Sauntering Vaguely Downward

[continued from here: DW/LJ] Since the church was about a thirty second walk away from The Old Grammar School, we stopped by on Saturday morning before heading out and were pleased to find it unlocked.

My perusal of the visitor’s books (which stretched back to 1975, the lengthiest set of log books I’d encountered on our LT holidays) on the previous evening had told us that there were more Thompson mice to be found in the church. We went on a mouse hunt, but could only locate six of the eight that were allegedly hiding there.


Humuhumu found the first mouse near the altar.


And the second, behind the pews.

( +7 )

Bonus photo: Our local, the Shoulder of Mutton Inn, was just over the road from the church. You know that feeling you get when you walk into a pub that’s been done up just a bit too much? Where you want to shout, like Bernard Black, “Why does everything have to be fancy? I just want sausage, mash and a bit of cake, not twigs fried in honey or a donkey in a coffin!”

This place was exactly the opposite of that. We stopped in on our first evening and every night subsequently. Worried about whether or not they took cards, we scraped together £7.40 in cash.

“That might not get us a round,” he said.
“This is Yorkshire,” I replied. “If they try to charge us a tenner for two pints of booze and two halves of lemonade, I’m leaving, because we’re clearly in the wrong place.”

As it happened, £6.40 got us a pint of very lively cider (crisp, citrusy, refreshing), a pint of tasty ale, the aforementioned lemonades and a packet of peanuts. And lo, we were grateful not to be in London.


Humuhumu and Keiki enjoy lemonade, while the bloke & I enjoy our pints of ale & cider respectively.

Up next: Egglestone Abbey.

Poultry Cottage is located near the Welsh/English border, so the area saw its fair share of skirmishes over the years. Montgomery Castle didn't survive into the modern era, though it was surely much more functional than showy Powis Castle, which has.

The former is bordered on three sides by cliffs and a valley, and the "accessible" side involves a brief but vertigo-inducing hike up a precariously narrow footpath. We were visiting in February and it's Wales, so obviously it was damp and cold. The screaming, icy wind that greeted us on reaching the plateau on which the castle sits provided an additional deterrent to unfriendly visitors, I'm sure.


[Walking through Montgomery Castle.]

( Montgomery Castle, +5 )

We ended up visiting Powis Castle (National Trust property) twice: Once to tour the interior, where photography is forbidden because many of the items on display are still the private possessions of the earl, and once to tour the gardens. The centuries-old yew hedges are the highlight of the upper garden, not because they've been exquisitely sculpted into topiary or regimented into orderly barriers, but because they have been allowed to evolve into weird, organic shapes.


[Humuhumu running down a path in the lower formal garden. The clean sharp lines of the well-trimmed hedges contrast sharply with the undulations of the ones above.]

( Powis Castle, +5 )

[Humuhumu jumps off a stone outside the gingerbread Fowl House (strictly for the birds).]

On Friday, we piled into the car and drove to Wales to our fourth Landmark Trust property. It's become traditional for us to stay in one over the weekend nearest the bloke's birthday that isn't Valentine's that holiday which seems to have been designed to make people feel bad about enjoying being alone February 14th.

This one is called Poultry Cottage. Once it was part of a great estate that included a model farm. The estate is now broken up, and the Landmark Trust acquired the cottage (where the fowl-keeper lived) and the Fowl House (where the chickens, pheasants, turkeys, pigeons and doves lived). I'm afraid the keeper's cottage is rather plainer and smaller than the one intended for the galinaceous neighbours.


[Pretty Poultry Cottage, fit for humans.]

We used the cottage as a base for exploration nearby during the day, and as a cosy nest at night after the children were in bed. There was no mobile or data signal, no television and no internet connection. I'm not evangelical about disconnecting - we had some BBC programmes downloaded, mostly for Humuhumu to watch - but both the bloke and I do find it helpful for our mental health to be forced, for a few days, not to check our e-mail or spend our evenings constantly half-distracted by our computers.

Below the cut, some shots of the cottage interior, with children (and adults).

( +8 )

For the bloke's birthday two weekends ago (How? Where does time go?), we went to a Landmark Trust property in Lincolnshire called The Chateau. We went to another property, St Winifred's Well Cottage, last year - see the "landmark trust" tag to view photos from that visit. I'm reluctant to call this a tradition just yet, but it's a rather appealing one.

The Chateau was built in 1747 by an enterprising chap who could afford to purchase a big plot of land, but not to build a stately home upon it, said land being sadly lacking in such an established building. So instead, he designed a pretty place atop a small hill that, from the road, would look like an imposing edifice when in fact it contains only a single bedroom. A succession of estate owners became increasingly unable to keep it up to its original standards, especially after the grand estate finally was built a couple of miles down the road. It was bequeathed to the Landmark Trust, who opened it to paying guests in 1984.


The Chateau from the front.

We rocked up on Friday night by the light of a full moon, in gale-force winds, armed with plenty of wine and insufficient firewood.

( Chateau interiors, Lincoln cathedral, cheese and wine )


Possibly the cutest picture I have ever taken of Humuhumu (outside the chateau, in front of the view of the power station and the overflowing river) and hence outside the cut.

( And continue... )

We had to depart at 6 AM the next morning, so this is not a true goodbye shot as it was still pitch-dark when we left. But it's prettier than what I would have taken then.

Goodbye, Chateau.

It's a beautiful house and location, but it lacked the cosiness of St Winifred's and I reluctantly concluded that it didn't delight me as much. I got more out of the previous year's stay in large part because of the sense of abiding love for St Winifred's that's imparted by the log books. The woman who donated the cottage to the Landmark Trust goes back there every year and makes an entry full of memories and old photos, and repeat visitors (most of them are) fill its logbook pages with creativity and outpourings of fondness for it. Something about that, perhaps also because of the wellspring and its religious associations, connected me with the place in a way I didn't get out of The Chateau despite its longer tenure with the LT.

The bloke wanted to spend his birthday weekend in a tiny rural cottage near a canal.

I imagine that your brows have knitted themselves. “But nanila,” you’re thinking. “You live in a tiny rural cottage near a canal.” However, our cottage is only 18th century, not 15th. And it isn’t built over a sacred well dedicated to the Welsh princess St Winifred. Also, it has a television and internet connection.

Your frown has deepened. “But nanila,” you’re thinking. “Why don’t you turn off the television and internet, light the fire and pretend you’re sitting over a sacred well?”

Yes, well, anyway. We went to this lovely spot in Shropshire to celebrate the bloke’s thirtymumbleth birthday. In the fifth century, Welsh princess Winifred dedicated her life to the church. A prince came along and wanted to marry her. He was quite persistent, forcing her to flee her sanctuary. The prince caught up with her and being unaccustomed to having his wishes denied, he cut off her head. (I wonder why she wouldn’t marry him.) Fortunately, her uncle was at hand and placed her severed head on her body, which miraculously restored her life. The legend says that a wellspring emerged from the spot where her blood had drenched the ground. This well is in Flintshire, Wales, with a grander stone structure built over it.

No one is quite sure how the well in Woolston, Shropshire came to be associated with St Winifred, but it has certainly been a holy place for Christian pilgrims to bathe in and drink of the restorative waters for quite a long time. The original single-room timber-frame cottage has been beautifully restored and stands directly over the well, a rather unusual arrangement. The restoration preserved as many of the original beams as possible and the join work between the old and the new wood adds character rather than detracting from it.


The back of the house, showing the stepped stone baths leading from the well. (The bloke took a dip in the water. I didn’t.)


A closer view of the house, showing the original dark timbers and the newer, lighter wood.

( Inspecting the well. )


The bathroom, formerly the pigsty. It was lovely to wallow in (sorry, sorry), but also a scary to visit at night. The rural location means it’s pitch-black once the sun goes down. It makes for good star- and moon-gazing, but causes some anxiety when fumbling along a cobblestone path after a couple of glasses of wine.


The waxing gibbous moon, taken with my new 70-300 mm lens.

The interior of the house has been furnished harmoniously, with plain dark wood pieces in keeping with the rustic feeling.


These photos depicts the way the majority of our time was spent: sitting in the faded red armchairs, reading by the fire...


...or napping in the comfortable bed. (Humuhumu’s paw and head can be seen peeping above the covers.)

( More of the interior. )

We did venture outside for purposes other than visits to the pigsty, such as a visit to Chirk Castle. (I took my Holga so there won’t be any photos until I get the film developed.) The best trip was the walk along the disused Montgomery Canal.

( Canal walk. )

Great fun was also had perusing the three volume Visitors Log. The Landmark Trust has been running the cottage as a holiday home since 1991, and making an memorable entry has clearly become a goal for all those who come to stay there, probably in part because there isn’t much else to do. I read all three volumes. It deserves its own entry, which it shall get in Part 2.