Mini Break down South

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Hi, here at last are some of the photos that Glen and I took during our four days down south. We arrived at Helen and Derek's place just out of Farnham in the late afternoon during the 1st week of October. The next day although rather cloudy we all decided still to head off to Portsmouth via Chawton the small village where Jane Austin lived. Then still luckily without rain we arrived at Portsmouth. It was fascinating wandering around the Historic Dockyards, we saw the the HMS Warrior built in1860 the first iron clad battle ship, and HMS Victory Lord Nelson's flag ship at the battle of Trafalgar, built in the late 1700's. We managed to get onto the 'Victory' and go on a rather rushed tour, still never the less very interesting. We took our time looking through the Dockyard Apprentice museum display which was very well done and informative. Of course we couldn't miss seeing the remains of the Mary Rose the 16th century war ship, we found it amazing what was being done to preserve the remains. As the dockyards closed at 5.30pm right on peak hour we decided to stay in Portsmouth for dinner which turned out to be a great ending to a wonderful day.

The next day turned out to be quite a bit brighter than our day at Portsmouth so we drove to Basing where we had intended to have a look at Basing House only to find we were a couple of days too late, as it had already closed for the winter, but never the less we enjoyed wandering about the village and checked out the local church before heading off to The Vyne a National Trust property in Hampshire built in the 16yh century for Lord Sandy. Many hours were spent enjoying lunch outside in the sunshine, wandering through the house and then later outside in the grounds. Before driving back we headed off to see what we could find at Silchester the site of an old Roman town. Well we were quite surprised to find that there was much more to see than we had expected, the photos should tell the story.

Finally after a wonderful time with our friends we said good bye and in beautiful sunshine decided to head off and look at a couple more National Trust properties on our way back home to Stamford. The first one was Clandon Park where we ended up having lunch, but our favourite of the two was a more modern house called Polesden Lacey also in Surrey set on 1400 acres, in a really beautiful area of the country.

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Photos

Newbury
A visit to Newbury with Audrey and Barry Sept 2007

Helen, Derek and Pam
Taken in the garden at Jane Austen's house 2nd Oct 2007

Jane Austen's house
Taken in Chawton

Jane Austen's house
She lived in this house between 1809 and 1817

St Nicholas Church Chawton
The church where Jane Austen attended

Portsmouth
Taken from across the road from the dockyards.

HMS Victory
Nelson's flag ship, he died on board this ship.

The Vyne
A National Trust Property we visited with Helen and Derek built about 500 years ago.

The Vyne
Enjoying the beautiful grounds.

The Vyne
The grounds of the Vyne estate.

Silchester
We enjoyed looking about this old Roman town site.

Comments

[derek]

blogsite
Hi Pam and Glen, Got your e mail this am ,but I did not know your blog site so I thought how do we find it?. So I bunged Pamela Willson into google and up came your blog site. loved the pictures. although Polesden Lacey and Clarendon are quite near we have not visited.Getting cold now although the days are bright and sunny.(but then you know that!!!,but the family might like to know) Derek