For those of you wondering 🙂
Category: England
Lyme Bay
Saturday was beautiful and we drove through Torbay, stopping near Thatcher’s Rock to gaze at this view of Lyme Bay. The phone camera doesn’t do landscapes well but gives you the feel at least. Stretching across the sea are some of the little places I’ve taken you, my favourites, Exmouth, Budleaigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Lyme Regis and Charmouth.
Buckland Abbey Costumes
Hand crafted gentleman’s attire
A lovely gown made by the Costume Group
Sir Francis and his good wife
The collar detail
And lastly, the lady from my poem last week. She was very knowledgeable and when I admired her hat, she told me that Elizabeth 1st ruled that all ladies should wear woollen hats. This apparently was to help promote the growth of the woollen trade.
Buckland’s Books
I have just been inspired by a TV program to show you three books that I tried to photograph at Buckland Abbey last week. The program, The Century that Wrote Itself, sets out to trace ‘our modern sense of self back to when ordinary people first took up the quill’. These books were not written by ordinary people, but one at least would have been written with a quill.
This one is my favourite and its the oldest, a medieval Antiphonal from Italy in the late 14th century. An Antiphonal is a winter choir book giving the sung parts of the service for each day from the first Sunday of Advent to the feast of Pentecost.
Buckland’s Newest Old Treasure
One of the reasons I went to Buckland last weekend was this painting. If you live in the UK, you will probably have heard recently that its been discovered that a painting given to the National Trust in 2010, has been investigated by experts and found to be no less than Rembrandt self portrait. It shows the Master, aged 29, in a hat with white feathers, and it is signed and dated 1635.
The National Trust has a collection of some 13,500 paintings but this is the only Rembrandt. It has been valued at around £20m, but can never be sold, it belongs to the nation. There are no plans to move it from Buckland, so if you want to see this valuable find, you’ll just have to visit Devon.
Buckland Abbey, a Few Inside Photos
Hampered by not being able to use flash I’m afraid!
A Fireplace since 1576!
Edwardian chapel
The hob, each area a different temperature
A bored volunteer making sure we didn’t pinch the artifacts!
A room with a view
Spinning corner
Going down
Laundry
Kitchn doorway
Family crest
The Georgian dining room
Tudor dresser
Buckland’s Cistercian Barn
Buckland abbey was founded in 1278 by Cistercian monks on land overlooking the tranquil Tavy valley. The monks were responsible for building the great barn, an impressive building which would have been a treasure store of produce grown on the large estate given to them by the then Countess of Devon, Amicia.
The abbey thrived for two hundred and fifty years until the dissolution of monasteries by Henry 8th and in 1541 the monarch sold Buckland to Sir Richard Grenville who converted it into a home, tearing much of it down, but unusually for the time the church was kept to become the main part of the house. Here is the great barn.
It’s far bigger than it looks on the outside!
Towards the entrance
Small shafts of light.
Huge doors were built to allow carts to drive in at one and out at another so that goods and produce could be unloaded in shelter.
The far end.
Wooden vaulting, the exterior would have been thatch.
The barn’s vast interior
An ancient apple press
I’ll be back tomorrow with some photos of the garden.
Leading to Buckland Abbey
Today I’ve had the most lovely day out for my friends birthday! We went to a National Trust property across the other side of Dartmoor, Buckland Abbey, once the home of Sir Francis Drake. I think I will probably create several posts about it because I’ve just put 400 photos onto the PC. As I don’t know where to start with Buckland here are some photos of the journey across the moor. In the one with the smoke we were wondering if someone was swailing – controlled burning of heath to stimulate new growth, and now I’ve just seen on the BBC’s website that a few mile north there is a huge blaze covering six square kilometres. They don’t know how the fire started yet, swailing can be done until the second week of April, but with prior arrangement .The land is desperatle dry, I can’t remember seeing it look quite like it did today, so just the tiniest spark is all it takes, and the concern now is for nesting birds.. There are 100 firefighters at Chat Tor and they are being assisted by local commoners beating, I hope the fire in my photo, south east of there is quickly contained.
The Lazy Poets Thursday Poem, Seaside Supper
my favourite ice cream entices me
wrapped in woolly scarf and gloves
on an evening that looks like summer
for a walk to Orcombe by the sea
a hoard of pulled along people
in the charge of manic dogs
young love displayed in the sand dunes
I wonder if they notice the view
of the waves tumbling and rattling
the shingle in their wake
or the gaggle of dark and white geese
resting on barnacled rocks and weed
the board paddling Poseidons hold me balanced
between entertainment and anxiety
as they reach the distant sand bank
then float on the current out to sea
hoping they won’t need the lifeboat
I find shelter from the wind
sit back with my supper from Krispies
the best haddock and chips there could be
Maybe the Exeter Fountain?
Now I shouldn’t be blogging today but I saw this new sculpture on Friday, learnt a bit more about it today and need a fresh way to procrastinate instead of writing an assignment. Exeter hasn’t had a fountain for several hundred years, since the Great Conduit, an ornate fountain through which water was available to the public was demolished, but there have been whisperings.
Enter Simon Ruscoe, a talented local artist with a passion for public art. Simon has been working on a large scale sculpture collective, for many years hoping that one day it would be on permanent display in his city.
The sculpture below, one of the seven figures hand cut from steel is twenty feet high and it symbolises the difficult times we are living through. If placed in a fountain as Simon hopes, it reflects society’s struggle to keep our head above water, a group united as it strives to survive.
Art is meant to be thought provoking, but the local newspaper reports that this sculpture isn’t getting totally positive feedback. Among the comments are that it is too modern, the city should have a fountain recalling the blitz in 1942 as well as some positive comments. Well I personally love it, and I wish Simon Ruscoe luck with getting it permanently placed, preferably in Exeter. This is our chance to gain an icon as powerful as the Angel of the North or the Damien Hurst’s Verity, currently residing in Ilfracombe. If not, I’m sure that someone with insight and an open mind will welcome it.
Tell me what you think, would you like it in your city centre?
http://www.simonruscoe.co.uk to learn more.
Lucid Gypsy 