Wonderful Stourhead: 18th-century landscape gardens and Palladian mansion

Nearly 40 years since I drove my family to Stourhead in Wiltshire to see the wonderful National Trust gardens designed in the mid-18th century by Henry Hoare (far more inspired than ‘Capability’ Brown, who seems a hack by comparison).

I revisited the place courtesy of Bullocks Coaches of Cheadle. I was picked up near Edgeley Library and we left Bullocks’ at 8.30am.

Our first and only stop was at the badly designed Strensham services nearly three hours later (mainly because of motorway accidents), just in time for me to avoid wetting myself, as the diuretic had kicked in 90 minutes before.

We arrived at Stourhead at 1.40pm, 40 minutes later than the ETA, thanks to bypassing Bristol and Bath, but inching though Bradford on Avon, where the festival was reaching its climax.

Arriving at Stourhead so late left little time: the Palladian mansion (admission £16, party groups £9.90 each), with its wonderful riches of Dutch art and ceramics and Chippendale furniture, shuts at 4.30pm. Moreover, the vast grounds need a day to walk from the mansion to the lake.

On a busy sunny Sunday the catering was a shambles. At around 2pm, there was a huge queue being served with grossly overpriced main courses by two people. Earlier, I’d seen the beef casserole costing well over £8 (£8.35?) looking like a dog’s breakfast, served with seasonal vegetables including agreeably al dente carrots and courgettes and woefully undercooked potatoes, so hard that they could not be crushed by the back of a fork, even if one could fork them to hold them still for cutting.

By the time I returned at 2.15pm, the queue had gone and so had the beef casserole and the red onion and cheese quiche (£7+ something). All that was left was locally sourced sausages (pale and probably undercooked) and vegetable crumble (£6. 35?). This last was dry (heaven forbid that the NT should provide gravy or sauce) and difficult to eat.

Our co-drivers Malcolm and Richard, realizing that this was one day trip far too short (Stourhead deserves a full day) waited until 5.30pm before they set off on the return journey, an by a different route.

On the way in, they’d diverted to Westbury so we could see the huge white horse carved into the hillside and last restored in 1996.

On the way home we missed out Bradford on Avon and went straight to gridlocked Bath. A once elegant city destroyed by stationery cars which jam the streets. Traffic lights and filters don’t seem to be co-ordinated. Malcolm seized the chance to take us up and down Pulteney St, which includes the Georgian Bathgate Road post office, recently closed. At the head of the street, popular with film-makers as a setting for costume dramas, is a perfectly proportioned palladian building, now a museum. On the Bristol road out, once one of my favourite walks in Bath, little has changed, though many are empty. Chinese takeaways offer free delivery.

Three hours later we were back at the unspeakable northbound Strensham services where an espresso americano to take away from costachef cost £1·95 for three small mouthfuls. (A fellow traveller paid £1·55 for a takeaway cuppa tea). The lavatories in the gents stank and what few wcs are available (half have to handles) were full to the rim. In fairness, a cleaner called John was tackling the problem.

We arrived at Cheadle at 10.09 and I was dropped on Edgeley at 10.25 after travelling 688 kilometres.

Enforced absence

WE ARE delighted to be back after an en enforced absence of several months, including the week His Serenity John Robert-Blunn recently spent in Stepping Hill Hospital after admission as an emergency’ He had visited the antcoagulant clinic clinic, having literally been carried in by André (one of the volunteer drivers who take HS to the many essential medical and hopital appointments). Bioscientists tool blood samples and within minutesHS was being wheeled to A&E and then to the very medical assessment unit. He was admitted to ward A1 (as you’d expect) at 2.21am.when a bed became free. For the first two days, because he was too weak to walk, HS had to use a commode, but on the third day, with the help of a frame, he was able to get to the lavatory on his own — to his great relief. The past two years have been the most difficult HS can remember as his health worsened dramatically, sometimes being ‘seriously at risk’. On Christmas day he was unable to reach St Mark’s — a mere 100 metres away —for the morning communion, That day all he consumed two cuppasoups...We mention this not to gain sympathy, but to explain to subscribers why the Charivari has been missing so long. We thank them for their patience and goodwill messages.We also thank all those friends who have helped. It would be invidious to name them, but John Featherstone really does deserve a special mention for all that he has done for HS.This catch-up edition, finally prepared while the tradesmen who ripped out the bathroom of Molys Hyse to prepare for the installation of a wetroom, will surely have many avoidable errors, including literals (known to the ignorant as typos). We can’t find the spell-checker. Please forgive them: at least we’ve got the show back on the road: and HS managed to buy hundreds of stamps on the last day before Royal Mail increased postal rates by 20 per cent for its unspeakably unreliable, dismal service. (On Wedy April 9, the mail, including the previous Saty’s Spectator) was delivered at 6.15pm.
FURTHER delay to getting out this issue was caused by having to wait in for the weekly blister pack of seven drugs (recently reduced from ten) the daily visit of an agency carer to make sure HS has swallowed them and to check that he’s alive, dressed and has had a hearty breakfast of brought-in wrapped, sweating white nylon bread (as Arvid Yansons used to call the stuff the British prefer).