Thursday – May 3, 2012

In browsing through the National Trust guide book I came across a property called Scotney Castle.  It was a lovely looking picture with a round turret on a moat.  It caught my eye since I like the old castles that were built as true defensive structures, not the ones that were built as fancy houses to look like old castles.

Scotney is a compromise.  Yes, there is an old defensive castle built to protect against the French in the 100 Years War, but that castle had fallen into ruin in the 1400s.  In the 1830s a modern home (of that vintage) was built and the old castle became a feature in the garden.

We started out on a gray but not rainy morning to drive the two hours to Scotney.  Maxine did a great job of navigating until I took a wrong turn as we were getting quite close.  This led us down tiny lanes and was great fun and allowed us to remember our days out when we would travel down lanes that were barely wide enough for a small car, bordered by high hedges on both sides so you couldn’t see beyond the next wiggle in the road and then, of course, you would come head to head with a large truck.  One had to back to the nearest wide space and somehow allow the two vehicles to pass.

We managed to find our way back on to a main road.  In England you are never lost, just occasionally misplaced.  By this time it was approaching lunch and there were serious requests to find a toilet, so we turned in to the next village, hoping to find something.  What a great find.  The village of Mayfield was billed as an “historic village” and deserved the title.  We stopped at the Middle House, which is right in the middle of the village.  It is a hotel, restaurant and pub all in one, and yes, it had a toilet!

The building was probably 16th century and had been a coaching inn, so it was probably the middle of some longer journey.  Inside was a low ceilinged, half timbered pub with a very extensive menu. The food was all excellent.

After lunch, it was a very short ride to Scotney Castle.  It was built in 1837 in the most modern style while still attempting to look a bit like a castle.  The owner hired an architect to design the house, and then to also design all the furniture to go in it.  In those days you didn’t go to the furniture store, you had it all custom made to fit your house. 

After touring the  house we went into the gardens where the original Scotney Castle, at least the ruins, were located.  By the 1800s neither the 11th century castle nor the 14th century house that had been built over it were worth saving so the stones were used in the construction of the new house and the remains were taken down to the point where they formed a romantic center point for the new gardens.

After the castle, we took Sue on a cultural adventure to a place where she had never been before.  It is a place that is sacred to many Americans and is perhaps indicative of the American life style.  It has been migrated to the UK, modified slightly to meet local requirements but still retains it uniquely American feel.  I speak, of course, of a Costco.  Sue was quite amazed at the size of the building, the range of products and the size of the packaging.  We found that the multi-packs were about half the size of the ones here in California, 8 bars of soap rather than 16 and much smaller packs than the 36 rolls of toilet tissue we find here.

By the time we were back to Emsworth, we found we had visited all five counties in south-east England.  We had been to Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Surrey and Greater London.