Hardwick Hall

We have just become members of The National Trust, so last week we eagerly visited two stately homes in quick succession: Belton House and Hardwick Hall. The Renaissance-style Hardwick Hall was built for Bess of Hardwick in the late 16th century. At the time Bess was the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth I, just as JK Rowling is today after Queen Elizabeth II. The photos below, however, are of the ruined and roofless Hardwick Old Hall, which stands next to the New Hall. This building is older and, in my opinion, a lot more atmospheric. The Old Hall is cared for by English Heritage.

Interesting colours and textures. As well as the roof, the floors are missing too.

The imagination can really run wild in this architectural emblem of the picturesque.

Blinded by the light: The Solitary Walker in penitential mood.

Inside looking out.

Norfolk Naturally

The nature reserve of Cley marshes is managed by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, the oldest of 47 wildlife trusts around the country. It looks after over 40 nature reserves and other protected sites including 10 km of coastline, 9 Norfolk broads, 9 National Nature Reserves and 5 ancient woodlands.

Cley is a starkly beautiful area of freshwater pools, grazing marsh and reedbeds. You can follow boardwalks through the reedbeds leading to thatched hides which overlook some of the pools. The northern edge of the reserve is a shingle bank which extends westwards to Blakeney Point, a National Nature Reserve cared for by the National Trust and well known for its seals. Beyond the shingle the North Sea pounds.

Here at the weekend I saw a grey phalarope, a ruff, little stints, little egrets, some avocets, several Egyptian geese, a flock of curlews; and I just missed a Sabine's gull. You might think I'm a knowledgeable birder from all this. No, not at all - I'm a generalist at heart. Specialist at nothing. Hoping to know a little about a lot. Just interested in the world. Especially the natural world.

But we mustn't forget that few things are "natural". Whatever that means. This area certainly isn't. It's been carefully managed for decades to attract a wide variety of birds. And it does attract them - in staggering numbers. Most days of the year it's possible to tick off more than 100 species in the vicinity. Rarities are commonplace. Reedbeds are constantly cut - otherwise they would deteriorate and be no good for thatchers or for the birds, which include rare bitterns and bearded tits. Water levels are carefully regulated.

Once, 750,000 years ago, rhinos, hyenas and elephants roamed here. In medieval times Cley was a bustling port on a tidal estuary. In the 1600s land was reclaimed from the sea and the big ships could no longer anchor. Later the coming of the railways brought a rise in the number of outside visitors. Now there's the nature reserve - and very appealing and wild-seeming it is too. In the future, global warming and higher tides will mean more flooding, more salinity - and the environment will change again.

Environments are continually changing due to natural events, human interference or, more usually, a mixture of both. This is a fact - and it's not always a morally, ethically or emotionally loaded issue. Nice to see here a success story with nature and humankind in partnership. Which is often not the case...

The photo shows high tide at Blakeney.

National Heritage

Lately I've been mentioning English Heritage and the National Trust, those 2 guardians of the nation's heritage. What are these bodies?

English Heritage (or the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission) is the government's statutory advisor on the historic environment. It reports to Parliament through the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. It's funded partly by Government and partly with revenue earned from the historic properties under its guardianship. Its aims are:

• to conserve and enhance the historic environment



• to broaden public access to our heritage



• to increase our understanding of the past

The National Trust, on the other hand, is a registered charity and is funded entirely from membership and entrance fees, donations, legacies and revenue from its commercial operations such as publishing and gift retail. It has 3.4 million members and 43,000 volunteers.

It was founded in 1895 by 3 Victorian philanthropists: Miss Octavia Hill (a social reformer and one of the most influential women of the era), Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Herdwicke Rawnsley. They were concerned about uncontrolled development and industrialization.

To date the Trust has 300 historic houses in its care, plus 49 industrial monuments and mills; also castles and islands, gardens and nature reserves, and other countryside areas including forest, fen, woodland, moorland, farmland, downland and the coast. Its aim is:

• to preserve and protect the coastline, countryside and buildings of England, Wales and Northern Ireland

It acquired its first building - Alfriston House (Sussex) - in 1896, and created its first nature reserve - Wicken Fen (Cambridgshire) - in 1899. Blakeney Point (Norfolk) became its first coastal nature reserve in 1912. During the 1930s the children's author Beatrix Potter gave the Trust much financial support; and she left the Trust farms, land and flocks of Herdwick sheep in her will. More recently in 2002 Sutton Hoo was placed under its stewardship, and William Morris's Red House in 2003.

The National Trust for Scotland was set up in 1931.

9/11

I mentioned the mysterious world of the subconscious mind a few days ago. It seems my subconscious has been at work again. I've just read Old Girl Of The North Country's moving post about 9/11. Then I reread my own post from yesterday. In it the "twin towers" of Orford Castle loom down on you. There's talk of fortresses, war and the military. There's talk of burial grounds. Albeit in a historical context of long perspective. When I wrote the piece all of this sub-text was completely unmediated by my conscious mind. I thought I was just writing about a pleasant day out. It's somehow comforting that nature always takes over again in the end and tries to heal the wounds. As the National Trust took over Orford Ness from the MOD.

Heritage Open Day (1)

Back from another long weekend in Suffolk. This was a weekend of Heritage Open Days throughout the country - meaning free access to many National Trust and English Heritage sites and properties which are normally closed to the public or charge for admission. We made the most of this, visiting, on the Saturday, Valley Farm at Flatford (see photo on left), a 15th century open hall house with a crown post roof and huge fireplace; and Thorington Hall near Stoke by Nayland (see photo on right), a beautiful 17th century timber framed farmhouse with a splendid limewashed oak staircase and six-stack chimney. The novelist and travel writer Nicholas Wollaston had been tenant here for 30 years until his death in May. I've never read any of his work, but Graham Greene described his book Red Rumba (1962) as perhaps the best travel book since Patrick Leigh Fermor's The Traveller's Tree. His widow Deirdre, who was there to welcome the visitors, told us that he was unable to find a publisher for his last 2 books - a reminder of how authors and styles of writing can go in and out of fashion just like everything else. Read here Wollaston's Observer article on how it's difficult to get published if you're not young and trendy.

Great Langdale

First at Elterwater, then just beyond Chapel Stile, on the winding road through Great Langdale, the view hits you. The Langdale Pikes in all their splendour. A fairytale fortress towering over the flat-bottomed valley. Impossible shapes rearing up - looking higher than they in fact are. All jags and crags, cliffs and cones, steep-sided gullies. Later, at the right-angled bend where the road penetrates no further westward but zigzags south up to Blea Tarn, you suddenly become more fully conscious of the magnificent girdle of hills that surrounds you: Lingmoor Fell, Side Pike, Wrynose Fell, Pike of Blisco, Great Knott, Crinkle Crags, Bowfell, Esk Pike, Rossett Pike, the Langdale Pikes, Raven Crag, Pike Howe, Tarn Crag... And can that be the bulky crest of Great End peeping out, above and beyond Rossett Gill? It hits you in the stomach. It softens you up. It's simply breathtaking. (My photo shows the narrow road up to Blea Tarn and a sunlit Langdale from Loft Crag, one of the Pikes. The National Trust campsite lies hidden in trees to the left of the picture.)

Loughrigg

Just back from a wonderful week in the Lake District. The plan was: to camp in Langdale and to follow a pattern of 1 challenging high-level fell day followed by 1 or 2 days on easier lowland paths. Because of my left knee problem. I'm pleased to say this generally worked. Saturday 4 August at 11 pm found me in a rainy Ambleside. Slept in the car. I was on a budget, so that saved a night's campsite fee! And, surprisingly, I actually did sleep, curled crookedly on the back seat with a rug over and a window ever-so-slightly open. Early next morning I pitched at the National Trust Campsite in Great Langdale. I was eager for the fells, but wanted something to ease me in gently. Loughrigg seemed ideal - that fine and friendly, knobbly lump of a hill overlooking Ambleside, full of nooks and crannies, ferns, tarns, rocks, caves, marshy bits and magnificent viewpoints. One of Wainwright's favourites. And justifiably popular with everyone else that warm Sunday. I approached Loughrigg Terrace from the western end of Rydal Water. Great views of Grasmere, Helm Crag and Fairfield from the Terrace, raking at a very easy angle across the northern flank before meeting an obvious path on the left which climbed directly to the 335m summit (see 1st photo). Then a lovely, undemanding descent via Brow Head Farm and over the river Rothay to the northern fringe of Ambleside, picking up the track to Rydal Park and Rydal Hall (see 2nd photo) which began at a stone gateway just beyond Scandale Bridge. Rydal Hall and its adjacent buildings now house a Christian Community and Retreat. Formerly this area was of prime importance to the Lakeland poets and their notion of what constituted the picturesque. Close by I located Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's home from 1813 to 1859 (see 3rd photo). From Rydal a path contoured the lower slopes of Loughrigg above Rydal Water, passing 2 caves. These were man-made, part of the Loughrigg slate quarrying enterprise. The higher cave was very impressive. Dripping water and the cries of sand martins echoed spookily; and the spoil heap outside was covered in English stonecrop with its star-shaped white flowers and pink-tinged succulent leaves. Soon I was back at my starting point and contemplating a much bigger and grander walk the next day...