Every historic building has a story to tell
Growing up, I spent a good deal of time visiting cemeteries and graveyards, both those established sites with their neat rows of markers and stones, and the wild, neglected and mostly forgotten spots scattered across my family farm. I never found them spooky or macabre – they were just another element of the landscape. (And (read more)
Category: Kentucky
Tags: Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, cemeteries, Memorial Day, Tower of London, World War I
I went back to my first garden a few weeks ago, and over the span of a few hot, sweaty hours, finally said my goodbyes. The exertion of taming a landscape I had shaped and formed and had been absent from for three years kept any emotions at bay until long after the sun set (read more)
I was not a tea drinker until my junior year of college. Through genetics, I’ve been lucky (or cursed?) to be fairly energetic most of the time, so a need for caffeine wasn’t established – and even then, when I first embarked on my tea journey, it wasn’t because I needed a stimulant – I (read more)
Regent’s Park, established around 1811, covers 410 acres in the north central London. It is, by far, my very favorite park in London. Before Henry VIII’s seizure and subsequent dissolution of the monasteries, the land belonged to Barking Abbey (a wonderful name). Alas, the monk’s fertile farmland became a hunting park, later transformed by architect (read more)
Years ago, I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine about hiking Hadrian’s Wall, and while I am not typically a mad hiker, the images and the idea lingered.* Since England can’t seem to shake its heat wave this summer, going north sounded…cool. Refreshing. Hadrian’s Wall promised lilting breezes and a spring-like clime…Also, walking for miles (read more)
Categories: England, English Heritage, Hadrian's Wall
Tags: #hadrianswall, England
My travels about the English countryside have provided an unparalleled opportunity to see entrancing landscapes, incredible architecture, meet wonderful people, and inevitably, to be stranded after missing yet another bus. So it was with some optimistic cheer I planned an easy, relaxing jaunt on a warm Sunday afternoon to the Vyne near Oxford with my (read more)
Categories: Country house, England, National Trust
Tags: Henry VIII, Jane Austen, The Vyne, Tormore School
Much more learned individuals than me have voiced the idiom that one is always learning, and the condition of that journey is the continual discovery of how very little you actually know. And I know next to nothing about medieval houses, which is fairly understandable given that the most historic of our architecture is late (read more)
Category: England
Tags: Architecture, Chalgrove, English villages
The curtailment of my wanderings in England stems mainly from my lack of a car, but also the very real challenges of (dependable) public transportation in rural England. This conclusion springs not just from the occasions where I have found myself wondering if I can walk nine miles along a highway to the nearest population (read more)
Categories: Country house, England, National Trust
Tags: Corfe Castle, Dorset, Kingston Lacey, William Bankes
After resting my eyes upon countless hillsides dotted with grazing sheep in the Lake District, my visit to Wimpole Hall and Farm (a National Trust site) provided a different rural perspective. Wimpole, located about 11 miles from Cambridge, is a commercial lowland farm of 2,500 acres. East England’s rolling hills are much more suited to (read more)
Categories: Country house, England, Farming, National Trust
Tags: barns, Sir John Soane
My first full day in the Lake District was wet. And soggy. Though relieved to have packed my enormous (and bright) parka, I did not have the foresight to pack my camera bag – therefore the combination of startling color and the strange protuberance underneath my parka dispelled any notions I had about fading (read more)
Category: England
Tags: Ambleside, Lake District, Windermere, Wordsworth
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