Autumn Colours at Stowe

The house at Stowe, home in the 18th century to the Temple family and its head Viscount Cobham, is now an exclusive public school. The grounds, which were laid out by Charles Bridgeman, William Kent and Lancelot "Capability" Brown, are in the hands of the National Trust. There are miles of walks with temples, statues and stunning vistas.

Karin waiting patiently by the steps of the Queen's Temple. It was where Lady Cobham would entertain her lady friends and is now used by the school as a music room.

The memorial to Captain Cook in its watery surroundings.      

The Temple of Venus

The Temple of British Worthies - still a good place for a group portrait.

View from the Grotto, recently reopened after extensive restoration

You can see more images in the  gallery here

And here's the  National Trust site for Stowe
And here's a  Wikipedia article about the park and gardens

Farnborough Hall visit no. 2

Another visit to Farnborough Hall, this time to photograph a team from the Coventry and Warwickshire National Trust Volunteers who helped the Hall staff to clear small trees and vegetation from the amphitheatre

See my blog entry for 10 September for more information about Farnborough Hall and the work archaeologist Stephen Wass is carrying out.

Here they are working

And here they are having a tea break. Actually they worked very hard and were well deserving of their breaks.

We found some interesting items beneath the vegetation and these were recorded photographically. Later on archaeologist Stephen Wass will do a full job on recording them. This was some metalwork which is possibly a container with handles. It's very corroded and is in an area where there is evidence of possible burning. There was much speculation about what it might be, and there's a lot of pressure on Stephen to come up with a plausible explanation.

Here's a mountain of debris they collected from the site. There's a tractor in there somewhere trying to push it to the edge of the site for disposal. Actually, it'll probably be left to decay naturally; an excellent way of encouraging wildlife to live in it and eat it for a couple of years.

After a hard day's work, here's the central area of the amphitheatre and we're starting to see how it would have looked in the 18th century.










Loads more images can be seen in the gallery here

Stephen's website is here

Here's the National Trust's Farnborough Hall site

And there's some historical stuff here

That's it for now. Chris.

A trip to the Lake District

We had a short break in the Lake District, staying at a friend's house in Cockermouth. The town was devastated by floods in 2009, with water up to 2 metres deep in Main Street and it has recovered remarkably well. The sign sums up the spirit of the place.

The clouds were low so we took a trip down to Crummock to get some atmospheric lake-side shots.

Day 2: low cloud again so went to Wastwater, the deepest lake in the Lake District. Off to the top right of this shot is Scafell Pike, the highest peak in England. We were hoping to see some autumn colours and were not disappointed.

Day 3 - a trip to Rannerdale with hopes of getting up to Whiteless Pike but low cloud scuppered us again. Went round Rannerdale Knots instead.

Day 4 - Watendlath Tarn and shore. Watendlath is a tiny hamlet reached by a narrow winding road. It's owned by the National Trust and there's a farm with a flock of Herdwick sheep. We set out on a circular walk to Dock Tarn, returning via Stonethwaite.

From Watendlath to Dock Tarn

Dock Tarn and then on to Stonethwaite

Nearly back at Watendlath












There are more pictures in this gallery