Anthony Salvin to redesign the castle to create a Victorian country home.

It was almost destroyed in the Civil War
Thomas and Jane Luttrell were Parliamentarians during the Civil War and were forced to defend the castle against Royalist troops. But they switched sides for some reason and then had to defend it against the Roundheads. Cromwell sent 200 men to destroy Dunster and the curtain walls were duly demolished but the order was revoked and the castle was left to stand.

It has a leather room
Every now and again you come across something that you've never seen before at the National Trust. Dunster has some leather hangings that were made in the Netherlands in the 1600s. They tell the story of Antony and Cleopatra but they were cut up to fit the room and so they're in the wrong order. Here she is killing herself with her snake:

I'm not sure why nobody looks terribly bothered that Cleopatra is
committing suicide in front of them - she doesn't look too fussed herself

It has a working water mill
The Domesday Book mentions that there was a mill on the site, although the current building dates from 1779. It was abandoned by the 1930s and then reopened during the Second World War. It is still working today and you can buy flour that has been milled on-site.

It has the Dunster Castle scone
And while we're on the subject of flour, let's move on to the scones. The tea room at the water mill is a lovely spot and my scone was very tasty indeed - maybe a little bit crumbly but it held together enough to be eaten without completely disintegrating.

If you want to have a go at this new and highly exciting sport of castle age guessing, then be my guest. Here are the other National Trust castles I've visited - see if you can pick out the oldest one:
- Bodiam Castle
- Chirk Castle
- Corfe Castle
- Croft Castle
- Lindisfarne Castle
- Penrhyn Castle
- Powis Castle
- Scotney Castle
- Sizergh Castle

Dunster was the second stop on my Grand Tour of North Devon - the day before I had fulfilled my ambition to visit the very awesome Watersmeet.

Dunster Castle: 5 out of 5
Scone: 5 out of 5
Chance of 'castle age guessing' making it to the Olympics: 0 out of 5

Other National Trust scones in Somerset: Barrington Court, Bath Assembly Rooms, Bath Skyline, Brean Down, Coleridge Cottage, Fyne Court, Holnicote, Lytes Cary, Montacute, Prior Park, Tyntesfield

Holnicote Estate

The Holnicote Estate (pronounced Hunnicutt) is massive: 12,000 acres of land across Somerset and Exmoor National Park. It contains 5 villages, a nature reserve, and 150 miles of footpaths and bridleways. 

What it doesn't contain are any National Trust scones. There are several tenanted tea rooms in the various villages, but to give myself a fighting chance of ever finishing this quest I have decided not to make those mandatory.

However, I had seen a picture of the Periwinkle Tea Room in Selworthy and decided it was too pretty to miss, so I called in on my way from Dunster Castle.

I can honestly say that I thought I'd died and gone to heaven at the Periwinkle. It was a beautiful day and the tea room garden is the perfect peaceful little place for a cup of tea. 

The scone was also perfect - warm, tasty, and fresh: 

So I definitely recommend a stop on the Holnicote Estate - there's lots of walking and scone eating to be done.

Holnicote: 4 out of 5
Scone: not strictly NT but an honorary 5 out of 5

Other National Trust scones in Somerset: Barrington Court, Bath Assembly Rooms, Bath Skyline, Brean Down, Coleridge Cottage, Dunster Castle, Fyne Court, Lytes Cary, Montacute, Prior Park, Tyntesfield

Watersmeet

John Craven has been a very important influence in my life. He was also a major influence on this blog - in fact, I would go as far as to state that John Craven saved the National Trust Scone Blog. 

We began our connection, John and I, as presenter and viewer (respectively) of Newsround, where he educated me on space shuttles and giant pandas. We later moved on to otters and turnip farms when he took up the reins at Countryfile. 

But back in 2013, I was going through a crisis of confidence with this National Trust Scone project. I had only just started out with it, but was almost thwarted by a) a temporary lack of internet connection in my home, which meant that I had to go to my local pub to upload my posts (thanks The Swan) b) the fact that the very first place I went to had no scones in the restaurant and c) a general feeling that it was going to be a complete waste of time.

And then, that fateful Sunday evening as I contemplated quitting, I turned on Countryfile and what did I find? John Craven was baking National Trust scones! It was like a sign from the heavens - there he was, at Watersmeet in Devon, making a right mess of Fiona the resident baker's scones. All of my doubts fell away and I have never looked back. 

Ever since, Watersmeet has stood like a place of pilgrimage in my mind. Unfortunately, it was a tricky one to reach, being in North Devon. But today I finally made it there for the 180th mission on this scone quest.

As it's a momentous occasion, I will break with tradition and start with the scones. I have had numerous moments of panic over the six years of this project, usually when I've travelled 250 miles and the only baked goods in sight are shortbread and flapjacks. Today's panic was off the scale. I was late getting to Watersmeet so I almost skidded the car into a parking space and abandoned it, running down the path in the wrong shoes saying "EXCUSE ME" to bemused holidaymakers as if I was exiting Holborn Tube station at 8.45am on a Monday morning.

And then total disaster loomed: no sign of any scones in the tea room. I started to panic-formulate the sentence in my mind - "Can you put the oven back on please? I'll explain later." - when suddenly it was my turn so I just blithely asked for a cream tea. "Strawberry jam or whortleberry jam?" the woman asked. I later discovered that whortleberry is the local name for bilberry and I probably should have opted for that but at this point it was all too much for me so I played it safe.

And what a treat it was: two big plain scones, fresh as fresh could be, served with a big pot of cream. The jam always has to do more of the heavy lifting in a Devon cream tea, as neither the scone nor the cream is overly sweet. But it was divine. I could only manage one scone but it was one divine scone. I will never forget it.

And I got to eat it here - what a stunning place to eat scones:

By the rivers of Watersmeet/We ate our scones

I had given myself a pass with this blog post - I decided not to worry about the history of the place and instead just focus on lapping up the sights and sounds. But I can never resist a factoid. So here goes:

• Watersmeet stands at the bottom of a deep gorge where the East Lyn river meets Hoar Oak Water
• The tea room has been there since 1901! 
• The National Trust took over in 1936
• The ancient oak woodland around Watersmeet contains a local species of tree called the 'No Parking Whitebeam' - that's its real name, folks. The first one of its kind was found in a layby near Watersmeet with a no parking sign nailed to it. Amazing.

There are numerous walks that you can do around the area - and I highly recommend that you spend a good few hours there.

I'm going to close by going all John Peel on you. I also discovered a lovely song on Spotify called The Meeting of the Waters by Fionn Regan and it fits Watersmeet perfectly (or at least my experience of it - you might prefer Motorhead.) 

In keeping with the mini surprises that Watersmeet has thrown at me since I started writing this blog post, I just looked for the video on YouTube to share it with you and it features Cillian Murphy. From John Craven to Cillian Murphy - that's the beauty of the National Trust Scone Blog. Thank God I didn't abandon it.

Watersmeet: 5 out of 5
Scones: 5 out of 5

My willingness to vote for John Craven for Prime Minister: 5 out of 5

Mottistone Gardens

FACT: every National Trust property has a story. Every single one. Sometimes you have to work a little bit harder to find that story, and so it was with Mottistone Gardens on the Isle of Wight. My usual extensive pre-visit research (ie reading the National Trust website) was giving me nothing, so I was overjoyed when I finally found something on a random CELEBRITY NEWZ OMG site; Benedict Cumberbatch had his wedding reception there.

His choice of venue wasn't random, however; his wife, Sophie Hunter, is the great-great-grand-daughter of Jack Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone, who once owned the place. More tireless investigation by me (ie a bit of Googling) revealed that his nickname had been "Galloper" Jack and he was also the grandfather of Brough Scott, the horse racing journalist, who had written a biography about him. So I read that and ended up with about 8,000 stories.

But let me tell you a bit about the property itself. The first thing you need to know is that the manor house is tenanted and closed to the general public. The second thing is that the gardens are not open on Fridays and Saturdays. And so, with the bad news out of the way, here are the highlights of what you can actually see:

1. The Shack
It doesn't exactly oversell itself - I expected it to be an ice cream kiosk or an information centre for bored kids on school trips - but it's an amazing little building.

The story behind it is as follows: John Seely, son of Galloper Jack, was an architect. He built The Shack in 1936 as a country retreat and working office for himself and his business partner, Paul Paget:

The outside of The Shack - those aren't real mushrooms,
just in case you're wondering

Seely & Paget restored Mottistone Manor, but the firm also took on a lot of ecclesiastical work - as well as building new churches they also helped to restore St Mary's Islington and others that had been damaged by the Blitz.

But it's the interior of The Shack that is really surprising. It has nearly everything - two beds, kitchen, toilet, desks, even a letterbox - and all with high quality finishing. It's quite something:

I thought I was quite committed to my job but
actually building a bed above your desk is a whole new level

The Gardens
There's plenty to see in the gardens. There's a huge double herbaceous border, a rose garden, a kitchen garden, a turf maze, even a scarecrow that looks like Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra:

"The sun is shining in the sky/There ain't a cloud in sight" -
yeah but are there any scones, Jeff?

The View from the Grassed Terraces
It takes about five minutes to walk up to the terraces above the gardens - it's well worth it for a lovely view over the Manor and out to sea:

It's OK - I know these people. They weren't
just following me around, photobombing

But let's return to Galloper Jack. There are about 8,000 quotable stories about him in the biography - he was a great friend of Winston Churchill and shared a similar life history of military and political derring-do - but here are the five key things you need to know:

• He had more near-death experiences than any other human - his first happened when he was nine years old and he felt 70 feet from a cliff 
• He didn't exactly try to avoid death after that lucky escape - he manned the lifeboat on the Isle of Wight from a relatively young age, he fought in the Boer War, and he survived four years on the battlefields of France and Belgium during World War One
• His horse, Warrior, was his spirit animal - it was a true life war horse, somehow surviving the full four years of battle that did for 8 million other horses. At one point Warrior was stabled in a house that was hit by a shell - Galloper Jack turned to his companion and said "that's the end of Warrior" only to see that one corner of the house was still standing. Inside was Warrior, holding up a joist. The men tried to free him but the horse decided to take decisive action himself and jumped free, at which point the rest of the building collapsed. There are many, many stories like this.
• He also fitted in a career as an MP and was Secretary of State for War at one point (Jack, not Warrior)
• It all ended a bit sadly for Jack - having been a hero for so much of his life, he backed the wrong horse completely in the 1930s and became an appeaser. He met with Hitler and Mussolini and appears to have been hoodwinked by them both, although especially by Hitler who persuaded him that the Hitler Youth was just like the Scouts.

It's an interesting book about a very colourful man of his time. He died in 1947 and his architect son became the 2nd Baron Mottistone. (Jack's eldest son, Frank, fought with him in France and died at Arras.) John gave the estate to the National Trust when he died in 1963.

The Mottistone scone
But let's move on. Sadly there is no Scone Horse to accompany me on my expeditions, although I'm not sure they'd have let one on the Isle of Wight ferry anyway. Instead, I recruited my in-laws for the voyage. It wasn't their first rodeo - two of them had accompanied me to Lamb House in Rye last year, where they had stunned me with a stinging critique of the scone. At Croft Castle the scones were so good that nobody had a bad word to say. So how would Mottistone fare?

The short answer is that we found scone perfection. They were fresh and light and tasty and got a unanimous thumbs up from the panel. The service was great, and the outdoor tea room by The Shack was a beautiful place to sit on a sunny Sunday morning.  

So that means that the Isle of Wight has ended up with an enviable 100% record for National Trust scones. You can read about our earlier trip to The Needles Old Battery, which not only scooped 5 scone stars but were my Scone of the Year for 2017.

Mottistone: 4 out of 5
Scone: 5 out of 5
Levels of derring-do by Mottisfont owners and their horses: 5 out of 5