A Library in Devon

From now to the closing date of 

The Landmark Trust Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

The  Library,  Devon


Sleeps  2 + 2

The Library and its smaller companion, The Orangery, stand beside the ruins of Victorian Stevenstone, the principal seat of the Rolle family, once the largest landowners in Devon, from the sixteenth until the nineteenth century.

Read more about The library here

Two Lock Cottages

From now to the closing date of 

The Landmark Trust Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Two  Lock Cottages

Lock Cottage at Tardebigge on Worcester & Birmingham Canal

Lock Cottage is a rare survivor of its type on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal built between 1790 and 1815. Until the 1950s many such handsome unpretentious buildings served and graced our canal system.

Sleeps 4

Lengthsman's cottage on Stratford-upon-Avon Canal

Lengthsman's Cottage, dating from c1812, was built for the 'lengthsman' who maintained not just the lock but also the stretch of canal to the next lock. With its barrel-roof, it is a rare survivor of its type on the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal.

Sleeps 4

Read more about  Lengsthsman's Cottage  and Lock Cottage

Where are all the FFFs ?

Whilst I was under the influence of hospital sedation I missed all the landmarks beginning with F so they will follow shortly.

Langley Gatehouse

From now to the closing date of 

The Landmark Trust Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

  Langley  Gatehouse

Before  restoration

Sleeps  6

Langley Gatehouse now overlooks a farmyard on one side and a meadow on the other. It was built, however, to protect the entrance to Langley Hall, a rambling house of varied date which was demolished in the 1870s. At the same time, a new farmhouse was built outside the once walled and moated enclosure. The origins of Langley Hall were medieval, as its defences show. These are visible as earthworks south and east of the site, which are possible remnants of a moat, and in the Gatehouse itself. The lower part of its west wall, and the gate arch, belong to a curtain wall of about 1300, which runs on a short way north.

Read more about Langley Gatehouse here

Where to take your £5000 holiday

From now to the closing date of 

The Landmark Trust Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Keeper's  Cottage, Old Warden 

After restoration                                         Before

Sleeps  4

Keeper’s Cottage is a gamekeeper’s establishment built in 1878. The cottage and outbuildings together form a handsome example of Victorian model estate architecture, based on the pattern books published to help design homes for people from all levels of society.

Read more about Keeper's  Cottage here

First Artillery Fortification

From now to the closing date of 

The Landmark Trust Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Kingswear  Castle

The first fortifications designed for artillery

Sleeps 4

The building of Kingswear Castle was started in 1491 and completed in 1502. It is very similar in design to Dartmouth Castle, opposite, and together they form the single defensive plan for the river mouth and haven.

 Read more about Kingswear Castle here

Where to spend your £5000

From now to the closing date of 

The Landmark Trust Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

But Landmark do not have any properties begining with the letter J

So today you can go and buy a lottery ticket instead 

Hip......Hooray

New hip done last week and now out of hospital. Six weeks minimum on two crutches  strengthening the muscles  so lots of walking and exercises.

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in.

Ironbridge  House

Sleeps  4

This building is the complete establishment of a substantial grocer, with a large house over a double-fronted shop, and all the offices behind, from storerooms to stables. Today it is set within the Ironbridge Museum.

Read more about Ironbridge House here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Ingestre  Pavillion, Staffs

 Sleeps  6

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown

The imposing façade of this building dates to 1752 and was nearly all that remained for two centuries. Landmark constructed new rooms in a Classical style on the old foundations, resulting in a grand interior warmed by the open fire.

Read more about Ingestre Pavillion here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

House of Correction, Lincs

Sleeps  4

Minor felonies and misdemeanors

The grand entrance is all that survives of this nineteenth-century 'prison' once intended for minor offenders - the idle and the disorderly. It is a bold and noble piece of architecture designed by Lincolnshire architect Bryan Browning

Read more about the House of Correction here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Hole  Cottage,  Kent

Sleeps  2 + 2

Hole Cottage is the cross-wing of a high quality late medieval timber-framed hall-house, three-quarters of which is now gone. Although now named Hole Cottage, from the sixteenth to eighteenth century this building was referred to simply as ‘The Hole’.

Read more about Hole Cottage here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

The  Grange,  Ramsgate

Sleeps  8

Augustus Pugin's former home

The influential architect Augustus Pugin built The Grange in 1843 as a family home. He built it to live out his idea of life in a medieval, Catholic community, in buildings executed in the Gothic style of so-called pointed architecture. 

Read more about The Grange here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Gothic  Temple,  Stowe

 

Sleeps  4 

In 1741, Gothic Temple was added to the famous gardens formed by Charles Bridgeman and his successor, William Kent, at Stowe. The building was designed by James Gibbs and his original design survives in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Read more about Gothic Temple here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Gurney  Manor,  Somerset

Sleeps  9

 Named after its earliest owners, Gurney Manor was built prior to 1350. Additions were made to this simple hall house over the next few decades and it was during the fifteenth century that the courtyard house we see today came into existence.

Read more about Gurney manor here

Burns the Bread

Would you buy your bread here?

(Perhaps he is a descendant of King Alfred)

Bakers in Wells

A - Z of landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Ferryman's  Cottage,  Kintyre

Sleeps  5

Ferryman’s Cottage was built around 1930 for an important local figure: the ferryman. Before the building of good roads, much of Western Scotland was dependent deliveries of provisions from the coastal steamer and it was the ferryman’s job to offload them

 Read more about Ferryman's Cottage here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Fort Clonque, Aldernaey

Sleeps  13
 This dramatic fort, built in the 1840s, is nestled in a group of large rocks off the steep south-west tip of Alderney. The buildings were refortified by Hitler in 1940 who believed Fort Clonque to have some strategic value.

Read more about Fort Clonque here

Hip OP Today

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Egyptian  House, Penzance

Three flats sleeping 3 or 4 each

The 1st floor of the Egyptian House is part of a rare and noble survivor of a style that enjoyed a vogue after Napoleon's campaign in Egypt of 1798. It was built in 1835 as a museum and geological repository.

Read more about the Egyptioan House here

A - Z of landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

East Banqueting House,  Chipping Caampden

Sleeps  4 + 2

One of the most important Jacobean sites in the country

This impressive Jacobean banqueting house has intricate parapets and a fine upper room. Sir Baptist would bring his guests here to taste sweetmeats and drink rare wines. The remains of Old Campden House, destroyed in 1645 by fire, stand nearby

Read more about the Banqueting Houses here

A - Z of Landmark

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in.

Danescombe  Mine,  Cornwwall

Before restoration                                 After restoration

Sleeps  4

This is the engine house of the old Cotehele Consols' copper and arsenic mine which was in use between 1822 and 1900, kept alive at the last by the demand for arsenic to protect cotton against the boll weevil.

Read more about Danescombe Mine here

US Welsh Pi Day

In the USA they have their own way of doing things including the way they write the date. Whilst the technical world has adopted the format YYYY.MM.DD and the commercial world uses DD.MM.YY, (both of which have some logic to them) this little country across the pond and some of its friends contort the date to MM.DD.YY
So today's date is represented thus:
ISO - 2015/03/14
UK -  14/03/15
US -  3/14/15
Using the contorted date form the USA has designated today as Pi Day. the day to celebrate the relationship between the diameter and circumference of the circle. This is because the first few digits of π   are....3.1415
Some even take this further to include the time......3.14.15:9:26:53
This all seems rather contrived to me. As it is impossible to represent π in decimal form completely I think the most perfect date to celebrate π must be July 22 - represented in the non-us contorted form - 22/7
Although this relationship has been known since the time of Archimedes the Greek letter π was first applied to this by a Welshman - Gareth Ffowc Roberts,  in the 18th century.

The first use of  π by Gareth Roberts

The sort of  π I'm interested in has a crust on the top

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Clavell  Tower

Before Restoration                                After restoration and moving

Sleeps  2

An observatory and folly

This four storey, circular tower stands high on the cliff overlooking one of the most striking bays on the Dorset coast. Built in 1830 its location has captivated many including writers like Hardy and PD James.

Read more about this here

A - Z or Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Crownhill  Fort,  Plymouth
 
Sleeps  8

Spectacular structure of stone and earth Built in the 1860s to protect Plymouth from attack, Crownhill Fort is the largest and most advanced of Plymouth’s nineteenth-century forts. It is one of only two works of its kind surviving in good condition in the country.

Read more about it here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Clytha  Castle

 

Sleeps  6

Clytha Castle is a crenellated folly with Gothic windows looking out over fine views. It was designed as an eye-catcher with Picturesque asymmetry and built in 1790 by a bereaved husband as a monument to his wife.

Read more about this here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the Spring Raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Brinkburn Mill, Northumberland


Sleeps  4

Brinkburn Mill stands within the precincts of Brinkburn Priory and, although the present building dates from around 1800, an inventory drawn up in 1536 after the priory’s dissolution suggests that it probably sits on the site of a medieval mill.

Read more about it here

One week to go

This time next week I shill be in surgery for a revision to my artificial hip.

This may disrupt postings for a time

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the spring raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. 

Bath  Tower, Caernarfon

 Sleeps  5

 When Edward I came to build his castle at Caernarfon in the late 13th century he would have been aware of the legend which establishes the city as the seat of Imperial power in the Welsh imagination. So instead of a castle of simple limewashed rubble walls like Conway or Harlech, Edward commanded his Master of the King’s Works, James of St George, to design 'a great castle (with) many great towers of various colours.'

Read more about it here

A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the spring raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in.
Appleton  Water  Tower

 Sleeps 4
 

Designed and constructed by James Mansergh and Robert Rawlinson, work began on Appleton Water Tower in 1877 to provide a clean water supply to the Sandringham Estate. This octagonal water tower has fine views over miles of open landscape.

Read more about it here

The A - Z of Landmarks

Between now and the closing date for the spring raffle on May 25 I will try to give you a taste of the properties you could spend your £5000 holiday in. Starting with the first in the alphabetical list-

Abbey Gatehouse in Tewkesbury

 Sleeps 2

 Known as the 'lodging over the great gate', this grand building of about 1500 survived destruction in 1539 and was restored in 1849. It is close to the beautiful Tewkesbury Abbey for which it stands guard.

Read more about it here

A Rare Win

The rubgy ground in Bath is right in the centre of the city and when there is a game the whole city gets caught up in the excigtement (and the traffic)  Wherever you are you can hear the crowds and last night they were particularly vociferous.  The reason, perhaps, was the rare event which took place - Bath Rugby won a game! Apparently they beat The Sharks 12-3
To celebrate this rare event here is a picture of  Pultney Bridge as it was lit up last night before the game.
Maybe they should try this again

US Geography

Having worked for several US companies in the past I am accustomed to their peculiar interpretaion of the geography of anywhere outside their home state.  When I checked the Staples website for stores near Bath, however, I did not expect to be offered the following list.

Staples Aberdeen
Kitty Brewster Retail Park Bedford
AB24 3LJ, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Staples Western Avenue
West Five Centre Alliance Road
W3 0TA, Acton, United Kingdom

Staples Altrincham
Unit 4 Altrincham Retail Park
WA14 5GR, Altrincham, United Kingdom

Staples Ashford
Unit 6 Warren Retail Park Simone Weil Avenue
TN24 8XH, Ashford, United Kingdom

Staples Aylesbury
Vale Retail Park Vale Park Drive
HP20 1DH, Aylesbury, United Kingdom

Staples Basildon
Great Oaks
SS14 1GB, Basildon, United Kingdom

Staples Basingstoke
Unit 3
RG22 4AN, Basingstoke, United Kingdom

Staples Beckton
Unit 6 Gateway Retail Park 8 Claps Gate Lane
E6 6LG, Beckton, United Kingdom

Staples Birkenhead
Unit 2 The Rock Retail Park
CH41 9DF, Birkenhead, United Kingdom

Staples Aston
1 Rocky Lane Aston Cross
B6 5RQ, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Win £5000 Holiday in Landmark Trust Property

Spring has sprung

The grass is ris

I wonder where the raffle is

It's Here

Signing Blind Fold

Boats Are Homes! Prevent the Eviction of Boat Dwellers

This is the emotive heading for a petition on 38 degrees promoted by the National Bargee Travellers' Association

Here is an extract from that petition:

Many boat dwellers work locally and some are key workers.  Many require access to local services such as health care and schools and will be put to extreme difficulty if forced to move unreasonable distances. Like it or not, socio-political realities have made the waterways an affordable housing resource for many families.

So far, over 10,000  people have signed this petition but how many of them read and understood it ?

To keep a boat on the inland waterways a licence is required. There are two options available for the private boat owner depending on whether the boat has a home mooring or not. This petition relates to boats without a home mooring, so called Continuous Cruisers.  Boats with such a licence are required by the terms of the licence to do what is says on the form - to cruise continuously. They may not, for instance, overstay on a restricted mooring or remain more than 14 days anywhere else. And before they moor again they must move to another place, typically the next village or neighbourhood.  The terms which every holder of such a licence agrees to also precludes bridge-hopping or shuffling from one place to another  and back again.
So what the NBTA is asking the public to support in signing this petition is the flagrant and intentional breach of contract  not to mention the inconvenience caused to law-abiding boaters who are unable to moor in large parts of the canal system in London and near Bath because the moorings are blocked by these Continuous Moorers.

I think it is time for the general public to read and understand more carefully before adding their support to a call for illegal and selfish activity.

New Scandal at Stoke Mandeville Hospital

Yeserday I visited the Audiology dept at Stoke Mandeville's to collect some hearing aid batteries. The receptionist there has a small office with roller blinds on two sides. Nine months ago today -4June 2014 - one of them jammed shut so that her working environment resembles a cupboard. She cannot see the patients in the waiting area she is responsible for. NINE MONTHS and they still haven't fixed it!  What is more surprising is how cheerful and helpful she was. Surely the hospital has the ability to fix it even though they apparently don't have the desire to do so.

Two Weeks To Go

My new hip is two weeks away

Narrowboat For Sale

I have just learned that  Tony and Noeline are selling their narrowboat Mary Russell and are going to live ashore.  

I will have more information for you at the end of the week, so

Watch this space.

Bath Half Marathon

The annual half marathon is taking place this morning and here are the first runners in Darlington Street

More pictures on their way back

The Perfect Welsh Rarebit

Today is March 1st 

- St. David's Day 

- the national day for Wales

Let's perpetuate the stereotype....

Daffodils, leeks, laver bread, male voice choirs and tall black hats

Five places to see daffodils this weekend

How to grow leeks

The EU Specification for laverbread

Where are Morriston Orpheus Choir performing today?

Check out your costume here

Now let's get down to the important issue - how to make Welsh Rarebit. (whilst ignoring the fact that it was called Welsh Rabbit  for a couple of centuries before it went posh).  When we were children, grated Cheddar mixed with brown sauce toasted on bread was what we called Welsh Rabbit. Now every TV chef has their own gourmet version, usually involving creme fraich or some other authentic Welsh ingredient. Then the French got their hands on it - Croque Monsieur.   Even our Delia mixes Parmesan with the English cheese, when we all know that Parmesan grown on a bush under the spaghetti trees in Italy.

I am not putting this recipe forward as the perfect Welsh Rabbit but I like it.
If it is too complicated for you  get out the grater and the HP.

Ingredients
1 tsp English mustard powder
3 tbsp stout
1 oz  (30g)   Welsh Salt Butter
Worcestershire sauce, to taste
 6oz (175g) Caerphilly cheese, grated
2 egg yolks
2 slices bread

Method
1. Mix the mustard powder with a little stout in the bottom of a small pan to make a paste, then stir in the rest of the stout and add the butter and about 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce – you can always add more later if you like. Heat gently until the butter has melted.
2. Tip in the cheese and stir to melt, but do not let the mixture boil. Once smooth, taste for seasoning, then take off the heat and allow to cool until just slightly warm, being careful it doesn't solidify.
3. Pre-heat the grill to medium-high, and toast the bread on both sides. Beat the yolks into the warm cheese until smooth, and then spoon on to the toast and cook until bubbling and golden. Serve immediately, with the rest of the stout in a glass.