Rambling around England.

[drron]

Some more of the hotel.



And then we started at Oxburgh Hall. It is another National Trust property. If going to the UK and are interested in historical places then join the Australian National Trust as you get free entrance in the UK.

 

[drron]

Another interesting building.

 

[drron]

Then we went inside. Unfortunately due to the repairs it was only the ground floor we could access.








A lot of books but not in this picture as it is actually a door.

 

[drron]

 

[Cossie]

So we started the way back to the river. A nice garden at the Minster.
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Over the road other historic buildings.
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Hanse House, had to do some research and as I thought, it relates to the Hanseatic League.

History | Hanse House

www.hansehouse.co.uk

This in particular strikes a chord,

“In 1751 the buildings were sold by the Hanseatic League to Edward Everard, a wealthy Lynn merchant, for the sum of £800; this resulted in the construction of the Georgian house to St Margaret’s Place we see today.”

My mother’s maiden name was Everett, from the Germanic Eberhard, also spelt as above. The Everett family is from Norfolk, East Harling and were Quakers. I visited the former Friends Meeting House, now a private residence and was allowed in to see various grave stones in their backyard.

Anyway back to your trip, great reading and viewing, as usual.

 

[Cossie]

Swaffham was the location of Market Shipborough featured in the Stephen Fry series “Kingdom”.
Kingdom TV Series, Filmed, Locations, Norfolk, Swaffham

I wandered past your hotel went in for a drink and thought next I’m here, that is where I will stay. Made do with the Best Western that trip.

 

[drron]

Finally worked out how to get my iphone pictures to my PC. Picasa just wouldn't do it direct towards the end of the trip. got a work around that works for me.
So continuing the inside of Oxburgh house.







Now outside as the second floor will only re open in November.



And a quick look at the gun room on the way out.

 

[drron]

Some more of the restoration project.



The gun room.


The original drive in.


now we walked around the building.




The chapel.

 

[drron]

The family still live in this section.

I doubt that they use the boat.


The cyngets are nearly fully grown and obviously well fed.




The walled garden and the grounds.

 

[drron]

The walled garden wasn't that impressive.




But I liked the veggie garden.




A gatehouse.


And the wall from the road.

 

[drron]

Outside the walls of Oxburgh Hall is St Johns church which has the original Bedingfield chapel. it was added to the chuch in 1500. The spire was hit by lightening in the 19th century and rebuilt only to topple in a storm in 1948 pulling down most of the church. The chapel was not damaged. An interesting history.

Oxborough, St John's Church | Historic Norfolk Guide

A look at the medieval church of St Johns, Oxburgh, Norfolk, by historian David Ross. We are Passionate about History!

www.britainexpress.com

We then decided to visit Gooderstone water gardens which was nearby. Saw all these sheds on a farm. turned out to be a piggery.

 

[drron]

Run by an old couple and obviously not much maitenance over the last 2 years. In a very small village.

 

[drron]

We each had an ice cream there. I went for Ron's brand.

 

[mrs.dr.ron]

The photos are too kind to the place - it was very run down and needed A LOT of work to get it back to where they could charge for admission !! It was overgrown and full of weeds !

 

[drron]

The last meals at the Stratton hotel. We just had mains. Service was not nearly as good as the first night. The staff members were different and we thought the B team. Mrsdrron had the tomato and mushroom tart and I had the pork belly. Both all right but certainly not outstanding.




Then for breakfast Mrsdrron just wanted 1 egg scrambled and 1 piece of bacon whilst I had the full Norfolk breakfast. Very good.

 

[drron]

So we then drove from Norfolk to Basingstoke to stay at another Hand Picked Hotel - the Audley Woods Hotel. here is the room and view.




I then went for a walk around the hotel.







The bar area.



Unfortunately it was about now that my camera really started playing up. i had downloaded the photos to my computer but it turned out it was the hard disk which went on that so some of the most recent photos were lost. I did stumble across wedding photos being taken that day and the next but none survived. dinner plus the menu from this first night also disappeared.

 

[drron]

We stayed at Audley Woods for 3 nights. on our first day we visited The Vyne a National Trust property. There was a Medieval mansion on this site but in the 16th Century a large Tudor palace was built here by Henry V111's Lord Chamberlain. It was said to rival Hampton palace. But the owners were Royalists in the Ciil War so had to sell. It was taken over by a lawyer who demolished a lot of the building and rebuilt. This is what we see today.

The Vyne - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So firstly the grounds as you walk in from the car park.




And the 100 Guinea oak. the owners a little before the Battle of Trafalgar were offered 100 guineas for the tree for ship building. They declined the offer.



And now inside the house.

 

[drron]

Some more of the Vyne.

 

[drron]

The last of the Vyne.


We though we might have afternoon tea but the cafe was overflowing so went to thier shop/



Some interesting stuff.


The back of the house.


I took this shot from the edge of the lake. It has always been called a pond but the local authorities deemed it a lake so now they have to do 1 million GBP worth of work to bring it up to the flood regulations for lakes.
A few wood carvings. The only one not covered by children.


And back to the car park.

 

[drron]

The dinner pictures from that night survived. First the lounges for pre dinner drinks.



The dining room with left over wedding flowers and the wine rack.





And the view from our table.


Mrsdrron was happy.