Well, here we are in England for one very short day. We had planned the day out by joining another couple in their hire car and travelling to Highclere and Windsor Castles, both for which we had prebooked entry tickets. After travelling to the hire car office and spending a bit of time at the office doing paper work, we finally headed off through the English countryside in our sporty Mercedes to Highclere Castle. The Mecedes had twin sky roofs, 10 gears, which made our drive so smooth and there were buttons on the dash that we never did get to find a use for. It was a pleasant drive from Southhampton to the castle. We passed farming communities, forest areas and small villages and the GPS was spot on, most often time.
Highclere Castle is the home of the 8th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon and the seat of the Carnavon Family for over 300 years. One hundred years ago, Highclere Castle was the home of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. He is the one who, along with his colleague, Howard Carter, discovered the Tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922. Today, a museum has been opened in the Castle Cellars in the basement rooms of the castle. The museum displaying some Egyptian treasures and celebrates the achievements of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon.
Highclere Castle is also famous as the location venue for the filming of the TV series "Downton Abbey". It was going to be interesting to recognise some of the rooms and their furnishings, to locate the kitchen area, the bedrooms used in the film for the main characters, the central staircase where people made grand entrances into the main vestibule and the nearby village which is on the estate.
The current version of the castle was designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1842. The castle is still occupied as a family home for the current Earl and his family so unfortunately we were not allowed to take photographs inside this beautiful castle. Every room was furnished and decorated in rich colours with beautiful furniture and furnishings, paintings, carpets and magnificent chandeliers. For example the library is decorated with dark mahogany gilded bookcases which line the walls and display 5650 books. The Saloon which is in the heart of the Castle, has an impressive 20 metre high vaulted ceiling and a grand sweeping oak staircase which connects it with the many galleried bedrooms above. If you want to see what we enjoyed, visit Highclere's web site for some appreciation of the decore of this magnificent home.
We spent at least an hour wandering through the richly decorated rooms on two of the three floors of the castle. We'd love to have been able to see the 360 degree views from the tower at the top of the castle but it was not an option.
After visiting the castle we walked around the magnificent and extensive gardens including such areas as the Monks' Garden, the Walled Garden, the Secret Garden, the Wood of Goodwill as well as Penelope's Wood and the Wild Flower Meadow.
The flowers beds were in full bloom and we saw some unusual plants, huge bumblebees and lots of butterflies. We also enjoyed looking back at Highclere castle from the circular perimeter meadow-walk and we roamed the extensive lawns around the castle.
The temperatures were unusually warm but a gentle breeze flowed across the hills surrounding the estate and because the Cadtle has been erected on a slight rise we appreciated the fresh air during our extensive walk around it. We looked down over the pasture paddocks which are still worked today and add to the income needed to maintain this treasured historical site. We took advantage of some rustic love-seats to rest and enjoy the beauty and peace of Highclere. We watched the many bees working so busily as we relaxed and noticed how different they are from our breed of bees at home. I guess their honey would have a different flavour as well. Maybe we will get to try some at 'high tea' if we have a chance to attend one sometime today.
The Monk's Garden was probably our favourite as it was so colourful with its' country garden display of flowers - some which We recognised, but others that were a pleasant surprise to us. How creative is our creator. He never fails to reveal his ingunity, humour and creating wonder varieties of plant life and blends of colours that give such pleasure. This garden had a blend do sweet perfumes that spoke of summer delights - we squeezed the different lavender heads between our fingers and enjoyed their relaxing effect on our nasal senses. On every winding pathway through this garden pleasant, pleasing images of the mixed floral displays greeted us and we thought that Monet would have found this garden a great one in which to paint.
Here are some of flowers that we had never seen before in real life - they were ' new' to us.
Dotted across these lawns are the most amazing displays of giant, aged, stately-standing trees which have tremendous umbrella-like fans of branches spreading out from their large limbs and providing cool shade areas under which picnics or afternoon teas are served. It was so peaceful and quiet in the grounds and the only sounds we heard were pigeons cooing and bees buzzing. I lay down on the grass under one of the massive arbour- umbrellas and looked up into the green canopy above and imagined life here during the summers of long ago where carriages of people travelled here for summer parties, long weekends and holidays. I recalled also that this castle became a convalescent hospital for returning soldiers from the horrors of their WW1 experiences. What a blessing this quiet piece of England would have been then!
As we drove out of the Highclere Castle Estate we passed a beautiful area of the grounds that we had ' missed seeing'. It was a marble portico with Greek columns nestling beside one of the small 'man-made-lakes' on the estate. It looked like a peaceful place to sit and ponder and we imagined that many a lady and her attendants would have passed hours here, chatting or dare I suggest swimming on warm afternoons in summers long gone. We also passed a small conservatory on the estate. It had been carefully crafted in stone and it had Roman columns, a lead dome and a circular viewing-platform which would have given wonderfully views over the estate during the day and provided a wide expanse of the heavens during night viewings of the northern stars, the phases of the moon and planets in their ellipses.