Going West
Winchester | Lyme Regis | Dartmoor National Park
Winchester | Lyme Regis | Dartmoor National Park
Hinton Ampner Gardens ★★★★★
Lunch (Pasties and Soup) and Cream Tea at Hinton Ampner ★★★★✩
Grocery shopping while jetlagged at Sainsbury's Winchester
Dinner, cheese and crackers at our lodging
Lodging at Vacation Rental Little Corners in Twyford ★★★★✩
The garden at Hinton Ampner
Last year, we had planned to visit Tanzania in July, but health issues barged in and cancelled those plans. This year, we finally felt comfortable to travel abroad again, and we returned to one of our favorite destinations: the United Kingdom. The flight was easy, leaving from Denver around 5:00 pm, which helped reduce jetlag by allowing us to sleep soon after boarding. When we arrived in London, we picked up our rental car and installed our Garmin GPS. We reviewed our pre-printed instructions for making our way from the airport to the M25 (which was easier than anticipated).
During our first day, we drove an hour from London Heathrow Airport to the city of Winchester, stopping at the National Trust's Hinton Ampner gardens for a lovely visit and cream tea. This was our first of several autumn gardens we visited, with apples ripe on the trees, pumpkins decorating the paths, slowly fading flowers and trees just starting to shed their leaves.
Image from booking.com
National Trust City Mill ★★★★★
Winchester Castle Great Hall ★★★★✩
Winchester Westgate Museum ★★★★✩
Winchester Cathedral, with guided tours of cathedral and crypt ★★★★★
Cream Tea at Winchester Cathedral Cafe ★★★★✩
Cornish pasties at Cornish Bakery ★★★✩✩
Dome Alley and Cathedral Close ★✩✩✩✩
Abbey Gardens ★★★✩✩
Breakfast and Dinner at our lodging
Lodging at Vacation Rental Little Corners in Twyford (booking.com) ★★★★✩
Winchester dates back to at least 150 BC. The Romans made it a regional capital when they arrived, calling it Venta Belgarum. When Alfred the Great began the process of unifying England, he made Winchester the capital of Wessex and later England. The beautiful Winchester Cathedral dates from 642, but the current building was begun in 1079 by the Normans. The City Mill has been on the river at least 1,000 years, in one form or another, serving one purpose or another. The most recent use was as a youth hostel, and is today a National Trust museum.
Despite still being a bit jetlagged, we had a great time exploring Winchester. The City Mill is open on a limited schedule, so we were glad it coincided with our visit. If you visit the cathedral, be sure to sign up for the general tour and the crypt tour. They were both fascinating. The Westgate Museum was better than we expected from such a small building, and the Great Hall did not quite live up to our expectations despite its large size. Likewise, the cream tea at the Cathedral Cafe was better than the lunch at the Cornish Bakery. We drove into Winchester, rather than taking the Park and Ride option, and that worked out fine. There are several easy parking lots near the city center.
New Forest National Park, Boulderwood Drive ★★★✩✩
Lunch and Cream Tea at Farmhouse Restaurant and Tea House ★★★★★
Maiden Castle, Iron Age Hillfort ★★★★★+
Breakfast and dinner at our lodging
Lodging at Log Cabin in Devon (AirBnB) ★★★★★ (last minute change due to wasp infestation at previously booked cottage, but this was a great replacement)
The first few pics here are from New Forest National Park, which was created by William the Conqueror in 1079. Overall, we found New Forest to be more crowded than we anticipated, with more visitor regulations. The trees were also not as spectacular as we had hoped. We returned to New Forest one more day, but mostly the woods in Dartmoor were far more powerful. The other pics are from Maiden Castle, an iron age hill fort. My pictures do not do this place justice. It is immense and spectacular! It is a natural hill that has been carved into a forest. Massive ditches and earth walls have been carved all around the hill, in order to both preserve and intimidate. It was built around 600 BC and went into decline around 100 BC. By the time the Romans arrived, it was mostly just farmland. But in it's heyday it was an impregnable fortress, complete with wood timber walls, gates and maze-like entrances. It is over a half mile long, and once housed well over 200 people. In my pictures, you can see the massive earth works along the perimeter, and the ruins of a Roman temple palace at its highest point. Based on our one-day experience, it is also a very popular place for locals to walk their beloved dogs. The Brits love their pooches, and this makes us very happy.
Driving this road was much scarier at night
Charmouth Beach and Museum ★★★★✩
Lunch at Town Mill Bakery ★★★★✩
Fossil Hunting Tour on Lyme Regis Beach ★★★✩✩
Cream Tea at Cornish Bakery ★★★★✩
Grocery shopping at Seaton Tesco
Breakfast and Dinner at our lodging
The world-famous Jurassic Coast sits on the southern coast of England, and at its heart lies Lyme Regis. Lyme Regis is a historic seaside resort with a beautiful harbor. More importantly, the sea cliffs there are continually eroding, revealing marine fossils from the Triassic (starting 252 million years ago), Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. We joined a fossil walk, hoping to collect some perfect ammonite fossils. Sadly, we found two very weathered ones and a few fossil bits. Still, it was a lovely day on the beach. Jane Austin loved Lyme Regis, and set part of her last novel here.
We started our Lyme Regis in an unexpected cabin. Our previously reserved vacation rental came down with a wasp infection, so we needed a last-minute change. Fortunately, we found a lovely log cabin on AirBnB that fit our needs perfectly. As usual on this trip, the road to and from the lodging was one lane, and edged with tall sharp hedges. But we managed just fine.
We had pre-booked a fossil hunting walk from the Lyme Regis museum. The museum itself, by the way, was quite informative and well-curated. The walk was fine, but the beach had been well picked over for fossil finds. It's better to look for fossils shortly after a storm, and there had not been such in Lyme Regis for a few weeks. Still, the beaches were lovely, and the fossils shown in these pictures are huge, and embedded in stones far to large to put in our luggage. Between the two of us, we managed three tiny fossil fragments to bring home.
We caught up on our grocery shopping in Seaton, which turned out to be an excellent store with a wide variety of tasty of pre-prepared meals.
Killerton House, Garden and Grounds ★★★★★
Lunch and Cream Tea at Killerton House ★★★★★
Spinster's Rock ★★★★★
Breakfast and dinner at our lodging
Lodging at Shilistone Lodge vacation rental (booking.com) ★★★★★+
Killerton is 19th century country house that was once part of a massive estate, deriving back to Norman the Conquerer. It's last owner was a successful politician who became too liberal for the Labor Party. Accused of hypocrisy for advocating less private ownership while he owned a good chunk of Devon, he decided to donate it all (or most) to the National Trust. His children were not pleased. We had a great day visiting the house, the gardens and the woodlands.
The drive to our Dartmoor lodging was uneventful. When we arrived, we popped across the road to visit Spinster's Rock, which is a 5000 year old Dolmen (burial tomb). Originally, this stone chamber would have been covered by earth and become a mound. Today, all that remains are the stone walls. It is quite a beautiful site.