Richard Mascall's Weblog

Shields Up : Tasty Drink Approaching

At the Brewery Museum we visited on Saturday, there is a micro-brewery producing White Shield Worthington, the beer I used to drink at my local back in the late 60s, the Tudor Rose in Old Coulsdon, as I described here.

We brought a case home from the museum and now I have sampled some : delicious !

Ashbourne Holiday - Day 8

Summary :

Travel home via Brewery Museum

Detail :

Most of the time today was taken in packing, driving home, and unpacking. But we fitted in a memorable and timely visit to the only general museum of beer brewing in the country, in Burton-On-Trent.

It was memorable because of the size of the site and the richness of its contents, covering both the history of brewing in Burton and also a more general exhibition of the beer brewing process.

It was timely because, amazingly given how ale is such a traditionally fundamental component of English culture (where else in the world can you buy ale easily, other perhaps than in some places where the English have migrated to ?), this sole museum is about to close ! It used to be the Bass Museum but a few years ago the American company Coors took Bass over and they now say the museum is too expensive to run.

What a loss.

Ashbourne Holiday - Day 7

Summary :

Walk on Tissington Trail

Brownend Quarry

Detail :

We went to Tissington for our walk today, walk 7 in the Jarrold book. Not for the first time this week, we found ourselves on the route of a disused railwayline, now being used as the Tissington Trail. During this initial stretch, we had a go at finding a geocache, our only attempt of the holiday which was a bit of a shame since it ended in failure. There was compensation in the fine views of the White Peak countryside.

We left the Trail to ascent gently across fields, some with cows in, some with medieval "ridge and furrows". On finishing the walk, we ate our lunch on a picnic table on the site of the former station.

We walked to a candle shop in village where we bought a little jar of Vanilla Musk. Having supported the local economy (a remonstrably rare occurrence this week), we spoilt it all by calling in at a Halfords and a Homebase.

Next we drove to Waterhouses where we eventually found where the river disappears into sinkholes. First, though, we walked round Brownend Quarry, with interpretative boards describing the history of limestone.

Ashbourne Holiday - Day 6

Summary :

Chatsworth

Detail :

Today was my most eagerly-anticipated day of the holiday and it did not disappoint : our visit to Chatsworth. We had certainly been before, back in 1986, but one could probably visit once a year and still appreciate the wide variety of interesting sights without a hint of boredom.

En route there, I enjoyed a bit of self-indulgence when we stopped at the hamlet of Sheldon. Why did we stop ? Well, it reminded me of the main character on my favourite TV series of the moment, The Big Bang Theory. (See here for a previous reference.)

At Chatsworth, we walked round the garden first, seeing some exotic chickens, a smart modern-looking (though actually 1970) greenhouse, a 120m long cascade, a secluded secret pond with big bright yellow and white azaleas, a disappointing grotto, an Allen Jones sculpture in the process of installation, and half-hidden in the undergrowth, a trough cascade. We ate our picnic lunch on a seat by a pond with a 4 metre high statue of a hare.

We quickly found the centre of the maze, then read about Joseph Paxton on the site of his Great Conservatory, sadly demolished after WW I when upkeep costs became too great. It made me wonder how big his Crystal Palace was. We failed to see the Coal Tunnel because it said it was closed although supposed to be open from 13:00. We had a close up of the Emperor Fountain, shooting water up to "only" 30 metres. On special occasions it can do 60 metres and, in theory, it can do 90 metres. 3 hectare lake on hills above providing the power, 125 metres above. It was built for Czar Nicholas 1st who, sadly, never got to see it.

Next we did a tour of the house, which took from 14:15 until 16:45. The rooms were very large and were luxuriously decorated and furnished. The paintings had been cleaned which made a dramatic difference. There were lots of modern works of art with explanations of why the Duke had bought them. We saw a large chunk of quartz found during the digging of the Simplon Tunnel and also a Lucien Freud picture of a horse. There was a grotto under some stairs with a Caro as decoration. The Oak Room was rather different.

All in all, it was a fascinating place.

Ashbourne Holiday - Day 5

Summary :

Millers Dale walk

Visit to Buxton

Detail :

Today's walk, walk 10 in the Jarrold book, started in Miller's Dale and continued along a stretch of the Limestone Way. It then entered the National Nature Reserve of Monk's Dale, an almost fantasy world of moss-covered boulders beneath a low canopy of lichen-coated branches snaking through a wood along a stream bed. We could have been in a scene from Lord of the Rings (although not Mount Doom, obviously).

Eventually climbing out of the wood onto a gassy hillside, we were amazed by the profusion of Early Purple Orchids, almost weedlike in their numbers. We then dropped back down to the stream, crossing a footbridge and up a slope to the road, returning to Miller's Dale Station.

Next we drove to Buxton, where we had had a week's holiday back in 1976. There is a lot of regeneration work going on and I particularly appreciated the renovated Victorian bandstand.

Ashbourne Holiday - Day 4

Summary :

Walk at Dovedale

Visit to Heights of Abraham

Detail :

We skipped the Jarrolds book today, instead walking up Dovedale and back. The walk was quite pleasant being quite close to fast-running shallow stream. There was nothing particularly spectacular although some of the rocks were quite impressive.

Next we drove to Matlock Bath, negotiating a surprisingly deep ford en route. This was to go up to the Heights of Abraham on a cable car. We then went straight into the Coffee Shop which was surprisingly smart with a good selection of food and pleasant service.

Next to Cave 1, where we did a 30 minute guided tour, having looked at small exhibition first. On emerging onto a hillside with good view of Riber Castle on other side of valley, we walked down to a second cave where we did another 30 minute guided tour. The man rushed his spiel but there was a good pre-recorded bit at end. We were too far down to climb back up to cable car so we continued walking down to road where some of the party (not me) ate an ice-cream.

Ashbourne Holiday - Day 3

Summary :

Youlgrave Walk

Visit to Haddon Hall

Detail :

Today we did Walk 12 from the Jarrolds book, which took us from the village of Youlgreave (or Youlgrave) down to the River Bradford, then up along the River Lathkill to Over Haddon. We climbed up through a wood and then the rest of walk was completely different, crossing open fields on the limestone plateau with cattle grazing.

Following this we drove to Haddon Hall. This was not just old but actually looked old inside compared with other stately homes with lots of oak, both pillars and panels. The Kitchen, Great Hall, and above all, the Long Gallery were particularly impressive.

Ashbourne Holiday - Day 2

Summary :

Walk at Wetton via Thor's Cave

Visit to Ilam Park

Detail :

The walks we are doing this week come from the Peak District volume of the Jarrolds Short Walks series. It contains 20 walks of varying distances and today we did Walk 13 "Thor's Cave and Beeston Tor".

We saw the cave, which was much bigger than expected, the line of the former Leek and Manifold Railway line, now a cycleway, and the route of the River Manifold. It's "route" because outside of particularly wet spells, the river disappears down sinkholes.

It reappears via boilholes, which we found when we went for tea at the National Trust site of Ilam Park. The other unusual sight was of ducklings jumping almost out of the water to catch flies.

Ashbourne Holiday - Day 1

Summary : Travel from home to holiday cottage

Detail :

Pam and I travelled up to Derbyshire today for a week long holiday staying in a cottage just outside Ashbourne, on the southern tip of the Peak District.

The cottage was not the most luxurious we have stayed in, but it was warm.

 

 

On the way up we found this rocket in a motorway service station car park.

 

Decoding The Past, at Bletchley

Yesterday the two us went on a Cambridge Alumni Day to Bletchley Park. Many years ago I read Andrew Hodges' book on Alan Turing, The Enigma of Intelligence, subsequently made into a TV programme called Breaking The Code. Andrew, who is actually an Oxford mathematician but let that pass, was one of the speakers.

The place itself seems remarkably unchanged since the days of WW II and you can almost imagine some of the team playing rounders on the green in front of the mansion. We were given tours of various of the huts, where we saw working reconstructions of a bombe and of Colossus, both of which were designed, developed, and used at Bletchley.

They had the top men involved giving us talks and their enthusiasm for their subjects was impressive indeed. We actually saw both machines in action, the Colossus using at least some valves dating back to the time of the original (We always think of valves as being short-lived, but apparently it is the powering up and down which damages them. Keep them on all the time and they last for ever.)

The had a little Museum of Computing there too and I found an 029 card punch, something I remember using when I started at IBM back in 1971.

Enjoyable Education at Bedgebury

Pam and I had a bit of a treat today when our friend Malcolm, who works at Bedgebury Pinetum near Tunbridge Wells, showed us round this most attractive piece of Forestry Commission property. After a delicious lunch cooked by Mandy, the four of us set off on a three hour tour packed with interesting facts and unexpected sights.

Back in the seventies, the Forestry Commission were the Bad Boys, planting monocultures of conifers with their absence of either visual appeal or ecological value. But times have changed, and now Bedgebury has a diversity of plants including some spectacularly coloured flowers.

Malcolm showed us how to tell the leaves of a Giant Sequoia from those of a Coastal Redwood (the former are soft and fingery, as you can see if you zoom in on the photo above, while the latter are more yew like). He also revealed the secret of a Yellow Birch : break one of its twigs and you can smell ointment (Wintergreen, apparently), as I am doing in the photo below. We discovered just how sharp the leaves on a monkey-puzzle tree are and we saw giant fish in one of the many ponds, various ducks on the lake by the visitor centre, and beautiful flowers everywhere.

A visit can be definitely recommended, even without such an expert guide.

The Origins of Light ... In A Churchyard

As an enthusiastic atheist and member of the BHA, my visits to churches are restricted to secular occasions only. This bank holiday weekend my local church held a bit of a festival which Pam and I were keen to have a look at. Unfortunately the only time we had free was this morning, when the events being held were a walk that we had insufficient time for, and a talk which was on a religious topic.

So instead we wandered round the churchyard and found the grave of Joseph Swan, the inventor of the light-bulb.

Back On Parish Council

As mentioned in my entry of April 3rd, all the seats on Warlingham Parish Council were up for election. I stood again and am pleased to say I managed to win enough votes to get back on. The photo is of me after the count this morning.

April 2008 TV Report

See here for March's report.

Total Hours Watched : 26.5

Programmes watched :

Films :-

Terms of Endearment
Moonraker
Godfather 2

Documentaries :-

Natural World (Scottish Wilderness)
The Harp
Story of The Who

Comedy :-

The Big Bang Theory (several)
MASH (Series 3, "Payday")

Other :

Sky At Night (Sun)
"Smile" performance
History of Robin Hood (Jonathan Ross, dreadful)
Gadget Show