‘The most rebellious town in Devon’. That’s the defiant legend of Colyton in East Devon. One of the first Saxon settlements in the county, the town’s street patterns reflect that period but sadly we’d little time today for further exploration as our friends, with whom we were staying in nearby Lyme Regis,  were taking us for a ride. Literally. But first, a bit more about that proud boast…

Charles Stuart was already father to a two year old boy when he turned up at Boscobel on the run after his army’s defeat at Worcester in 1651, the incident I wrote about in the last but one country diary. That child, James, that the teenage prince had by his first known mistress Lucy Palmer, would be the eldest of fourteen illegitimate children the ‘Merry Monarch’ would father in his lifetime. Following Charles II’s restoration to the throne, the thirteen year old was given the title of Duke of Monmouth. Later that same year, 1662, he was married to Anne Scott, 4th Countess of Buccleuch, taking her last name and additional title of Duke of Buccleuch. He then had a successful military career, winning key battles and becoming the poster boy for protestant populism. (Interestingly his Buccleuch descendants are one of the richest aristocratic landowning families in Britain today).

Touted as Charles II’s protestant successor, Monmouth attempted on Charles’ death in 1685 to wrest the throne from his catholic uncle James, duke of York. Landing at Lyme, Monmouth issued a declaration accusing James II of poisoning his father, usurping the throne and ruling against the law. The West Country, with its strong protestant sympathies caused many to flock to his colours. Colyton excelled itself in contributing 105 men to the righteous cause, more than any other town in the region, hence the soubriquet.

The Monmouth rebellion came to a tragic end when James II’s professional army ruthlessly crushed the largely untrained yeomen insurgents at Sedgemoor on the Somerset levels – the last full scale battle fought on English soil. Monmouth fled the bloody scene, but unlike his father before him, failed to secure help in escaping to safety abroad. Apprehended by pursuers in the New Forest just days later, Uncle James showed no clemency and Monmouth was publicly executed for treason in London. (An awful botched job, taking five attempts by the executioner to part head from body)

The ‘bloody assizes’ held in towns across the western counties in the wake of the failed uprising was presided over by the infamously sadistic Judge Jeffries. He sentenced hundreds of wounded and captured rebels to be hanged and hundreds more to be transported for life to the plantations of the West Indies, and many unfortunate Colyton men were amongst those so punished. Three years later the ‘Glorious Revolution’ led to Protestantism’s new aristocratic champion William of Orange overthrowing his father-in-law James II, who subsequently fled into permanent continental exile.

Nearly 330 years later we are amongst the thousands of visitors who associate this area less with tragic rebellion and more with fun rail trips on heritage trams. The Seaton tramway runs along narrow gauge lines for over three miles through the lower Axe river valley, from Colyton to the seaside resort of Seaton on the UNESCO designated Jurassic Coast.  On the way the track crosses a busy road and passes two nature reserves, home to many species of wading birds.

The colourful, immaculately preserved collection of heritage trams was started in 1949 by engineering entrepreneur Claude Lane. Previously run as seaside attractions in North Wales and Eastbourne the trams found a permanent home here on the former rail branch line. Closed under the Beeching cuts in 1967 it reopened as a tramway in 1970, and has gone from strength to strength ever since.

I was impressed by the purpose built modern terminus at Seaton as well as the modernised 1868 original railway station outside Colyton, at the other end, where we enjoyed lunch on the platform. The joy of this sunny afternoon outing was the fab half hour ride on the top deck down to Seaton. Wonderful all round uninterrupted views you only get seated on the open deck, with the return leg a sheltered more sedate experience on the lower deck.

Viewing trams approach on the other line, watching the freshwater river merge into its tidal estuary on one side and taking in the marshland nature reserve with its hides, wooden walkways, reedbed marshes and shallow lagoons on the other. Another West Country attraction experienced. Long may it continue to bring smiles to the faces of all who travel on these beautiful engines, young or old.

Footnote: The Monmouth Rebellion had been my chosen subject back in 1990 when I was recovering from industrial injuries sustained on a theatre tour and decided to fill in the time by applying to compete in the next season of ‘Mastermind’ on TV. The BBC production team said there wasn’t enough information on this topic for their QMs to set questions so I was reluctantly persuaded to drop it. They used the same argument about my subsequent choice of ‘Dartmoor and its Environs’ but I stood my ground and they gave way…A successful rebellion, as I went on to win that round of the competition.

High on a wooded Cotswold escarpment, commanding extensive views southwards across Gloucestershire to the Bristol Channel, sits a former Tudor hunting lodge transformed into a Georgian country house, complete with 750 acres of gardens and parkland. Another fine rural rest point on our journey south, this time courtesy of the National Trust.

Newark (‘New Work’) was originally built by Sir Nicolas Poynz. Important enough to be painted by Hans Holbein, he was one of those hardnosed courtiers who benefitted hugely from the reformation wrought by their all powerful patron Henry VIII. A novel building, designed to show off his newly acquired wealth and hunting domain, this original section was built with dressed stones from Kingswood monastery, an asset stripping process overseen by Poyntz as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire.

Over two centuries later, in the 1790’s, the Clutterbuck family added their bit of new work, a cleverly designed harmonious extension, complete with false windows to retain symmetry. They also landscaped the gardens and approach road in the fashionable romantic style of the day. Of exiled protestant Huguenot stock the Clutterbucks also added the huge mullioned window that floods the main staircase with light, emphasising elegant heraldic decoration in the process.

We had tea on the garden terrace, taking in the vista of rolling pastoral greenery, soaking up the sunshine while it lasted.  Amusing to see and hear the resident peacocks wafting at will about the place, to everyone’s delight. Heading indoors we enjoyed an unhurried wander through the intriguing layers of Newark’s architectural evolution. It also reveals a comfortable modern domesticity, with eclectic art and ceramic collections filling the downstairs living rooms.

This element is the legacy of Texas architect Bob Parsons, who had served as a soldier in Europe during WW2. He fell in love with what had become a dilapidated unloved place inherited by the Trust in 1949 and in return for a peppercorn rent, he and his male partner cleverly restored the building to life during the last 30 years of the last century. As is so often the case in conservation matters our country owes a debt to enlightened foreigners who love and care for our neglected heritage more often than we sometimes do.

A leisurely amble down through the woodland garden and paths, viewing the imposing house on the ridge from a different angle, rounded off our visit.

A 20’ drive from the M5, Newark is clearly ‘a happy place’, well worth discovering for its restful elegant features, indoors and out.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/gloucestershire-cotswolds/newark-park

‘….only one way to pass the next day….to get up into a greate oak in a pretty plain place, where we might see round us…(it) had been lop’t (pollarded) some 3 or 4 years before and being growne out again very bushy and thick, could not be seen through.’ Charles II, describing how he hid in an oak tree at Boscobel in 1651

It’s a long, long drive from the north east corner of England to the far south-west. Breaking up the many miles with rests and stopovers makes a big difference to the experience. Doing the research I thought Boscobel House, a short drive west off the A5 from its junction with the M6 near Wolverhampton, might be a good place to meet the first of those requirements on day one of our recent travel south.

On September 3rd 1651 Charles Stuart fled the bloody scene of his army’s disastrous defeat by Cromwell’s Ironsides at the battle of Worcester. The demoralised prince and a handful of associates, now with a huge price on their heads, found refuge at this isolated hunting lodge in the early stages of their escape. Built in the previous century, in the midst of managed woodlands, its name means ‘beautiful wood.’ The property of recusant local landowners, the Gifford family, Boscobel had form as a ‘safe house’, used previously to hide the banned itinerate catholic priests who ministered to them. Their loyal tenants, the Penderels, took in the royal fugitive at great personal risk to themselves. They sheltered, fed and re-clothed the party, who continued their way disguised as servants and labourers, to be aided and guided by other royalist sympathisers, eventually taking ship at Shoreham into exile at the French royal court.

The dramatic story of Charles’ adventures was retold by the then King in 1680 to Samuel Pepys, augmenting earlier eyewitness accounts. The saga’s most famous episode had taken place at Boscobel when the fugitive monarch hid in an oak tree in the grounds while parliamentary troopers scoured the land below and house beyond. So popular was the tale that 29^th May (Charles II’s 30th birthday and date of his restoration) became a national public holiday from 1660 to 1859. Public houses were named or renamed ‘The Royal Oak’ while at Boscobel itself sightseers came in their droves, taking away branches and twigs as souvenirs. An encasing brick wall was built to protect the tree from further diminution but that only seems to have hastened its demise by damaging the roots. 

An acorn from the original took root in the early C18th alongside and that’s the tree you view today behind its railings. A lightening strike in 2000 destroyed one half of the canopy and straps now bound the trunk to stop it splitting. To mark the 350^th anniversary of Charles’ stay, his namesake, the then Prince now King Charles III planted another successor oak nearby, which appears to be thriving. What impressed us most though, as we strolled through the rippling meadow, was that part of the ‘beautiful wood’, later cleared for agriculture, has been replanted in our century with native trees, including those propagated from the famous oak.  It also reminded me of what happened closer to home last year at Sycamore Gap and how that singular tragic act of vandalism created a greater awareness and debate about the importance of native trees in the landscape that will – hopefully – result in new woodlands being planted in the right places as investment in natural capital to benefit us all, wherever we live. 

We were fascinated as much by Boscobel’s complex structure as a building, as by its part in history. Arriving upstairs to view the priest hole under floorboards where the prince spent an uncomfortable night and the attic room where he scanned the countryside for pursuers conveyed a strong sense of living history.  It’s a small miracle Boscobel House and farm has survived relatively intact for the public to enjoy today and that is partly due to the Evans family, wealthy Midlands industrialists, who bought the place in 1812 and in the romantic spirit of the age set about restoring the place to what they perceived it to be in the 17^th century.

The Victorian farmyard we really took to. A prosperous working farm up until 1967, its planned set of interlinked stables and barns invite the visitor to explore a fabric of worked surfaces softly lit by diffused sunlight the quiet midweek day we visited. The oldest part of the site, the late Tudor north range (below), remodelled as a dairy in Victorian times, boasts an impressive hall roof structure.

Now in the care of English Heritage, Boscobel had a major upgrade between 2019 – 20. With a reception area and café in converted outbuildings together with regional heritage breeds – Tamworth pigs, Shropshire and Ryeland sheep, Sebright and Dorking chickens – all add to the place’s agrarian attractiveness.

The famous historic episode set against the vernacular architecture of venerable timber frame house, farmyard brick buildings and restored gardens make for an enjoyable immersive experience. A restful welcome break on our own modest more comfortable royal progress across the country.

Plan your own visit by visiting: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/boscobel-house-and-the-royal-oak/

Following on from my last blog about hedgehog hibernating in the shelter I went down to the bottom of the garden at dusk to check for occupant activity. I was regaled with a fearsome snorting and eventually found the source in the undergrowth, a male hog foraging outside the shelter I’d set up a few years back.  If the source of the grunting wasn’t known I’d have felt fear in my bones as it had a positively ghost like disembodied quality. On the way back to the house, going round a corner into spilt light from a window, the form of another hedgehog came into view. Wow! two sightings in one night. This one appears slightly smaller than the first. A female, I wondered? Is there a possible mating scenario in progress? Who knows, am just happy to have helped provide a home for these endearing and endangered species.

They’re back. The first swallows have arrived, or rather we made our first positive identification, on Tuesday 23^rd.  That’s earlier by a week than last year. There has been aerial aggro since as rival pairs clash in the course of scoping the best nesting sites under our roofed deck. Earlier this year we took down the last nest built for a late brood outside the main house entrance on the yard side. The parents took flight every time anyone entered or left with a noisy flurry of cheeps. Their mud and grasses stick on structures are things of beauty. We want the adult birds to set up their summer homes instead in the usual sites they normally favour, time honoured spots under the deck eaves or high in the old railway goods carriage that serves as our garden hut.

Discovering old nests in the garden long after being abandoned is always a delight. The James Grieve apple espalier has become such a spreader over the south wall of the house that its summer foliage effectively disguised the presence for the first time of a blackbird’s nest, its rough weave now gradually unravelling.

In a nearby apple tree, whose branches hang over the roadside, a pair of garden birds (possibly goldfinches) had fabricated a delicate looking but stubbornly resilient nest of grasses and moss secured with spiders webs in the branch fork.

This season a male wren has taken possession of an open sided box under the eaves of the garage/workshop, stuffing it chock full of moss. The cock bird will make a number of nests in various locations and his jenny will make her choice of the most suitable in which to lay her clutch of eggs. Haven’t spotted any other would be homes yet so hope this might be the des res decided on so we can watch their progress from a distance.

Footnote. For someone not over endowed with higher level technical skills I am rendered content by slowly getting simple rustic constructions in place outdoors. Selecting and lashing together coppiced branches for the beans and peas gives a small satisfying feeling at the end of an afternoon’s work in the garden.

Two recent roadside artistic interventions between home and village caused some reflection. One – a pair of lost child’s woollen gloves displayed hands up at twigs end – has wit and style. The other hasn’t. Clearly a tall person altered the road sign lettering, or carried a stepladder in their vehicle to do so.

I take stock of activity down on the ponds most days. Delighted to see the water skaters are back. They like to park up on the oval leaves of the water hawthorn, like taxicabs in the rank, waiting to skate away at a moment’s notice across the viscous surface in search of sustenance. Of three pairs of legs each insect has, the middle ones are for rowing while rear and front pairs do the steering. Thick pads of hair repel water, preventing it from sinking while the tips of the steering legs detect tiny vibrations emitted by its even smaller insect prey.

The meadow next to home is slowly filling up with this year’s lambs and unsurprisingly they look a lot happier and healthier as the weather finally perks up. The ewes have been shielding their vulnerable offspring from the deprivations of cold wind and incessant rain. Last week the lambs with their thin fleeces shivering and subdued were seeking shelter with their anxious dams against our garden wall. Our farming neighbours despair at the knock on effects of this wettest of springs.

One long section of our field wall we had rebuilt three years ago. (See ‘A Wall Between Us’ December 2021). That upkeep of that long stretch of meandering stonework is our responsibility, not the farming neighbour’s, so needs keeping a watchful eye on. I’ve plugged gaps in sections by retrieving fallen or buried stones. Here’s a sandstone slab covered in grass and moss dug up and slotted in between the original capstones, well encrusted with colonising lichen.

Spring is synonymous with blossom of course and I have a special affection for the dense exuberance of mazzard (cherry) blossom that sets its heartlands in the north Devon countryside ablaze. Here at home I admire the delicate display our eight years old damson gives out. A robust small tree, it grows surprisingly well considering the exposed location. This variety, Shropshire prune, reminds me of the many damsons that will now be blooming en masse in the Lyth valley, south Lakeland.

If I were a flying insect in our garden though – like this red tailed bumblebee – my blossom favourite would have to be the Skimmia under the kitchen window. This bush’s powerfully enticing aroma gets a host of bees and flies of all types topped up on nectar.

Impressed that the apple mint, planted in error free of its containing pot years back is now escaping garden confinement through fencing into the field beyond. Our neighbours’ Texel tups spend the summer grazing here so they will surely sample it. Mutton and mint. The perfect combo.

The inclement weather has delayed first cutting of garden grass this year. April 16^th proved dry, calm and sunny enough to risk firing up the mower to do the first trim.

Looking like dead slugs, the half dozen or so black faeces spied on the lower grass area tells me the hedgehog –in- residence is no longer hibernating but is up and about again in the evenings.

 The satisfaction of doing the first mow is to frame the garden’s features – beds, orchard, meadow, ponds, copses, paths et al. The smaller birds, like dunnock and robin seem to appreciate that a slightly shorter sward is easier to quarter in search of worms and insects. The garden now looks refreshed and whole. With more sunshine bathing it in golden light at day’s end our patch presents as near perfect a scene as one could wish for at this turning point in the year.

A linear ramble on Sunday along a nearby burn was long overdue. Starting with a mooch around a distinctive abandoned farmhouse and outbuildings, more ruinous as each year passes, teetering on the cliff edge above the burn below.

Descended to cross the river via a wooden footbridge, the land opened up again, and we’re at the melancholy ruined cottage overlooking a deep pool. In summer the bracken here is waist high but now the path is bare and muddy. The cottage garden has stands of gleaming hazel, once coppiced but no longer. A magnificent holly tree stands guard over the ruins.

Inside the shell of the roofless building sycamores and a handful of tall pines also grow unhindered. Kielder forest is estimated to be home to half of England’s endangered red squirrel population and we saw evidence of their dining on a fallen stone, re-used as their dining table. The pinecones they feast upon easily sourced from the trees above.

We ascended the fell side, following a thin path, little more than a sheep trod, through swathes of bleached grasses, over boggy patches where rivulets drain to the burn below. We paused at a large rectangular stell, or sheep pen. Seemingly no longer used, its dry stone walls still in good order, strands of barbed wire across the entrance.

Later we admired a fine stand of oaks bordered on the far side by river gorge and on ours by a dry stone wall, mossed over and tumbled down. The grove must have been planted at least a century or so ago, securing it from disturbance. 

A trio of exuberant metal strap structures we encountered were fascinating. Can’t make up my mind whether they were improvised ring feeders, where hay is dropped for stock, or an elaborate protection for growing saplings to save them being grazed by deer, sheep or cattle.

When our path joined the Pennine Way, we followed the broader track back down into the sandstone gorge to cross the fierce flowing peaty waters once again. The valley’s steep sides retain great value as vertical nature reserves, sustaining mature trees and shrubs, refuges for wildlife from bad weather and sheep grazing.

Here in the valley bottom three years ago we talked with the farmer and his brother-in-law who were planting and staking rowan, oak and hazel as part of their higher stewardship commitment. Those trees are now well established and growing on well. Very satisfying to see the woodland extended and welcomed back into the valley like this. All credit to them for the work. This time around we met and chatted with a lone walker of similar vintage to ourselves, coming up at pace behind as we slowly climbed the bank. Turned out he had motor biked it over from home near Chorley in Lancashire that morning, parked up at Housesteads fort on the Roman Wall and was doing a ten mile circular walk before heading home again.

Anyone who has walked or run the trail at this point knows about the ‘pitstop’ at the farm here that overlooks the gorge (site of a listed 16^th century bastle or fortified house). This extraordinary help yourself  ‘service station’ in the barn is open 24 hours.

A godsend for many a weary long distance wayfarer. I’ve also written about it in an earlier diary; ‘Pitstop’ January 19^th 2023.

Today over the vista of rough grazing the pair of resident curlew were rising and falling, filling the air with their delicious bubbling calls. On the ground we enjoy another foraging visit by a hare, seeking tastier morsels in our garden than what’s available to it in the surrounding open farmland. With no dogs or cats about they keep closer company than usual as we are not perceived as a threat. The odd nibbling of daffodil and camassia foliage in the meadowland is overlooked for the pleasure of their company.

Another four legged wild visitor that grabbed the attention recently was a stoat. Its appearance, systematically quartering the boundary between garden and field, was mesmerising. Mustela erminea is differentiated from its weasel cousin in being larger, with a bounding gait and longer tail completed by a distinctive black tip. Though a fierce predator, tackling prey up to five times its size, the stoat in turn is predated by foxes and raptors. The creature’s handsome chestnut and cream body vanished for a few seconds in amongst the willow boughs that frame the ponds. I’d set them up there as over winter shelter for mice and amphibians and it was one of those creatures the stoat emerged with in its mouth – too small for me to identify at a distance, even with binoculars. It then bounded off at pace toward the crags, another rodent retreat in our field, the site of an abandoned stone quarry.  

Two sets of grandchildren along with their parents were with us over Easter and the kids all love the pond. An excited dipping session netted a fine collection of male and female palmate newts along with sightings of mature frogs under marginal stones. Meanwhile Holly, the family’s young sprocker spaniel (cocker/springer mix) couldn’t stop herself from diving in and out of the wildlife ponds at every opportunity. The marsh marigold, newly flowering, was partly flattened but has quickly recovered since.

Moving pots and tubs at this time of year inevitably risks exposes hibernating residents. Best accidental discovery was an adolescent newt, appearing more dead than alive. Not the dark colour of those active creatures the children observed in the pond but instead this newt was a deep pink/red colour and the skin not smooth but bumpy. I quickly popped the inert form under another ceramic, returning an hour later to get a photograph only to discover it gone – so clearly not so torpid after all! The image above is the nearest I can find to represent its appearance.

Solitary bees are also emerging, weak and seeking nourishment, and one such staggering buff tail bumblebee I provided with a dash of sugar water to help it power up. But it managed without my help and later disappeared so I hope it survived in the cool damp weather we’ve been subjected to in recent weeks.

Tentatively raised the former compost bin top to check if the other known hibernating creature in our garden thinks it’s Spring yet. but no, the hedgehog is still tucked up inside its duvet of moss, leaves and accumulated vegetation. This improvised low shelter I placed in the copse near the water a few years ago but this is the first time it’s been occupied by a an overwintering hog, which is wonderful.

Back at the pond, after the families left, I noticed some shiny brown spots on a dead leaf by the margin. Closer inspection revealed these fleshy blobs to be both animate and elastic…Leeches. Segmented parasitic worms, with suckers either end. These fascinating tiny creatures are hermaphrodites and move by means of peristalsis; self-propulsion by alternately contracting and lengthening parts of their bodies, like earthworms do. Once common when used extensively in medical practice for bloodletting and controlling toxins there are 17 species to be found in UK freshwaters. Despite being an officially protected species since 1981 numbers have dropped drastically. Delighted to have them in residence here, part of the ponds healthy ecosystem, despite their otherwise unsettling reputation.

Once or twice a year we head south on the train into the maw of the metropolis. London of course is entrancing and aggravating, enlivening and brutal by turn. We’re fortunate in being able to stay with family, one household in Forest Hill, the other ‘tween Kew and Richmond. Both are leafy inner suburban enclaves with environmental and historic attractions of their own.

The nearest we got to being back home in the country on this visit was in the heart of Dulwich village, the morning that Bell House opened its many roomed interior and two acres of garden to the general public. https://www.bellhouse.co.uk/

The mansion was built in 1767 by wealthy printer and publisher Thomas Wright, a former High Sheriff and Lord Mayor of London, as his country retreat. We got to ring the eponymous bell on our tour of the house, led by a volunteer guide. Community minded Mr Wright installed it to give warning on the outbreak of fires, when the fire fighters whose activities he subsidised would turn out to tackle any blaze.

We also got access to the cellar rooms and saw the original household water pump. The spring below that it is a source of the little river Effra, a tributary of the Thames, that flows unobtrusively through Dulwich. There’s a hint of its subterranean existence at the front of the house between the grounds and College road, where the sunken ditch or ha-ha regularly floods with its waters. 

Another famous occupant of the house in the early 19^th century was Anthony Harding, a silk merchant who opened the world’s first department store, in fashionable Pall Mall, in 1789. Bell House today is home to a registered charity which hosts a department store’s worth of community activities, including printing, which would no doubt have pleased those original occupants. The many upstairs rooms are workshops and home to gardeners and artists in residence.We explored grounds of mature mixed woodlands, kitchen and walled garden, orchards, lawns, flowerbeds and shrubbery plus enclosed stable yard and neighbouring cottages. The sun made an appearance after rain and the spring air was resonant with bird song, the unseen urban world seemingly far away.

When not experiencing the vernal delights of affluent Dulwich or Richmond our long weekend in London was packed with cultural activities around the centre. Years have passed since either of us has been to the British Museum. A great magnet for visitors from all over the world, the queues are a little longer these days as security checks are now standard in marquees outside. The special exhibition we’d come to see was Legion: Life in the Roman Army. https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/legion-life-roman-army

A very thorough and well-curated show it was too, rounded out with audio-visual immersive displays. A comprehensive review of the soldiers lot, made remarkable by the quality and range of the artefacts on display, from cavalry masks, armour and shields to gambling games and even marching socks.

Proud too that many of these treasures were sourced from Northumberland; the Roman forts and settlements of Vindolanda, Chesters, Housesteads and Corbridge.

After a leisurely lunch in the excellent restaurant up aloft we went exploring in nearby streets. Love the way the biggest and constantly coppiced of pollution resistant plane trees, dating from Victorian times, manage to enhance the compact high sided buildings, like this one in Russell Street.

I’ve a special fondness for Bloomsbury and Covent Garden, not just for their rich architectural and cultural history but for the nomenclature. Much of the area was owned and developed over the centuries by the dukes of Bedford, who also enjoyed sizeable income from former monastic estates gifted them at the Restoration by Henry VIII. Those extensive mineral rich estates in Devon included my hometown of Tavistock, the moorland hamlet of Taviton, the family’s hunting lodge at Endsleigh. Along with the dynasty name of Russell, all are are commemorated here in the names of the elegant squares and streets, places and rows.

For many years Kim’s been sourcing professional art materials online from http://www.cornelissen.com and took this opportunity to introduce me to the actual shop at 105 Great Russell Street. Cornelissen’s retain the original 1855 shop front and internal layout, which attracts customers from all over the world.

Browsing while Kim shopped, I marvelled at the paint crystals and pigments stored in glass jars above a huge range of oil paints in tubes hanging in racks.

The Cartoon Museum used to be in Little Russell Street, but moved some seven years ago to larger premises in the basement of a modern building in Wells Street (off Oxford Street). Have been meaning to visit for ages so good to finally do so on another of our days out in town. Something of a hidden gem it hosts a wonderful selection of British cartoons, caricatures and comic art from the 18^th Century to the present day. https://www.cartoonmuseum.org/

Wallace & Gromit fans would delight in the section devoted to the making of that stop animation classic The Wrong Trousers. My favourite works though remain the earthy satiric imagery from the skilled pens and brushes of Gilray, Rowlandson and their contemporaries.

That same day we re-visited a favourite artistic haunt discovered in recent years. 2 Temple Place was completed in 1895, a singular gothic cum arts and craft building, the creation of hotel and property magnate William Waldorf Astor. Part estate office and part private residence, the building expresses the eccentric American multi-millionaire’s lifelong love of craft, literature and decorative arts.

The Bulldog Trust is a charity that mounts changing exhibitions of arts and crafts in the magnificent oak panelled rooms at Temple Place, curated from regional museums and galleries on particular themes.

This one was centered on centuries of glassworks, entitled Heart of Glass, and included work from traditional glass making centres like Sunderland and Stourport. Remarkably for a non-institutional organisation entry is free of charge, although donations welcomed. More about 2 Temple Place here: https://twotempleplace.org/

En route from Temple Place to the Cartoon Museum we had lunch in the bustling brick lined crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square. https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/ This elegant architectural jewel, designed by James Gibb in the 1720’s, is now a multi-purpose inclusive space playing host day and night to a wealth of musical concerts as well as being a major charitable institution tackling the problems of homelessness in the capital and beyond.

Loved the detail of the beautiful light filled interior, like this seat set aside for the official pew opener. As the church website states ‘It’s a place of encounter between God and humanity, the wealthy and the destitute, culture and commerce. We welcome you into the warmth of this vibrant community’.

Mike Chapman’s powerful sculpture of a Christ like new born babe swaddled in a large bed of Portland stone, made to celebrate the millennium, installed under the portico overlooking the square, sums it all up well…In the Beginning.

 All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women merely players/They have their exits and their entrances/And one man in his time plays many parts/His acts being seven ages. (From: As You Like It)

I estimate my actual 72 years of age to roughly correspond with 5 and a half of Shakespeare’s seven ages. Somewhere between the Justice, with his propensity for ‘wise saws and modern instances’ and the ‘lean and slipper’d pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch at side’.

For a while now, as a daily mental exercise to match the physical, I’ve set my muscle memory the task of learning some favourite pieces from the Bard’s work. There are different reasons for choosing each one. John’o’Gaunt’s ‘This England’ speech from Richard II for example because having founded and run a theatre company inspired by the word ‘demi-paradise’ and keeping this country diary as ‘This Other Eden’ it was high time to get the whole thing under my belt. Add a clutch of famous soliloquies from the mouths of Hamlet, Macbeth, Prospero, Richard III etc. and you get the picture.

Without the context of artistic process through company rehearsal and direction there’s still pleasure to be had in line learning for learning’s sake and the extra appreciation of the man and his work that results through private study and practice. And yet, one still feels the need of an audience, however minimal, to complete the exercise. Luckily a non-actor friend who has nurtured a lifetime’s love of  poetry proved generous in giving me their time to meet that challenge. We agreed an outdoor setting was best. Having not yet seen for ourselves what had become of the sycamore infamously felled by person or persons unknown last September, we set out alongside the whinstone ridge to do so.

We perched in the lee of Hadrian’s wall overlooking the fenced stump of the iconic tree, reflecting on its meaning and great loss. That was followed by conversational recall of some of our favourite poems and blank verse before breaking off to enjoy a simple picnic. At this point we caught the sound of ethereal instrumental music from an unseen source. Suddenly, from the other side of the wide wall, three lanky teenage boys emerged carrying a ghetto blaster. Oblivious of our presence, we became their de facto audience, witnessing an improvised lament for the tree’s cruel demise.  Ritual complete they got off their knees, laughed awkwardly and moved at pace up the steep side of the gap to disappear over the brow. We were left alone again, suitably bemused, yet happy to be upstaged by their singular homage.

Oh for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of Invention. A kingdom for a stage, princes to act and monarchs to behold the dwelling scene….Mission resumed, I’d just started giving the opening Chorus speech of Henry V when the rival muse of air suddenly appeared to play its part by filling and blowing my empty sandwich bag away downhill at great speed. I continued the speech while running to retrieve the ballooning plastic. Returned breathless but triumphant, completing the run in both senses of the word, and thus we both fell about laughing.

More speeches were let loose on the breeze, as we ambled uphill and down on the way back, in between meeting and greeting fellow ramblers. Another unusual cultural foray on a dull winter’s day, getting those speeches out into the open and improvising freely around their delivery before my receptive, astute and amused audience of one. Valued in return the conversation that came of it. My friend’s life away before retirement was one spent in the higher echelons of the corporate business world, so many aspects of communication discussed around our complimentary career disciplines and ways of working. Hamlet’s advice to the players was in there too, echoing beyond our footsteps, before being borne away by the western winds….Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature…