Change of Season, Change of Weather

It is somewhat ironic that just over a week ago we slipped from spring to summer and ever since the summer solstice the weather here has been crap!  We went from having temperatures over 30' and sunny skies to now having clouds, drizzle (and sometime heavy rain) and wind - lots of it!  However, I am making the most of it.  My friend, Maureen, from Victoria left on Sunday and then I was "home alone" for a couple of days which gave me time to do laundry, ready the second bedroom for incoming friends, watch some "telly", and read a couple of books.  I had hoped to sit on the balcony sipping wine and eating my dinners but with the very strong onshore breeze (wind), that wasn't possible.
 
Wednesday, Mena and Trevor arrived by train from Birmingham and the next stage of my vacation started.  We will be here in Westward Ho! until Friday when we will start making our way north back to Birmingham next week with stops in Devon and Wales along the way.
 
This morning, in spite of the promise of rain, we wanted to make sure we did at least something.  Mena had picked up some brochures at the train station for some of the other gardens and stately houses around here.  We researched a few as well as ones I had already known about and we decided to visit Hartland Abbey and Gardens which was just past the turnoff to Clovelly off the A39.  Needless to say, when you are in Devon, the minute you get off any A road, you are on very narrow lanes with high edges on either side and sometimes they turn into one-track ones.  Well, in spite of large Land Rovers and vans coming at us, we survived!
 
 

 
Built in the 12th Century, Hartland Abbey survived as a monastery longer than any others in the country.  In 1539 Henry VIII gifted the Abbey to the Keeper of his Wine Cellar and today the house still remains in the family.  Hartland Abbey is probably the most historically important ancestral home in North Devon containing much of national interest, including architecture and decoration from the Medieval, Queen Anne, Georgian, Regency and Victorian periods, paintings, furniture, Chinese artifacts and porcelain collected over many generations.  Today, the descendants still live there and can often be seen working in the garden or directing people where to park.  
 

 

 
The house is located in a stunning valley which leads down to a rugged Atlantic cove.  Since 1935, the house along with the gardens, grounds, and a cottage at Blackpool Mill have often been used as locations for movies and TV programs.  Examples of these include the BBC adaptation by Andrew Davies of ‘Sense and Sensibility’, German ZDF’s production of the Rosamund Pilcher novel, The Shell Seekers, and the major BBC drama production of  The Night Manager by John Le Carre starring Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman.  Also, the BBC Antiques Roadshow was filmed here in 2012. 

Although Lady Stucley has neither confirmed nor denied it, apparently the house was the venue for Prince William's stag party with his guests apparently playing cricket on the front lawn and surfing at the beach below. 
 
After we had toured the gardens - the Bog Garden and the Walled Garden, we visited the house where, unfortunately, no photos are permitted. 
 

In the Bog Garden

 
 

The Vegetable Garden inside the Walled Garden

 

 

 

Agapanthus - my new favourite flower

 

Mena and Trevor with the Harland grounds in the background

The following additional photos - of the house interiors and Blackpool cottage are from the Internet.  We didn't walk to Blackpool cottage and, as I mentioned, no photos were permitted in the house.  It was very interesting and, as the family currently lives there, it contains a lot of current photos and items as well as tons and tons of historic paintings, furniture and memorabilia.  The previous family owners' portraits were painted by Reynolds and Gainsborough.  In the library, the docent explained there were 12 Chippendale chairs stored in it but one of the chairs was shorter than the other.  Apparently, the reason was that one of the Stucley women liked to play the organ in the church but, because she was short she needed a shorter chair.  So, she had the servants saw some length off each of the legs of one of the chairs so she could sit on it to play.  There was also an amazing table in the dining room – round – which could be turned in such a way that extra leaves could be inserted or removed to make it possible to seat from 8 to 22 people.  One of her colleagues had made a model to show visitors how it works.  It turns in a spiral to open up.  Quite ingenious!

 

Although we didn't do the 1 mile walk down to Blackpool Mill cottage, we did drive toward Harland quay (we didn't drive all the way down the very steep hill) but we did stop to see the amazing views along the coastline and managed to stay upright in the very strong winds!

 

 

 
Then, we drove back to Westward Ho! where we decided to eat in again.  The winds were strong there as well as can be seen from the flags on the beach.
 

The ice cream truck (below the balcony) where there are always customers regardless of the weather!!

The apartment building from the front

The flags blowing in the wind

 Next up, Exmoor where we are hoping the weather will be slightly (a LOT) more cooperative!
 

Kingsley and Kipling

Ever since I arrived here in Westward Ho! I have been curious about the name of this place.  For someone coming from North America, I associate the words with the purported shouts (at least in the movies) of the pioneers and settlers in their covered wagons as they headed off to the "wild, wild west" from St. Louis in the early 19th century.  It was surprising to find a village of the same name in Devon.  Apparently, it is the only town in the UK with a name ending in an exclamation mark.  I would venture a guess it is probably the only one in the world but would happily be corrected if I am wrong.

The village/town (not sure how you distinguish between them) has about 2100 residents but that swells to much more on weekends and during holidays.  There is an amazing beach and, for those familiar with Parkville on Vancouver Island, it is somewhat similar.  The difference is there is very rocky terrain at the southern end (where even a pool has been fashioned into the rock and used at low tide) while gorgeous sand to the north extends across an expanse of coastline to sand dunes in the distance.  The following photos were taken at various tide levels.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Okay, so Kingsley and Kipling and what is their association with this place? 

A man named Charles Kingsley (1819 – 1875) was living at Northdown Hall in Bideford when he wrote a novel “Westward Ho!” in 1855 and the book became an instant best seller.  By 1897, it had been reprinted thirty-eight times and really brought the North Devon coast to the attention of the Victorians.  Even though it was a swashbuckling novel about conflicts between the English and Spanish, Kingsley’s loving descriptions of North Devon has never been bettered.  One of his favourite haunts was the beach and the pebble ridge where he used to employ quarrymen to move large boulders so he could examine the marine life underneath. 
 
So,, the village name comes from the title of his novel which was set in nearby Bideford.  Because of its fame, entrepreneurs saw the opportunity to develop tourism in the area.  In 1863 “The Northam Burrows Hotel and Villa Building Company” was formed and the development began.  The hotel was named the “Westward Ho! Hotel” and the adjacent villas were also named after the book.  As further development took place, the expanding settlement also acquired the name of Westward Ho! The exclamation mark is therefore an intentional part of the village’s name.  Kingsley never visited the new resort of Westward Ho! and never disguised his abhorrence of the project. 
 
Further, apparently, Charles Kingsley lived in Clovelly as a child and returned many times as an adult staying at what is now known as Kingsley Cottage.  Although Kingsley wrote the following description of Clovelly over 150 years ago, the village has changed so very little over the decades that his words could have been written today. 

Suddenly a hot gleam of sunlight fell upon the white cottages, with their grey steaming roofs and little scraps of garden courtyard, and lighting up the wings of the gorgeous butterflies which fluttered from the woodland down to the garden.

Now, to Rudyard Kipling.  When Paul and I were walking along the seafront the other day, we came upon a sign referring to the author with his poem "If" detailed on it as well.  In addition, embedded in pebbles along the asphalt walk, is the first line of his poem If. 

The writing on the sign says:

Kipling was born in 1865 in Bombay, India, the son of John Lockwood Kipling and Alice Kipling.  Is mother moved him to England in 1871 for a formal British education.  Initially he went to foster carers in Southsea where he experienced bullying and abuse from his foster mother.  This was an unhappy time for Kipling where he was subjected to bullying and violence at the place he would call the “House of Desolation”.

Fortunately, in 1878 his mother moved him to the United Services College, Westward Ho!, a school founded to prepare boys for life in the British Army.  This however was not the case for Kipling, as fortunately his headmaster and family friend fostered his literary ability which enabled his writing to flourish.  It was this time in Kipling’s life that provided the setting for his novel “Stalky and Co.”  Kipling left the United Services College in 1882 and became one of the most popular writers of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, rewarded for his efforts with a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, the youngest recipient to date (as of 2017).

Adorned across the Westward Ho! Promenade in front of the beach huts is the first vers of his world-renowned poel, “If”.  The poem was written by Kipling in 1895 and first poublished in 1910 in his collection of short stories and poetry entitled “Rewards and Fairies”.  It is written in the form of paternal advice towards his son, John, listing virtues that will transform his son into a man.  How many of those virtues are still valid today?

 

So, that is the story of the two men's relationship to Westward Ho! 
 
Totally unrelated to the title of this post, I have included some photos of the flat where I am staying.  It is on two levels - the upper ones of a three storey building.  The lower floor has two bedrooms and two bathrooms and the upper has a sitting room, kitchen and dining room, all in an open plan.  There are balconies off the master bedroom and at both ends of the upper floor.  Sitting on the one overlooking the sea has been restorative as I always miss being away from the ocean.  I've seen several signs both here and in Croatia saying "Everyone needs their Vitamin Sea" - which is very true for me!  Here are a few photos of the apartment which is right up there with ones I've rented in Bandon and Villefranche-sur-Mer in the south of France. 
 

 

 

 

 

Devon Villages

After the heat wave ended, the last couple of days have been much more typical West Country weather - misty, cloudy, cool and very breezy.  Friday, I dropped Paul at the Barnstaple train station, sat in the car reading a book for a two hours and then my friend from Victoria, Maureen, arrived.  It didn't take long to get back to Westward Ho!, head for Tesco's to buy some groceries for dinner and then settle in for the evening.  Our plan was to visit the lovely little village of Clovelly in the morning; this was a place I hadn't seen in over 30 years (maybe more!).

Maureen discovered a couple of travel brochures in the flat and one of them talked about two markets in Bideford - the Pannier Market and Butcher's Row.  So, before heading south to Clovelly, first we headed to Bideford to see these markets.
 
Bideford is located on a very pretty estuary (the river Torridge I think) and labels itself as an ancient mariner town.  We walked up the hill along the High Street which, like so many in English towns and villages, is primarily filled with charity shops.  Such a shame the High Street is a dying culture!  The old market hall contains both these markets and, while interesting, they were a bit disappointing.  Mostly they contained local crafts and home-style baking.  Nonetheless, it was interesting to poke around in them.  The most unique stall we saw was one that featured knitted articles depicting different foods - how unique is that!
 

Shop on the High Street

 

The Old Market Hall

Butcher's Row, previously butchers and now crafts

Pannier Market

This and the following photos are of the "knitted food".
Not sure if there is a market for this but it is sort of clever and amusing -
if not a bit strange!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
We left Bideford and drove mostly on the A39 south in some very foggy conditions to the village of Clovelly.  It didn’t take long to reach it – no more than about ½ hour – but it was really a shame we couldn’t enjoy the beautiful Devon countryside on the way there.  We arrived just before noon and paid the £7.25 to enter the village.  The place has no cars and no individually-owned houses.  The entire village is owned by one family (one of only three since the Norman Conquest).  The High Street is very steep and can be slippery.  The nickname for it is “Up-along Down-along” – or at least it was when I was here over 30 years ago.  Donkeys have been associated with the village for years as they were used to haul goods up and down the steep high street.  Now, it appears you can have donkey rides and visit them in their stables.

We carefully walked all the way down to the water and at times it was quite tricky – although if I’d had different shoes on that might have helped!  The irregular cobblestones were a bit slippery and there are even tea towels joking about how you could fall and sprain or break your ankle walking down.  At the bottom, we stopped for lunch at the Red Lion Hotel in the harbour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch, Maureen decided to hike back up the hill but I had had enough of worrying about slipping on cobblestones so I paid the £2.50 to take the Land Rover back to the Visitor Centre.  That was cheap to avoid the chance of falling!  It wasn't lost on me that nearly all the people on the Land Rover were at least 10 years older than me save for one other woman!  Perhaps, I was just being a wuss!

The clouds had lifted quite a bit when we returned to Westward Ho!  However, the wind was still too strong for us to sit on the balcony.   At least we were treated to a lovely sunset.

 

Sunday, Maureen was headed back to Canterbury (where her son and daughter-in-law live) on a midday train.  First, we visited the nearby fishing village of Appledore where there was another craft centre Maureen wanted to see.  As it turned out, it was not as big as expected but it did give us a chance to visit the charming little village with its seafront and tiny streets.

Looking across the Torridge estuary from Appledore

 

 

 

 
 

 
Then, I dropped Maureen at the Barnstaple train station and headed back to Westward Ho!  I am going to be "home alone" now until Wednesday afternoon when Mena and Trevor from Vancouver join me.  I do have lots of laundry to do to get ready for their arrival; I feel a little bit like I'm running a B&B!