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Published: July 13th 2021
Hailes Abbey 1246
Romantic ruin, violent causeWinchcombe – Broadway 1998 August 11
This was a day of villages and fields. We started at
Winchcombe for the short walk to
Hailes Abbey .
Destroyed during the persecution of Roman Catholics by Henry VIII, the building is now a picturesque ruin. Nearby, the older Hailes Parish Church still has original wall paintings and tiles (restored) We crossed a few fields and came across a village. For the whole day. There were sheep in fields, cows in fields, one set of horses in a jumping practice field, wheat fields, harvested fields, fallow fields, and fields of indeterminate grass.
We almost saw Peter Pan, or at least we visited Stanway House , where the author JM Barrie stayed quite often. Some say he modelled the house in Peter Pan on Stanway. Since I have rarely seen the architectural style, it seemed magical to me. Later we walked to a “folly”, Broadway Tower . With no practical function, follies were built by landowners with too much money. About 4 p.m. we came to
Broadway itself, which is something of a tourist town. In its centre were lots of people enjoying sun, shops, and ice cream. We thought this was the end of
Stanway House
Peter Pan came through the huge dining room window! Maybe. the walk, but the walk to the place for our tea was another mile along the main street. The Barn has a prize-winning garden, where we had our delicious cream tea.
We came to the
Noel Arms Hotel in
Chipping Campden by bus. This is an old coaching inn that has expanded in a U shape. The room I have is large, but the shower is cold! Our whole group informally met and enjoyed dinner on the patio of the Badger Bistro until 10 p.m. Lots of fun and good food.
Broadway Tower – Hidcote Manor Park 1998 August 12
This morning we drove back to where we finished yesterday – twice! We drove all the way, because the spitting rain turned to a steady drizzle. The group consensus was to return to the hotel for rain jackets and ponchos. I had mine with me, as padding in my pack to prevent the cameras from poking my back. But, I had left my hat on top of Peter’s car while we were hanging around, so I was also glad to return.
Back at the
Broadway Tower we decanted into wind - without rain. Still, jackets were needed. The
deer, which we had glimpsed from the van early during our inadvertent departure, had disappeared with the appearance of tourists! The Tower is owned by the National Trust, with their inevitable shop – where I bought this pen, since two of the three I brought with me ran out of ink.
This was a morning of walking through fields and cultivated parkland. The worst we ran into was an overgrown path with a few nettles. The best was a mile-long “drive”, originally for exercising horses, or taking a carriage ride. It is exactly one mile long, about 300 feet across, and bordered by planted trees. Most of the morning, I walked with Peter’s wife, Margaret. We chatted in the way of people who get along.
Just before noon we arrived back in Chipping Campden (on foot) for lunch at the Volunteer Arms. It is distinguished as a pub by having a picture of a Victorian Volunteer (army) on one side of the sign and a modern volunteer on the other. Inside was a good pub in the old tradition. Pubs in the new tradition have removed most of the walls (cozy nooks vs barn) and have loud music
and VLTs. On one’s own there is a good chance of entering the latter.
We were given extra time to look around after lunch. Then we went on a “nothing” walk for the afternoon – 3 ½ miles. We mainly traversed a parkland, wheat and sheep fields. At the end we came to
Hidcote Park , a private (for profit) garden with a public right-of-way through it. This is something of an oxymoron, which last year the Park owners gave up trying to end. The rule is you have to stick to the public path unless you have paid at the front gate. We came through the back gate and did stick to the path. The garden is north-facing, on an 800 foot rise, so most of it is greenery, not flowers (so much for my efforts to grow flowers in my front yard!).
We drove back to Noel Arms for a final friendly dinner with Peter and Margaret. They commented that our group “jelled” very well from the start. We did have lots of laughs.
View map of trip to date.
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Isabel Gibson
non-member comment
For a day that started in rain, it looks like it turned out pretty well. The buildings are just amazing - it's hard for me to imagine the maintenance effort involved in keeping these old ones functional. They're restoring the Centre Block of the Parliament buildings as we speak. They've been closed for 2 years, I think, and it will be another 10 or thereabouts before they're ready to open. A different scope, of course, but much younger buildings than these.