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Published: September 13th 2012
Westward Ho!
These kids don't look all that happy to me - it was cold and windy at the time.We arrived at our New Forest location after driving across to the Salisbury region via North Cornwall, North Devon, Exmoor and a region called the Quantock Hills. Our first stop was a spur of the moment decision. We were driving past a place called Westward Ho! (complete with exclamation mark) and decided we had to visit just to see what it was like. Well it was a lot bigger than I expected, based by the dot on the map. It was a seaside town with a relatively long strip of sandy beach, a couple of large hotels facing the beach, fun parlours and an "adult games" establishment. We had a walk down to the beach to witness the school kids shivering their way back from their surfing lesson, had morning tea in a cafe and determined that "adult games" referred to bingo machines rather than anything more salacious. We continued our travels through Barnstaple to the small towns of Lynton and Lynmouth. These had been recommended to us by our Redivallen House B&B owner and I'm pleased that we went in. Lynton is a holiday town on the top of cliffs in the Exmoor National Park while Lynmouth is down a
very steep and windy road and on the beach. We walked around Lynton for a bit and I was quite taken by the Victorian-era guest houses and hotels that lined the main street. From there we drove over Exmoor (very pretty) with views over the Bristol Channel to a place called Dunster. There we visited Dunster Castle which is a small castle dating from the 12th century and which was kept in the one family from the the 14th to late 20th century; it has since been donated to the National Trust. We spent an hour or so looking through the castle which has been siginificantly altered from the original medieval castle to be something more of a large manor house. A lot of the furnishings are those that were used by Alys Luttrel who was the last family member to live at the house. The castle/house is set in extensive gardens but unfortunately we didn't have time to explore them. From here we drove through a very pretty area known as the Quantock Hills before eventually joining busy roads on our way east to Salisbury.
We've been staying at a small B&B on the northern edge of the
Lynton Post Office
I took this for the flower boxes lining the Post Office windows. I've been really taken with then everywhere - in the streets, outside pubs on traffic safety fences. Many of the boxes contain wonderful displays of tuberous begonias combined with a variety of other plants. New Forest and not far from Salisbury. The nearest village is Downton which has quite a few old, attractive thatched houses lining its main street. Our first sight-seeing trip from here was out to Stonehenge where we joined the other tourists circumnavigating the stone circle while listening to their audio guides. These days you don't get to walk amongst the stones unless you go on special tours which are only held early morning or late afternoon. We did consider doing one of these, but after visiting the monument like everyone else decided that it probably wasn't worth the effort. We enjoyed our visit but I can't say that I was blown away by the size, awesomeness or whatever of the structure. After the stone circle itself we walked across some nearby fields to a couple of ancient burial mounds.
What to do with the next half of the day was the next concern. In the end we chose to drive back through Salisbury and the New Forest to the small village of Sway. This is the village where Mum's paternal grandfather lived before emigrating to Australia as a young man in the late 1800s. I knew a little bit
about the family history but I couldn't recall the name of the family farm which was making our visit a bit meaningless. We ended up driving a little further down the road to the town of Lymington, having coffee and cake in a pub with free WiFi, and using the iPad for a bit of ad-hoc family research. This worked and we were later able to retrace our steps to find the old farmhouse, visit the local church and find Great-Great- Grandpa C's gravestone. The Reader of the church re-opened the church for us so that we could have a look inside. It was a small chuch but has quite a strong congregation; they get 120 attending church each week even though Sway is a small village. Lymington itself was quite a pleasant diversion on our trip. It lies on the edge of the Solent, has a large marina and a very pleasant old town. The newer part of town is quite attractive also.
Today's excursion was into Salisbury, firstly to visit the cathedral and then to have walk around the historic town. Salisbury Cathedral was built in the early 13th century and, in addition to its attractive architecture,
has a couple of claims to fame - it is home to the best preserved original Magna Carta and its spire is the tallest in Britain. We arrived at the cathedral and decided to join the next tour up the tower. This involved climbing 332 steps in a number of stages by narrow winding spiral staircases to reach the foot of the spire 225 feet above ground level. From here we could see up into the spire through the medieval scaffold, and from the outside you could look over the city and surrounding countryside. We were in the tower in the "clock room" when the church bells chimed for 12:00 so we received their full effect - they use the Westminster chime. After our tower visit we visited the rest of the cathedral - it has a lovely cloister and the bishops and canons stalls in the Quire are the largest (100+ stalls) and oldest in Britain.
Afterwards we visited the city itself. We didn't visit anywhere in particular, just enjoyed meandering through the streets of the oldest part of town. This was quite pleasant as much of the town is pedestrianised.
Tomorrow we leave here and travel
South Sway Farm House
I'm not sure if this is the correct house as it was undergoing renovation and there was nobody home to bother with my question. It was called this on the 1881 census for the family and it appears to be an old house - has flagstones on the bottom floor. into London for the last week of our holiday in England.
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Rowena Kirton
non-member comment
South Sway Farmhouse
Dear Deb and Terry How amazing that you have a picture of our house! Do you want to know any more about it? Its history is pretty patchy though. That wisteria on the outside flowered last weekend. Cheers Rowena