Over the border - Barrington Court

As summer fades to autumn here are some sunny memories of Barrington Court, just a hop across the border into Somerset.
Barrington is an Elizathen pile constructed in the 1550s of glorious yellow hamstone. As the years passed it gradually fell into decay until purchased by the National Trust in the 1900s who then leased it to Colonel Lyle of the Tate and Lyle sugar family. 

The colonel then spent many years restoring the house to its former glory lining the walls with his huge collection of Elizabethan panelling.

Barrington reverted to the Trust in 1986 but was partially used as a showroom  for repro furniture until 2008. 

Now at last visitors have complete run of the house, which, unusually for a country 
house is empty of all the overstuffed sofas and fading paraphernalia that usually fills a stately home making it far easier to appreciate the spaces and Colonel Lyle's panelled interiors.

The gardens, designed by Gertrude Jekyll are also something special; even I, who thinks that a philistine is related to a columbine  was impressed by the colourful abundance and variety.













Study them at leisure sitting on the terrace enjoying coffee and cake (that's something I do know about...)

Tea on the terrace

The Holy Well

Here is a Dorset hole, but no ordinary Dorset hole. Though  unprepossessing, this humble spot has been venerated for centuries as a holy well. 
It can be found in a field close to the busy A35 in Morcombelake and has been  considered holy since Medieval times. It was probably associated with St Candida (see here) whose nearby church was also a place of pilgrimage and veneration.
The clear waters were reputed (...good word that...) to cure eye complaints including blindness... sounds a bit like Medieval eyewash to me...

Hills and Views - Maiden Castle

Maiden Castle, the largest Iron Age hill fort in Europe, occupies a low hill just a mile or so from the town of Dorchester, yet  it still manages to retain an atmosphere of airy isolation. The still-lofty defensive banks and ditches rise up like frozen waves and are a charmed place to lie back and listen to the atmospheric cry of the invisible skylark.

To really appreciate the earthwork requires wings, as only then can you appreciate the sophisticated layout of this ancient structure.
Here, 2000 years ago, the Roman army, led by Vespasian faced the local lot, the Durnovaria, in a battle that was probably a forgone conclusion; British slingshots would have been no match for Rome's state-of-the-art ballistas.

The story of their last stand was painted in chilling detail when archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler conducted an extensive dig here some seventy years ago. A mass grave of the defenders was uncovered, the skeletons clearly exhibiting battle wounds; while huge reserves of slingstones brought from nearby Chesil Bank lay unused .
Today life here is much more peaceful, the occupation force is mainly sheep, lambs and dog walkers; the hill's occupants having  long ago forsaken their ancestral home for the bright lights of Dorchester town.

Dorset cycling- Hardy Monument-Upwey loop

I've cycled this route many, many times in all weathers and I never tire of it.
Beginning at a lay-by below Hardys monument you fairly whizz along the first part, a chalk ridge lined with the barrows of our Iron Age forebears who picked a pretty neat spot with far views over the whole of Weymouth Bay.

This where I usually partake of coffee and cake perched atop one of their barrows, the occupants never complain.
Reaching the road a right turn carries you on an exhilarating ride downhill to the outskirts of Upwey and its wishing well. Should more cake be required a tearoom is a little further on in the actual village; otherwise a gentle lane carries you past the premises of the renowned Baking Birds, two friends who have established an award winning bakery here...so should you require even more cake...

Eventually a bridleway leads you through open fields past a lonely abandoned farmhouse with the the Hardy monument once again on the horizon. Then a gentle but (to me) exhausting uphill cycle brings you back once again to the lay-by...more cake, anyone? 

Distance 8 miles (but seems more!) 

Food with views - The Jailhouse Cafe

Ok, admit it!...I've done stretch in prison...about and hour and a half all told, including remission for a good appetite.

A winding switchback road climbs higher and higher up the side of the Isle of Portland until finally the forbidding stone gates of the Verne prison rise up in front of you.

Passing through the grim stone portal you emerge onto a plateau at the Island's very highest point; here is journey's end. The Jailhouse Cafe is an enlightened venture which gives risk-assessed prison inmates a feel for worthwhile work in the community.

Though the cafe is no gourmet experience the food is adequate and staff are helpful to a T. Each and every one seems built like a brick s**t house, pumped up to bursting, presumably as a result of long hours heaving weights in the prison gym.

On a fine day the views from the lawn are breathtaking, stretching all the way to the Purbecks shimmering in the blue distance, while below massive granite breakwaters girdle Portland harbour; another communal convict effort but of an earlier age.
What on earth would those Victorians lags breaking the granite for the breakwaters far below have thought of their present day heirs mincing around balancing a cappuccino in each paw?...

The Verne was originally built as a citadel to protect Portland Harbour

Click here for info about The Jailhouse

Hills and views- The Hardy Monument

The monument in the Autumn mists

High on a hill near Dorchester, and visible for many miles around, stands a monument to a man chiefly remembered for kissing a sailor.
The Hardy monument, a rather squat ugly edifice, was erected in 1844 to the memory of the other Hardy, Trafalgar veteran Admiral Thomas Masterman Hardy.

So kissable....

Hardy, born at Long Bredy in1769 lived close by at Portesham. 
He was captain of the Victory at Trafalgar when his dying friend, Nelson, uttered those three fateful words, 'Kiss me Hardy,' so consigning the poor bloke to be the butt of schoolboy jokes for eternity.






There is another more prurient version of these events, by the way, with Nelson's dying words being interpreted as 'Kismet, Hardy'... meaning...'Fate, Hardy.'
Away from the smoke of battle the views across Dorset are breathtaking. Footpaths radiate to all points of the compass as do bridleways; so bring you dog or mountain bike or even a mountain biking dog.

Creative Dorset - Augustus John

Augustus John bearing an uncanny resemblance to my father

My four years at art college was wasted on my old pot and pan... real artists wore sandals, shunned soap and lay in an absinthe haze, with a nubile nymphette in each arm. I, on the other hand kept both armpits and nose clean.  

The Bohemian lifestyle invented by the Impressionists was eagerly adopted by Augustus John, Britain's foremost portrait painter, after an encounter with a group of gypsy tinkers, a meeting which began a lifelong obsession with the gypsy lifestyle.  
It was in 1911 John first appeared in Dorset driving a gypsy caravan  and accompanied by an entourage of women, children and hangers-on. They were headed for Alderney Manor, a grandly named crenellated pink bungalow in 50 acres of heathland. 
John was already a celebrated artistic genius, though the less generous attributed this genius to a crack on the nut while at college. Either way, a genius he certainly was. 

T. E. Lawrence

Alderney soon became a mecca for the most notorious creative minds of the era. Visitors whose names read like a who's who, stayed in brightly painted gypsy caravans in the grounds; while the children ran wild through the heath and animals of all shapes and sizes wandered the grounds, even a token monkey made an appearance. 
The creative chaos was presided over by his wife Dorelia, dressed in flowing Pre Raphaelite robes.
It was not just a fertile period for his art, Augustus carried on hoovering up the women as well, even Ian Fleming's mother was counted as a mistress. In fact it almost became de rigeur  to claim to have fathered one of his many children. Some put the number at 100 though a more modest nine were acknowledged. It was said that he patted each child on the head when walking down the Kings Road in case one might be his own.

Thomas Hardy

He meanwhile produced a series of brilliant portraits including those of a couple of the local lights; T. E Lawrence and Thomas Hardy, who commented "I don't know if that's how I look, but that's how I feel," Controversially a portrait of Lord Leverhulme was returned headless because the soap millionaire didn't appreciate the likeness. This caused a global scandal with artists and models going on a one day strike in Paris...presumably refusing to starve in their garrets for twenty four hours.
Nothing lasts, though, and in 1927 the group upped sticks and moved across the border to Fordingbridge in Hampshire.
Alderney Manor, alas, is now no more, having been demolished years ago while Augusus crumbled away in 1961.

The Blue Poole near Wareham