October Visits

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard – Roger and Margaret joined us on a visit to the dockyard. Roger had expressed a wish to visit the Mary Rose a few years ago. The exhibit then closed so the new museum could be built. Here we are at the start of our visit with HMS Victory in the background.

   

Model of the Mary Rose

'The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover'. Henry sets off for France with Katherine of Aragon and an entourage of 5,000 people.

This is my second visit to the Mary Rose and I don’t remember it being as large as it actually is.
The large insulated ducts are for moving the warm air around to help dry the timbers. It will take about another 5 years to dry them.

 

Some of the artefacts found on the Mary Rose

One of the cannons with all that goes with them.

Comb and hand held sundial – the forerunner of the GPS

 

Backgammon set

Ship’s dog – probably a ‘ratter’

       

This ‘parrel’ held a yard against a mast, but also allowed it to slide up and down and turn horizontally.

Another cannon – we were very impressed with the acrylic wheels and supports

 

Taking a rest

HMS Victory gun ports

Wishful thinking

 

HMS Victory – below decks

Morning visit to Christchurch – cracking weather

On the following weekend we went to Maggie and Andy’s. Saturday we visited Kelmscott Manor. Maggie had managed to get a very good deal on the tickets.
In the garden.
Kelmscott Manor, a grade 1 listed farmhouse adjacent to the River Thames, was built around 1600, with an additional wing added to the north east corner in about 1665. The house - contains a collection of the possessions and works of William Morris, his family and associates (Benson, Burne-Jones, Rossetti and Webb amongst them), including furniture, original textiles, pictures, carpets, ceramics and metalwork.

House front

House rear

 

In the summer house

For Sale

 

Outside privy – go with two friends – very good friends!

Arts and Crafts prints

    

A visit to The Christmas Shop in Lechlade. Nothing was bought!

 

Sunday – out for a walk at Nibley Knoll
Thanks to Maggie and Andy for a super weekend.

 Oldie Photo -

1985 – Dümmersee, Germany  -  David, Carol, Sue and Stuart

 

Click Here  -  HMS Victory -  Broadside

Kent – Whitstable and Beyond

Greta is a historic Thames Sailing Barge launched 120 years ago in 1892. As a working cargo barge she carried ammunition, beer, grain, malt and building products. Today she takes tourists out for short trips.

Whitstable Harbour
‘In the late 1820′s, the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway Company built a railway from Canterbury to Whitstable and a new port at Whitstable to bring heavy goods such as coal from the north east. The railway between Canterbury and Whitstable, known as the Crab and Winkle line, was opened in 1830.
Although the harbour halved the cost of the transport of goods from London to north east Kent, the opening of the direct north Kent railway line, from London in 1861 proved competitive. The harbour continued, with the fishing industry doing well, and the introduction of new cargoes such as timber imports from the Baltic.
The railway closed to passenger traffic in 1932, freight continued with the harbour still open for coal, grain and timber.
When British Railways closed the railway line from Canterbury in 1952, the harbour lost much of its trade. In 1958 the Whitstable Urban District Council bought the harbour from the railway for £12,500.’
Information taken from the Whitstable Harbour website.

 

    

The narrow Squeeze Gut alley, whose name is rumoured to have sprung from the unsuccessful attempts of an overweight policeman to catch a gang of young rogues who would lure him into this bottleneck alley (his being the literal squeezed gut).

Whitstable:  buildings by the sea – some in need of a little TLC

 

For Heritage Open Days weekend we visited Rochester.
The first visit was to the Bridge Chapel. The Chapel was constructed in 1393 and is located on the eastern approach to the medieval stone bridge. Bridge chapels were once a common feature of major bridges throughout Britain. Today, only five other bridge chapels are still standing. In the chapel was some Robert Thompson furniture, the Mouseman.
Here is a table of his plus his famous mark on a chair.

  

The Six Poor Travellers’ house - Richard Watts (1529–1579) was a successful businessman and MP for Rochester in the 1570s. Famed locally for his philanthropy, he died in 1579, leaving money in his will to establish the Richard Watts Charity and Six Poor Travellers House in Rochester High Street.

 

The small garden to the rear of the house.

Corps of Royal Engineers parade following the church service.
Their Garrison HQ is in Chatham nearby.

 

Eastgate House – an Elizabethan townhouse was built in the late 1590s for Sir Peter Buck, who was Clerk of the Cheque at Chatham’s Royal Dockyard and Mayor of Medway.  The gardens and cottage were designed by Sir Guy Dawber in the 1920s.  Here you will find the Swiss chalet where Dickens worked on some of his most famous novels. Previously sited at Dickens’ home in Gad’s Hill, it was moved to Rochester in the 1960s.

Eastgate House

Dickens’ Swiss chalet

   

The Shell Grotto is an ornate subterranean passageway in Margate. Almost all the surface area of the walls and roof is covered in mosaics created entirely of seashells totalling about 2,000 square feet of mosaic, or 4.6 million shells. It was discovered in 1835 but its age remains unknown. 99% of the shells are local.

 

We also visited the Turner Contemporary in Margate, unfortunately they were in between exhibitions  and so there was very little to see – not even one Turner – we were not very happy. We moved on to Broadstairs which has a lovely beach and a very nice pot of tea at The Royal Albion Hotel.

Broadstairs beach

We then moved on to Ramsgate to see some of Pugin’s work.

Part of the long, polychromed terracotta panel depicting the Stations of the Cross, to the design of the Flemish sculptor Alois De Beule, added in 1893.

Pugin's beautiful and intricate east window, the tracery lights dating from 1848, and the main lights from 1849:

 

Pugin’s bust with one of his designs ‘The Granville Hotel’.

Ramsgate Harbour

  

 

Oldie Photo – recent photo taken on the Isle of Sheppey.

An old boy!

or should that read buoy?