Hall Place

HOLEEE SHIT you guys. I'm in England again!

Why?

Because potato!

Also I moved here.

AAAANYWAY,

Today I went on a field trip! Down to Hall Place, in Bexley.

Yeeeeah. Check this shit out! All fancy, right?

This was, I think, the primary entrance to the house. But because of things, it now faces a major roadway, so we all go in the back door. (Heh. Back door.)

The original house (which is what you're seeing here; it extends quite far in the back) was built in 1540, by a dude with a lot of money. He reused a lot of stones from a nearby abbey ruin, and you can see bits a piece of it still (like old monastic tilework, and some gargoyle faces; there's not much though).

I like taking pictures of windows. It may be a problem.

After a while, it was sold again, to one Sir Austen (not THAT family of Austens).

He took one look at this shabby old dump and said: "NOPE! I'mma double this shiat!"

And proceeded to build a wing onto the house, that pretty much doubled it's size.

He also didn't give a whole lot of thought to the whole 'making the styles harmonious', and just built whatever the fuck he wanted.

He (or one of his lineage who lived in the place) also installed (I believe) this 'fine plaster ceiling' in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Take a look:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!11!11!

Or if that one isn't letting you sleep, there's one of these in each corner:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!1!11

Seriously. I don't know how anyone could sleep in this room. I can only assume there were canopy beds with monster proof curtains.

Nnnnggg. Picture of a window through a window. The best.

Be warned, though. If you come here, it's apparently a pretty popular venue for weddings and special 

events, and when something comes in, they close off the feast hall, the minstrel gallery, and the old Tudor kitchen. 

We did not get to see the Tudor kitchen, but we did see a bit of the feast hall and the minstrel gallery.

Also, if you come, try to hit it in summer when all the flowers are blooming. The gardens are quite lovely, but the flowers were well on their way out (since it is now October, and well and truly autumn). 

HOWEVER!

Check these guys out:

A mere umbrella away from Totoro.

These are the best topiaries, in my opinion, but there were quite a few more. And they're BIG. Well taller than I.

So this house got sold and inherited down the line for a long time, until the early 20th century, when Lady Limerick came to live here.

I'm not even shitting you. That was her name.

DIGNITY. ALWAYS DIGNITY.

She was apparently quite loved by the village, and also a little on the batty side.

DISCLAIMER: Not actually Henry Vlll. Or his court ladies.

 Later on in her life, the house (which actually belonged to her son? her nephew? I can't remember) got sold (I think) to the local council, with the understanding that she could live out her days there.

Well! Lady Limerick didn't like that very much, and apparently went on a letter writing feud with the council. The council couldn't kick her out, and she didn't have anywhere else to go, so she lived there until she died.

As a final middle finger to the council, she stated in her will that every goddamned stick of furniture in the place was to be auctioned off, and the proceeds to go to a church she liked. 

Which happened. And the council received nothing but the shell of a house.

Later on, it was used as a boys school, a girls school, and during WW2, an American communications centre (which, apparently, the local men didn't like at all, because the American GI's were all "over paid, over sexed, and over here").

Those bits are all boring though.

What IS interesting, is there are quite a few displays on things found in and around the grounds, including some Roman and Norse artifacts (brooches! glass vessels! pottery!), and arrowheads and stone axes and things. This place was apparently quite a popular place to live and/or die.

And that's all from me, folks.

Hall Place. Check it out. 

Today I went to the National Portait Gallery! But they don't allow pictures. So NO SOUP FOR YOU.

Then I went to meet up with one Mr. Gideon Defoe for coffee!

I (rather embarassingly) talked him into a photo to prove I haven't been shitting you guys all this time:

He's the one on the right. I know we look so much alike.

Don't let his not-smiling fool you. He is a very friendly and smiley sort of person. Except if you bring up the movie Space Chimps. Or Alpha and Omega. Or any mention of the Incredibles, in Russian. Then he tears up a little bit.

But you need to read his books. They are all listed on his Wikipedia page, including the new one (!!!!!) which hasn't quite come out yet but is getting very, very close.

Also, that movie that just came out? Pirates! Band of Misfits? (Or in some places: Pirates! in and Adventure With Scientists.)

Yeah, he wrote that. It's based off his first and second book. You should go see it. There's some quite contraversial bits about lepers and fat female dodo birds that parallel the oppression of women in today's society. I encourage you to go, get terribly offended (though you ought to choose your own bit to get offended by; there's more than enough for everybody), and write colourful letters to the editor that whip the public into a frenzy.

Go see it. It's funnier than Jesus. I promise you this.

After forcing my camera upon poor Mr. Defoe I went to see Matilda (which was written by Tim Minchin).

It's FABULOUS. Technically brilliant, very well cast, designed exceptionally well. And by exceptionally well, I REALLY mean it. The cast (which includes nine kids of probably about ten years old) was fantastic. I can't believe how talented those kids are. And NINE of them! Undoubtably it was double cast as well, because of child labour laws or whatever. I can't believe there are that many kids that are THAT talented singing and dancing.

Makes my brain spin.

Then Miriam caught me outside the theatre and we popped around to the New Zealand store (THEY ARE OUT OF MARMITE; THERE IS A MARMITE SHORTAGE IN THE WORLD BECAUSE THE NEW ZEALAND FACTORY GOT DAMAGED IN THE EARTHQUAKES EVERYBODY PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANIC!!!!) and then to a New Zealand restaurant, at which I ate more pig than I think any human has any right to.

It was very delicious, even if the pavlova was a bit odd.

Then Miriam and I saw The Duchess of Malfi, an early 17th century play where everybody hates each other, sleeps with each other, schemes against each other, and intentionally (or unintentionally) kills each other (that outta teach him for borrowing a cloak!).

I think it was meant to shock people but I found I was just bored. It was a pretty play, very atmospheric, but it just failed to move me. I didn't cry when one of the characters got strangled at length. When the little boy got hung, I only thought: "Gosh! That little boy actor is very well behaved! He's not even twitching! I hope that's a comfortable harness..." I was a bit sad when the nice fellow got murdered by accident, but considering almost his entire family had already been murdered and he didn't know it, I thought it might be for the best.

Yeah. Kinda boring. Pretty, though, even if most of the ladies were wearing the wrong undergarments.

I think I've seen too much theatre...

Oh well. Tomorrow I fly home, and then on to see Sweeney Todd with James, one of my favorites!

WELL SHIT. I forgot to tell you two stories from yesterday.

FIRST.

The ruins of Hailes Abbey...yes. The vial of Christ's blood.

Well, along comes old Henry VIII. He wants a couple of things to happen:

He wants to dissolve major, faithful religious groups so he can get all Anglican up there.

He wants more money.

So what does he do?

He says: "HEY MONK-DUDES. Can I see that vial for just a minute?"

Imagine this with more walls, and more floor, and more irate monks.

So what are monks who are sworn to poverty and largely silence supposed to do when faced with their king? And a king who is all swollen with man-lust for Anne Boelyn, and hot-to-trot to set up his own tailored religion.

They hand over the vial.

It goes to 'judgement', what ever that means. In my imagination it was a bunch of dudes in long rediculous robes, in a room somewhere, drinking and laughing their asses off over how much money the king is giving them.

Anyway, the vial was opened and it was decided that 'Christ's blood' was none other than honey coloured with saffron and/or duck's blood that the monks regularly changed. It was not entirely clear which one it was decided it was. I'm leaning towards the honey (though I'd like to know how they decided that one..."Hey, so, do you mind if I give Christ's blood a little lick, then?").

Rather unceremoniously, the vial was thrown on a fire and that was that.

And Henry VIII went to the monks and said: "So...I guess you won't be needing all this money and all these treasures then, soooo....YOINK."


I'm not entirely sure when the abbey was abandoned and fell down. I suspect it was sometime thereafter. It didn't help that the Black Death had decimated their ranks already and they were running at a pretty low capacity.

"Fuckit. Let's just abandon this shit."

Yes. That was story number one.

Story number two happened on the tube back to Miriam and David's place. I happened to overhear the phrase:

"What do they expect me to do, sit at home and eat rice?"

This caught my attention because I often used the phrase: "Sit at home and eat rice." It is often how I describe the period of time between jobs.

So I started listening to the two guys who were standing next to me. Or kind of listening. I couldn't figure out what they were talking about, really.

Finally one of them said: "I wish I could find a job that kept me interested. I have such a short attention span."

This is another of my laments, so I poked my head between the two fellows (aided by some liquid courage from hanging around with Scott) and said: "Be a props maker."

And the three of us got to talking a little, and I asked what they did, and they told me, in unison: "Musical theatre actors."

HILARIOUS TO ME. A whole train full of people and I get to talking to the other theatre people.

We chatted a bit about Singing in the Rain and how awesome and terrible theatre work is and the usual theatre-y stuff.

It was nice to talk to theatre people about theatre things.

And that brings us to today's adventures!

I wanted to go shopping. I found a market on the map and started heading there.

I found this guy.

"Laaaaaaaaaaaadies."

 I wish it was sunny out when I took this picture. I bet this guy looks great in the sun. He had lots of mirrored bits.

I found the market, eventually. It was okay. I realized after I got there that I'd been there before, with Scott, the previous time I was in town. On the bright side, the market was in full swing, instead of when Scott and I were there when it was only half up.

I went nuts and bought TWO postcards. TWO.

Then I headed back down to the waterfront.

My impressively long and colourful history brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like, it's actually a former moat that was filled in due to being a cesspool of filth and horror. So yeah. Milkshakes!

Oh hai! It's the Tower(s) of London!

I thought: I've been here twice now. Maybe, just MAYBE I should do the Tower of London thing.

So I did.

These dudes were marching around with their very not-comical machine guns.

"Make fun of my hat. I DARE you."

I also just noticed the guy in the middle has a sword. He's probably the meanest.

There were a lot of ravens around, as per tradition.

Obligatory Bird Picture.

There were animals made out of chicken wire everywhere. I particularely liked the monkeys. Baboons. Y'know. Whatever.

"YOU ATE MY POCKY! THAT WAS *MY* POCKY! WHAT AM I GOING TO EAT AT GAMING TONIGHT?!!"

I would show you pictures of the Crown Jewels, but alas, it was Not Allowed.

Instead you get:

THE WHITE TOWER!

Complete with easily removable staircase, in case of attack by guys without ladders.

Also, in the vicinity of the Tower of London, we have:

TOWER BRIDGE!

You can buy greasy bags of salty nuts on the bridge. True story.

Then I walked across that bridge and got a little lost.

I took this picture on the way:

I swear this isn't a doctored photo. I tried to catch it again, to center it better, but the moment was gone and the sun was behind the cloud.

I like that photo, though.

Anyway, tomorrow is a matinee of Matilda, then in the evening, the Duchess of Malfi, and then one sleeps until Canada again...

*sigh*

See you all soon, my fine and feathered friends.

HALLO! I am no longer drunk. Perhaps that will make this entry less funny.

I'm sorry.

I will try to be very, very serious to make up for it.

These is the ruins of Hailes Abbey.

See how fucking serious I am?

So serious, there's fucking RUINS.

These ruins were of a pretty big abbey full of monks and other buggery. Their biggest claim to fame was that they apparently had a vial of the blood from Christ's wounds. It was kept in a crystal and silver vial, and people came from all over to pray before it and give the abbey money.

They seemed to have a pretty good thing going, all told. I mean, besides the fact they thought pretty much everything was a sin, including keeping warm (though they did have a Warming Room with a fire in it where they could sit).

Here is David listening very intently to the audioguide.

This wall was the back wall of the dining hall.

The diet of the monks included a pound of bread, grains, vegetables, and beer. They got fish on feast days, and if somebody very important came to visit, maybe red meat. But mostly bread and vegetables.

They were probably pretty healthy dudes, all things considered.

The cupboards behind David were used to keep the bowls, spoons, napkins and the like. There were some other cupboards on the other side of the doorway, to the right.

There was still enough bits of the abbey that you could see the layout of all the rooms, and some of the features. Like, they had a river running under the whole site that they used as a drain! It was lined with stones, and there was grated off drains pretty much in every other room.

NEAT.

It was raining in the ruins and COOOOOOLD. Finally Miriam had enough and booked it into the wee museum for a cup of tea, and we poked aboot.

Then back to Cheltenham for High Tea! I did not get any pictures of high tea, though you probably wouldn't have enjoyed them, considering how fast it all got inhaled into my gaping maw.

DE-LICIOUS. I will have high tea again. Definitely. IN MA MOUF.

Then back to London! I had tickets that night for Singing in the Rain.

I liked the show. If you're gonna go, don't go into the major nosebleeds on the fourth floor. I mean, it was okay for the price (only fifteen pounds), but it was really hard to see anything and REALLY steep. You are literally very very close to the ceiling. Pitch a little extra and go on the next floor down.

Some of the american accents made my ears bleed. Unfortunately, the lead female was one of them. SO. BAD. It sounded like Fergus making fun of Canadian accents. And I'm not talking about the girl who is SUPPOSED to have a bad voice. I'm talking about the sweet love interest...

After that...

WELL HO-LEE CRAP. WHO IS THAT BLURRY AND FREEZING AND DRINKING ON THE STREET?!

Why, it's Scott!

HELLO SCOTT!

I found Scott working at the same bar as I did last time and we went out for a drink that lasted so long that they kicked us out of the bar (though gave us plastic cups for our drinks). We are currently drinking next to a church, like the classy broads we are.

Scott notified me that my favorite store from last time, the Trashy Lingerie store, had closed.

I was very sad.

It was replaced by some store that I think was called Kiss Kiss Meow, and sold exactly the same thing.

I preferred Trashy Lingerie.

*sigh*

Anyway. That's enough of that. I have STUFF to do today. STUFF.

Rock on, homeslices. I'll see you tonight.

Today I did not sleep until a million-o-clock. I actually made it to the table in time for breakfast!

We decided to try our luck at another castle, since the last one wasn't so castley. This time we decided to go to Berkeley Castle.

 

It was significantly castlier. (Miriam and David, lurking around the outer courtyard.)

It was build in the....13th century, I want to say, by the Berkeley family. And they're still living in it today! You couldn't get into all of it. But the parts we did see were pretty neat.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos from the inside, since they asked you not to. The inside had lots of stately furniture and old oil paintings. It even had an oubliette, and a prison cell where some king or another was murdered!

There was even a portrait of one of the former Earls of Berkeley, who was known as Wicked Willy, for apparently fathering about a hundred children (though he never married).

Wicked Willy's father (or grandfather, I can't remember) caught himself a wife by literally kidnapping her. She was trying to avoid his attentions by moving to the other side of the country and not telling him, so he (maybe) got her sister to write her an urgent letter telling her to come quickly, and then promptly kidnapped her out of the sister's house.

That all being said, the girl ended up being a very wise and shrewd woman, and once she got a hold of the purse strings, she brought the estate out of the red and into the black within two years.

This isn't all the castle. It carries on quite a bit to the right.

But you know how you can tell it's a REAL castle?

I mean, besides the murder holes and the oubliette and the archer slits and what not...

Oliver Cromwell managed to bash down a wall! Fortunately for the Berkeleys, old Cromwell was in a bit of a hurry so paid his men a bonus in cash rather than let them hang around and loot the place.

This castle has been renovated abonut a million times (with a big one happening in the 1920's), so it's a funny mismash of styles. A lot of the time who ever was renovating shipped in bits of old churches and stuff to patch up the castle with, so it's all the same age (more or less), but it's from all over the place.

Also, apparently, one of the bathrooms in the private suite is exactly like the one in the Waldorf Astoria, in New York. By exactly like, I mean the last earl bought it from the hotel and had it shipped over for his rather fussy wife.

After Berkeley castle, we went down into Gloucester to find tea and scones (mmmmmmmmm...) and also discovered the Gloucester Cathedral.

Damn. Big ole cathedral.

There was an organ recital going on when we went in. It was kind of epic. Of course, I didn't get a picture of the massive organ, mostly because I was getting my hair blown back.

It sounded a little bit like the Phantom of the Opera had met the Count (of the muppets), had a baby, and that child was drunk and playing the organ.

That being said, it was impressive organing. I just thought it was kind of...mashed.

A set of covered halls circled a courtyard. This is just one of the halls.

We headed back to Cheltenham after that, since we had a dinner reservation.

The food we had was good, but took FOREVER. There's a jazz festival in town and so every place is booked up to the gills.

I got the impression they did not have nearly enough staff to cope.

C'est la vie.

I ate a lemon posset. It tastes like I was eating a dish of lemon flavoured butter, which sounds awful when I say it like that, but trust me when I say:

I wanted to jam my face in that dish.

HALLO.

Today I woke up in Cheltenham. Did I mention we took a train to Cheltenham?

Well, we did.

 

This is the view out of the back window of our B+B. It's a very nice B+B. I'm trying not to think about how much it must cost, but Miriam and David have pretty much not let me pay for anything.

By pretty much, I mean they have not let me pay for anything.

After breakfast (which I had to drag my poor corpse out of bed for), we hopped in the rental car and went whizzing across the disgustingly picturesque English countryside toward Sudely Castle. Because I insisted on seeing a castle.

It wasn't REALLY a castle so much as a stately royal country home. A really big one. But it wasn't too 'castley'. A lot of it got destroyed in the civil war, if my memory serves. Before that it was the last home of Katherine Parr (the final and surviving wife of Henry VIII who went on to marry Thomas Seymour, I believe).

It was rediscovered by some ladies who were hiking through the hills and discovered a half-buried casket whose inscription on the side said it was Katherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII.

So what do you do when you discover a slightlly unburied casket?

WHY YOU OPEN IT OF COURSE!

Inside was her corpse. Rather anticlimactic.

So they closed it up again and told some folks, who came and fixed up the place, or what bits could be.

The ruined wall above apparently was part of the banquet hall.

This fine fellow on the right, I believe, was a former lord of the castle. I would guess in the 70's.

He had this pet badger that he carried around everywhere with him.

It got into lots of trouble, digging up peoples gardens, and he had to go around behind it paying reparations for the damages his dear badger caused.

They had a taxidermied badger by this picture with a note saying that it was just some random badger, and not THE badger.

So yes.

Sudeley Castle was pretty neat. The house bit was pretty small, but there was an adorable little chapel on the grounds as well.

The gardens were very pretty.

SEE?

Very pretty indeed.

David trying to decide whether Katherine Parr was ACTUALLY close to six feet tall (as was alleged) and Miriam giving me the hairy eyeball for sneaky pictures.

I'm not really sure what's up with this fellow. He was sitting in the church pews, all askew. Most of the dressed dummies kind of made sense (there was a Katherine Parr in her private chambers, a Thomas Seymour lurking around in one of the drawing rooms), but I don't know about this fellow.

I just thought he was funny.

 

This is some sort of very fat pheasant.

Not a peasant, as Miriam kindly pointed out.

We were NOT going to a peasantry. We were going to a pheasantry.

There were all sorts of pheasants that I didn't bother taking pictures of. I took a picture of this fellow because he looks exactly like a very obese falcon. Maybe hung over too, with the red eyes. 

Too many mice, this one. Can't fly no more.

We found a 'proper' castle on the grounds. A FOUR STORY PLAYGROUND!!!! :DDD

 

You may notice that the photo was shot at the top of the playground.

There was also a foxtail at the back, which we all took turns riding. We had to fight this very insistant little boy, who was CERTAIN that we were NOT allowed turns because we were ADULTS. He was quite scandelized when we all three insisted and told him that other kids wouldn't play with him if he was selfish and hit them with swords (he poked me in the boob with one).

The foxtail was fun, even though I was probably too big for it.

After Sudeley Castle we headed back into Cheltenham and took a walk about, trying to decide what to do for dinner. Eventually we decided quite at random to go to this little 16th century pub just outside of town, in the next village over.

We got there a bit early for our reservations (I know, reservations in a pub, but it was mostly a restaurant), so we took a walk across some farmer's fields.

We saw this thing:

You get kisses from me if you can tell me what it is. I really have no idea.

Also:

Capering lambs! (Miriam suggested they might have brain damage. They were charging around in a pack, and quite randomly, in the middle of the running, one or two would throw themselves in the air in a mad caper, then a few seconds later a couple other ones would do it. It was like a mental tic...)

Also:

A REALLY OLD GRAVEYARD! Some of the gravestones dated back to the mid-1600's, and there was one so new it only had a plastic tag as a marker and the flowers weren't wilted yet.

After that we went to The Craven Arms pub and ate delicious, delicious lamb.

(The capering made them more delicious. Tenderized and what-not.)

I did not take any pictures of the food. It was gone too quickly.

Best damned pub food I ever did have.

And then we came back to the B+B.

And now I'm asleep.

Good night!

Still here, I see?

Yes, well, so am I.

Today I did not take any pictures, so you will get another post full of Unrelated Photographs.

Today I woke up late-ish. Tottered around. Made my way towards Angel's Costumier. They provide costumes for film, television and theatre (and what ever you want to pay them for) for a LOT of people.

Their credits include such little known films as Titanic, Hugo, Harry Potter, Dr. Who, Shakespeare in Love, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Gigi (yes, they're that old, and older).

AND NOW IT'S TIME FOR UNRELATED PICTURE!!

HOLY CRAP IT'S A MOTHERFUCKIN' HERON.

That's what I said when I saw that, until I realized that it's really only BLUE herons that are rare to see, and this park was COVERED in herons. Literally. Like a carpet.

Stupid heron.

Anyway. Costumes. I found the place with relative ease. Had the worst cup of vending machine tea I think I've ever had.

Our tour guide was a small grey and pink sort of man with a neatly pressed blue shirt and glasses made entirely out of clear plastic perched upon his nose. He was very funny, but made me stop answering the questions he posed to the group because I knew all the answers and ruined the surprise. (In my defense, he WAS posing a question...)

The warehouse was AMAZING. Seriously. I thought of all my theatre friends and thought how envious they would be of their eight kilometers of costume rails. They have a whole ROOM of badges, patches, and buttons, and a separate room for all their military uniforms. Amazing.

TIME FOR ANOTHER UNRELATED PHOTO!

Don't worry. They're not real horses. Just statues. (At Camden Markets, what used to be a stable, or so I'm told. Strangely, there were horse statues EVERYWHERE.)

So if you can get in to do a tour at the Angels Costumier, I would definitely suggest it. They have some pretty cool stuff.

Our guide told us a secret about the Titanic flick.

Apparently they had made all these jumpsuits with the Titanic crew logo/words/whatever on the front, for the 'crew' of the Titanic to wear. So they wore them, ran madly around the starboard side of the ship.

Then they changed into ones with backward text, ran around again, and they flipped the film in editting and pretended it was the port side of the ship.

MAGIC.

So as the tour was coming to a close, I got to chatting with the only New Zealander in the group. She also happened to work in theatre, as a costumer, and confessed to me, rather embarassed, that her real passion was reenactment.

"Hey, I do that too!" I confessed.

"What time period?" she asks.

"Early 16th century Florence," I say.

"ME TOO!" she says.

Turns out she was a SCAdian from down under. Needless to say we rode back into London together and exchanged email addresses. (Lookit me. Overcoming my fear of strangers.)

UNRELATED PICTURE! (By luck of the draw you get an 'artistic' picture of a pigeon.)

After that I headed to Paddington Station (yes, there is a statue of Paddington Bear) and met up with Miriam and David and we took a train out of London and now we are in a town called Cheltenham Spa. There are apparently roman baths here.

Why do I always forget my bathing suit?