Keir says "abolish the House of Lords". I say "yes, please"!

I have been a lifelong republican and have always believed staunchly that the House of Lords (and the monarchy, for that matter) is incompatible with an elective democracy in the 21st Century. So, with this in mind, I was more than a little interested in a recent statement by Keir Starmer.

He has promised that if Labour wins the next General Election, the new government will abolish the House of Lords. To be more accurate, that should read, the Labour party has promised yet again to abolish the House of Lords. The abolition of the unelected upper chamber has been Labour policy since the party was first founded but it hasn't happened yet. The first attempt to make the upper chamber democratic was in 1911 when the Liberal Government of the day introduced the Parliament Act which promised, amongst other things : “whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists, a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation.”

This Act did curtail the powers of the Lords, which at the time was entirely hereditary in its composition and deeply reactionary in its views. The Act removed the ability of the Lords to veto the budget and the House of Commons was also given the power to overrule the Lords’ veto of other bills after three parliamentary sessions. In 1917 the Bryce Commission was set up to consider further proposals to reform the Lords. However the commission’s recommendations were rejected by a vote in the House of Lords and the matter was dropped until after WW2. Labour’s Parliament Act of 1949, amended the 1911 Act, reducing the time the Lords could delay a bill from two sessions to one. This was done in order to prevent the Lords from derailing the Labour Government’s plans for the sweeping nationalisation of strategic industries, such as the railways, coal, and steel, and the introduction of the Welfare State.

Further tinkering came in 1958 with the Life Peerages Act which created a new class of peerage: those who were appointed for life and held full voting rights in the Lords, but whose peerages were not hereditary. Since 1965, almost all new peerages have been life peerages, with the notable exception of the hereditary baronetcy conferred by Margaret Thatcher upon her husband Denis in 1990, which passed to their son, Mark, upon Denis Thatcher’s death in 2003. Mark Thatcher continues to hold the peerage and entitlement to a seat in the Lords despite being involved in numerous controversies and allegations of corrupt business dealings, and being convicted, fined, and given a four year suspended prison sentence in South Africa for funding the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d’état attempt. He is barred from entry to the USA and deprived of residency in Monaco as an ‘undesirable’ but he still has the right to influence British laws and legislation.

There were further abortive attempts at reform of the Lords in the 1960s. In 1968 Harold Wilson’s Labour government published a White Paper proposing some fairly anodyne measures that would tinker with the composition of the Lords. Perhaps the most significant of these was that the sitting government of the day would gain the right to appoint sufficient life peers to ensure that it had a majority in the Lords. This was to counter the in-built Conservative majority in the Lords created by the hereditary peers who numerically dominated in the chamber. Hereditary peers who were currently members of the Lords would have remained as non-voting members for life, but their heirs would not succeed to their seats. Although scarcely earth-shattering, these proposals died a death as Wilson announced in April 1969 that his government would not proceed with the bill.

The matter was left to lie again, although there was mounting concern throughout the Thatcher era about the advantages granted to the Conservatives by an upper House composed primarily of hereditary Conservative peers. In the 1997 General Election, the Labour Party under Tony Blair had a manifesto commitment to radical reform of the Lords. The manifest declared: “The House of Lords must be reformed. As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute.”

Many believed, and were not corrected by the Labour Party in their belief, that Labour would move immediately to abolish the hereditary nature of the Lords and would then introduce proposals to make the upper chamber elected. Labour promised to establish a Royal Commission to examine further reform. Blair’s government passed the House of Lords Act 1999 which created a majority of appointed Peers in the Lords with a remaining group of 92 hereditary peers who were supposed to retain their voting rights only until the second phase of reform was complete. These 92 were elected from within those who had a right to be members of the House of Lords as a result of their hereditary status. The government asserted that this arrangement was to be purely temporary until the second stage of reform was completed. 23 years later they are still there.

However Labour soon backtracked on proposals for an elected upper chamber. By 2003 Blair was speaking in favour of a fully appointed Upper House and plans to make the Lords an elected chamber were quietly dropped. The attraction of life peerages to a Prime Minister are obvious. They are the crack cocaine of political patronage, permitting Prime Ministers to reward their cronies and toadies. Peerages are doled out to party donors, superannuated politicians, and as a reward for failure in public office. It is a system which reeks of corruption and which has led to an ever more bloated House of Lords, stuffed to the gills with political lightweights, many of whom rarely bother to show up.

Although it’s now being reported as definite that Starmer wants to abolish life peerages and the remaining hereditary peers and replace them with a fully elected upper chamber, that is not, in fact, what Labour is proposing. Rather, what we are getting is yet another promise to ‘reform the Lords’. All that Labour is promising is a plan to hold a ‘consultation’ on what a reformed new chamber might look like, and a promise to ‘reform’ the current appointments process.

I've heard all this before and have a sneaky suspicion that it’s just more of the same old waffle, which will lead to an upper chamber which serves the interests of the British political establishment and not the people. Same as it ever was, unfortunately. But I stand to be corrected. Prove me wrong, Keir, prove me wrong.

Sojourn in Wiltshire October 2022: Part 4

To Wimborne/Wimborne Minster for lunch with Cousin Anne. Not a place we visit very often and the first time I was there was around 1955 when my family stayed with Aunty Hazel and Uncle Bob in Poole. Probably the event that everyone would remember is going to Wimborne Miniature Village (and it's exactly that - Wimborne in miniature) and my brother, aged three-ish, sitting on the roof of a shop and putting his foot through the front window. My mother was mortified. My father was somewhere with the Royal Marines and missed the fun. Anyway, enough of the nostalgia and back to the day: whilst Mrs P and her cousin hit what passed for the shopping centre, I wandered around in a random fashion, as was my want.

Wimborne was an old Saxon settlement and the foundation of the Wimborne Minster dates back to the beginning of the 8th century, when the sisters of the King of the West Saxons endowed a monastery here. Apparently this was a foundation for both sexes. The present Minster, with its twin towers, dates back to the 12th century. One interesting fact about the Minster is that in 1318 Edward II made it a 'Royal Peculiar', that is, it answered directly to the monarch, not to the diocese. It shared this 'peculiar' status with such important churches as St George's Chapel at Windsor, and Westminster Abbey. The royal peculiar status was revoked in 1846. It's unusual to see a church with two towers and I'm not sure it's a good look.

Looking towards the font (presumed Norman but not really known) underneath the west tower.

The famous Wimborne Astronomical clock dates back to the early fourteenth century, possibly around 1320. It might have been built by Peter Lightfoot, a Glastonbury monk. The clock's case was built in the Elizabethan era, but the face and dial are much greater older; the first documents relating to the clock concern repairs carried out in 1409.  The clock has a blue-green image of the Earth in the centre, the Sun rotating in the outer blue ring, and the Moon in the inner starred ring.

An impressive array of original decorated Norman arches in the nave.

Rather hidden in a corner of the Vestry is what I, and others, think is the gem of the Minster. Up a narrow spiral stairway, you can climb to find what has been described as 'one of the rarest intellectual corners in England'. It is one of the largest chained libraries in the country, and, more than that, it could be regarded as the pioneer of free libraries. For 300 years before public libraries were dreamed of, a worthy minister of Wimborne, William Stone, gave his own library to this place for the free use of local residents for ever. Every book was secured by a chain and padlock, and the old chains remain, though the rods are new. There are more than 200 volumes, the oldest of all a vellum manuscript in Latin with illuminated initials written about 600 years ago.
These books were not originally chained, as only people working in the church were able to read them. But in 1695 a Middle Temple lawyer called Roger Gillingham came up with the idea of attaching each book in the library to a chain so that local shopkeepers or the ‘better class of person’, would be able to study and perhaps make a better life for themselves by having access to a free library.

For me, the peculiarity of the Chained Library was the copy, all six volumes of it, of Brian Walton's polygott bible. Polyglots were used for studying the history of the biblical text and its interpretation.  Apparently, the earliest known biblical Polyglot contained six variants and was compiled by Origen around the second century. Issued in six volumes between 1654 and 1657, the Walton Polyglot comprises nine languages, which are- Hebrew, Greek, Samaritan, Aramaic, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Persian. Unsurprisingly the Polyglot was not the sole work of Walton and he engaged a team of erudite contemporary scholars to aid him in his task. Considered as the last and most scholarly ever printed, the Walton Polyglot was the second book in England to be published by subscription. Walton managed to raise ₤9000 for its production by asking for down-payments of ₤10 per set. The Polyglot was originally dedicated to Oliver Cromwell, but since he died during printing, it was subsequently dedicated to King Charles II. Copies including the “republican” and the “royal” prefaces survive. Wimborne has the "republican" version.

 The stained glass window in the Trinity Chapel. Although the tracery is probably from 1300-1350, most of the stained glass generally is mid 19th Century as the original glass had been neglected and was falling apart. A major restoration of the church took place in the 1850's and the glass dates from then.

Looking east down the nave towards the altar. The Norman vaulted arches lead the eye towards the focal point of the altar. An interesting church to visit and there's a lot more to see that requires more than the rather cursory hour I gave it. 

A walk around Gunnislake

Billed as a shorter walk than usual, this one turned out to be around 5.7 miles so not that much shorter. But it started just 3 miles from home and that was an advantage.

We started and ended at Gunnislake station. It was quite a simple route - we dropped steeply down to the River Tamar, walked upstream for a mile or so and then climbed our way back ti the station. Take a look at the elevation profile: the second half was quite strenuous. And, despite the rather dire forecast, the weather was not too bad. Which was a shame in a way as I had assumed it was going to be wet and didn't bring my 'proper' camera. But the one on my mobile phone did an acceptable job. 

A glimpse over a fence. An outdoor shower and loo. Some would say "only in Gunnislake".

Down by the river, entering the territory of King Neptune.

A damp spot for our mandatory coffee/tea stop. I read afterwards that the river had breached its bank at around this location and the path was flooded.

A new, to us, footpath along the river. Lots of mud!

And more mud along this stretch as well. In fact, the only mudless parts were those along the lanes.

The greens of the moss (moss, moss, everywhere moss) were a dominant feature of the undergrowth.

Lurking amongst the trees, were the remains of the Clitters Mine. An amazing place extending from the river bank right up the hillside, which was very steep at this point.

Slogging our way up the track to gain some height. It was steep.

More mining remains. These looked more precarious than what is the norm for buildings of this vintage. Jump forward five years and they may be reduced to romantic ruins.

A footpath of slabs alongside a stream. Water, water everywhere and we are still officially in a drought situation. Because, despite all of the rain, some of our reservoirs are still critically low.

Autumn. And some running water.

Admit it. It's Brexit.

In an interview with the BBC last Friday, the Chancellor-for-the-time-being (a qualification which probably needs to be added to the titles of every Conservative cabinet minister), was asked why it is that the UK is the only G7 state whose economy is contracting even though all the others are also facing the same pressures resulting from the war in Ukraine, the global rise in energy prices, and the recovery from the pandemic. There is only one event which has negatively affected the UK’s ability to trade with its neighbours and recruit the labour it needs which has not been the same issue for the other members of the G7. We all know what that is. Yet Hunt danced around the question trying desperately to maintain the fiction that other countries were being affected just as badly when the UK is the only member of the G7 reporting negative growth.

That was because it would be politically suicidal for a leading member of the party which has so firmly nailed its colours to the mast of right wing Anglo-British nationalist exceptionalism to admit what we all already know is the real reason why the UK is performing so poorly and has, uniquely amongst the G7 members, failed to regrow its economy to the size it was before the pandemic began. But you know it, I know it, even the craven and self-serving Jeremy Hunt knows it too. He just can’t say it out loud and the right wing British press will certainly not force the issue and demand an answer. It’s Brexit, stupid. Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster with no redeeming features.

For Hunt to ignore the malign effects of Brexit on the economy as he is days away from announcing a package of tax rises and cuts to public spending and services is not just insane, it’s totally irresponsible. It’s the Conservative party putting its short term party political needs before the public good – again. If Hunt refuses to acknowledge the blindingly obvious harm Brexit is inflicting on the UK economy there can be no hope of repairing the damage. Instead we are all stuck in the Tory game of make believe, pretending  all is an English rose in the Brexit ga

Now the UK is aboutto enter a Brexit enhanced recession. You can call it what you like, you can waffle on about Putin and Covid as much as you like, but you can’t get away from the fact that it’s a Brexit enhanced recession. Brexit supporters can whine about it all they want, but this is the Brexit they voted for. After you have voted to kneecap yourself you don’t get to complain that you didn’t vote for being left unable to walk.

Sadly, the denialism from the Labour party is just as pathetic as it denigrates itself in pursuit of Brexit supporting constituencies in the north of England. It’s very cosy for them to blame the impending cuts to public services and the UK’s shrinking economy on “12 years of low growth from this Conservative government”. But there is one Conservative policy above all which is responsible for the current economic malaise of the UK, and it’s a Conservative policy which the Labour party has fully signed up to. The self censorship from Labour is absurd and insults all our intelligence. They also know it is Brexit, but they are too cowardly to say so even though opinion polling collated by the National Centre for Social Research shows that 60% of people in the UK now think that it was a mistake to leave the European Union.

The question is – are any British politicians bold and honest enough to grab the Brexit bullshit by the horns and do something about it? Sadly we know that they won’t, they will continue to pander to English nationalist exceptionalism and the deluded Anglo-British nationalist belief that the world looks up to England with a mixture of jealousy, admiration and awe. The reality is that, following Brexit, the rest of the world looks on England with a mixture of perplexity, pity and amused contempt.

Sadly for England, the best it can now plausibly hope for is to crawl back into the Customs Union and Single Market with its tail between its legs, and not be permitted any role in determining the rules and regulations. Unfortunately, both Labour and the Conservatives would prefer to continue to manage the harm and damage of Brexit rather than deal such a catastrophic, and potentially fatal blow to the fragile ego of English exceptionalism.,

Obviously anecdotal evidence must be treated with immense caution but the chatter from EU countries, without exception, says that England, and they are careful to specify that they mean England and not Scotland or Wales, would not be quickly or easily welcomed back into the EU.

Quite simply they do not trust England to be a team player. During its time as an EU member the UK was frequently obstructionist and often demanded special treatment. Then, after the Brexit vote, the UK blew away what little remained of any residual goodwill towards it on the part of other EU member states with the petulant and duplicitous manner in which the British Government negotiated Brexit. The most widespread attitude in Europe now is relief that English nationalism and its special pleading, its arrogance and its delusions of grandeur are no longer the EU’s problem. They are not going to rush to put out the Bienvenue mat if the UK changes its mind and decides that it needs to get back into the EU.

Next time round there will be no special treatment for the UK, no opt outs on the Euro or the Schengen area, no special rebates or exemptions. As far as the EU is concerned, it will be Brussels’ way or the highway for the UK. As the saying goes, what goes around, comes around.

Sojourn in Wiltshire October 2022: Part 3

Our stay continued with a trip that took in Wilton House and Salisbury Cathedral. And a day with very little rain. Hooray.

Wilton House in Wilton. Photography inside was not allowed but it was another place replete with portraits and lots of marble statues stolen from Italy and Greece, but they didn't admit to that. Seriously though, the roll call of the artists was impressive - Rembrandt, Reynolds, Bruegel etc. Wilton House itself is Elizabethan in origin but has been much modified since then, It has been the seat of the Pembroke family for over 400 years and you might have seen parts of it featured in The Crown, Bridgeton, Young Victoria and all sorts of costume dramas. Photographs of the present Earl and Countess of Pembroke suggest that they would not be out of place in any of the TV series.

Every stately home has a stately estate and Wilton is no exception. Lots of nice colour and shape in the trees.

I've got a couple of special connections with Salisbury Cathedral - it was the very first English cathedral I visited (in 1967) and we took part in the Morning Service there the day after we got married in 1970.

The (insert superlative here) vaulted ceiling/roof of the cathedral nave. I'm in awe of the skills employed to build structures such as these.

In the centre of the nave is this rather magnificent water sculpture font by William Pye. When it was installed in 2008, it was nicknamed by some as the 'funky font'. The reflections of the cathedral roof and windows in the surface of the water are unique.

The Salisbury Cathedral clock is a large iron-framed tower clock without a dial, it was previously in a bell tower which was demolished in 1790. Thought to date from about 1386, it is a well-preserved example of the earliest type of mechanical clock and is said to be the oldest working clock in the world, although it has to be said that similar claims are made for other clocks. How times have changed. My Casio F-91W does exactly the same thing and is much easier to lug around.

This Memorial Window in the North Nave Aisle was presented to the Cathedral by the City of Salisbury Council after the Second World War. The window was designed and created by Christopher Webb to acknowledge the local members of the three Services who lost their lives and are depicted in the shadowing wings of the angel Gabriel. It also acknowledges the tremendous effort of those who served on the Home front, namely, in the left hand lancet, the National Fire Service, Home Guard and Air Raid Precautions. In the right hand lancet, the Women’s Royal Naval Service, the Land Army, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, and the Women’s Royal Air Force. Unfortunately several Units such as the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry were omitted. The cathedral's glazier at the time, Trevor Wiffen, decided to rectify this and added the National Farmers Union, as well as the Nursing Services (The Florence Nightingale medal surrounded by the General Nursing Council, Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service, Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, and the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service) which he sited prominently in the Chapter House.  

The dedication inscription at the bottom of the memorial window. The window itself can be very easily 'read' as the images are very clear and and decipherable. No doubt, however, future generations will need help in their interpretation.

I took this memorial plaque very personally as my dad was there.

Looking through the choir stalls towards the nave and the west end of the cathedral. We were able to sit in these during Choral Evensong.

The 'Prisoners of conscience window' in the Trinity Chapel at the eastern end of the cathedral. It was designed by the French artist Gabriel Loire and installed in 1980. Of the five lights or lancets, the one on the right represents modern prisoners of conscience who suffered from self questioning and solitude, whereas the one on the left represents those who were certain. The three central lancets depict Jesus Christ as a prisoner of conscience, with the trial by Pontius Pilate at left, mocked by soldiers with a crown of thorns at right, and the crucifixion in centre, with Mary at Christ's feet. The general appearance of the window is blue, and I have to say that, even when looking at it close up, it is extremely hard to discern the imagery and the depictions the artist intended.

You can get more information from looking at the interpretive board close to the window.

The octagonal Chapter House is where the Magna Carta can be found. With its vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows, it really is one of the jewels in the cathedral's crown. Chapter houses themselves were used for meetings, called chapters, to conduct the business affairs of a monastery or cathedral and to deal with matters for which the body of the church itself would not be appropriate. I would imagine it would be an ideal place to just sit and ponder in silence, if only the hordes could be kept away!

And this is it - one of the original copies of the Magna Carta. I/We didn't appreciate that it was so small. It's probably between A3 and A4 in size, written in Latin on velum. There are only four original copies remaining, two are kept in the British Library (one of which was badly damaged by fire in 1731), this one in Salisbury cathedral and one in Lincoln Castle. We've visited the latter but I don't recall seeing the Magna Carta there. Maybe we were distracted by calling our son on his birthday whilst he was visiting Israel.

The rather splendid arcaded and ornate cloisters are the largest in England but were not part of the original design of the cathedral. they were added in the late 13th century as a purely decorative feature, with shapes, patterns, and materials that copy those of the cathedral interior.

The choir that sang at the Choral Evensong we attended was a visiting group from the Netherlands, the Canticum Amicorum. And very good they were too. They sang as one voice and the acoustics of the cathedral really amplified the sound. Eat your heart out, Graham Kendrick. Proper music.

The nave at night, with the funky font in the foreground.

Another side of our holiday

The other week while in Salisbury on holiday, there was a disabled man begging and then, not even a hundred yards further on, there was another cold and forlorn person, a young man looking far older than his years, sitting on the wet street outside a shop, with only a tattered scrap of cardboard to protect him from the elements. It’s a scene that has become commonplace these days – I was about to write has ‘sadly become commonplace’ – but that’s the wrong word. ‘Sadly’ implies that there is a tragic inevitability to destitute people, begging for a few coins from passers by to help them get through the day, but there is nothing inevitable about it. These scenes are a product of decisions taken by politicians. Decisions which have put decent and affordable housing beyond the reach of many. Decisions which have shredded what was once the safety net of the social security system and left it so tattered and threadbare that falling through the net is now the norm rather than the exception.

So the correct phrase is not ‘sadly comonplace’, the correct phrase is ‘criminally commonplace’. Homelessness on such an appalling scale exists because the Conservatives in Westminster have systematically destroyed the stock of social housing by allowing it to be sold off. Many former local authority properties are now in the hands of private landlords who charge rents far higher than the local authorities or housing associations once did. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have encouraged home owners to view their homes more as an investment than as a place to live, and house prices have soared, meaning that getting onto the property ladder is now impossible for many young people unless they are fortunate enough to have parents who are wealthy enough to give them considerable financial assistance, and the social inequalities which blight Britain, already amongst the greatest in Europe, are perpetuated for another generation.

It’s not just an epidemic of homelessness, food banks have sprung up all over the UK. I am old enough to remember when they were unheard of. The first time I became aware of the existence of such a thing was on my first trip to the USA in 1976, before Thatcher’s malignities had truly started to bite back home. I heard of a food bank in the part of America where I was staying and was appalled that in such a wealthy country people should have to resort to charity in order to put food on the table. In my youthful naivety, I was thankful that I came from a country where such a thing was unnecessary, where the needs of fellow citizens were valued enough that they could be certain that they’d have a roof over their heads and food on the table.

That was then, this is now. Food banks have crept in to the UK too. First as an extra top up, then as a vital part of a system that the Conservatives have rebranded from social security – a right – to welfare – a privilege, and moreover a privilege that can easily be taken away. Just like young people and disabled people begging on the streets, what was once unthinkable in its awfulness, has now been normalised. Now we are talking about warmth banks, places where people who cannot afford to heat their homes can go in order to keep warm, and this in a country which professes to be compassionate. This descent into public cruelty and callousness combined with a worship of private greed has been achieved by successive Conservative governments, none of which were voted for by a majority of people in the UK. The current unelected Prime Minister enjoys his power on the back of an eighty seat majority in the Commons won by his party on less than a third of the available vote. This majority doesn’t mean the Conservatives have won the argument, it just means they’ve won the inadequate first-past-the-post system we have.

It’s a system which the Labour party will not change, even if the polls are correct and it wins its own unfairly large majority the next time around, as Labour is as much in thrall to the drug of absolute power as the Conservatives are. Yet in order to attain that majority, they must ape the Tories, promising the same vile policies, just with a sad face emoji. And then the electorate in England will eventually tire of the Labour party and turn once again to the anglo-exceptionalist posturing of a Tory party that now occupies the same political space as Ukip did, and which by the election after the next could very well have moved even further to the right and the whole miserable cycle descends another turn into hellscape.

The Conservatives may currently be facing electoral defeat, but they will do all they can to claw back support. They are likely to do so by doubling down on their talk of a “refugee crisis” and by further demonising those desperate souls who brave the dangerous waters of the English Channel.

The UK does not have a refugee crisis. There is no such thing as an ‘illegal’ or ‘bogus’ asylum seeker. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that has signed the 1951 Convention and to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim. The UK wants to breach the Convention by sending them on a one way ticket to Rwanda. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Poland, and several other European countries all host more refugees per capita than the UK.

What the UK has is not a refugee crisis as such, it’s a crisis of scaremongering right wing politicians who are enabled by a right wing press. The same bunch who brought us Brexit. Things in Britain don’t look like they are going to become any kinder or gentler any time soon. The UK is very firmly on a trajectory to more cruelty, more demonisation of the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable. God help us all. And a pox on the lot of them. Not in my name.

Sojourn in Wiltshire October 2022: Part 2

A visit to Stourhead, known more for its landscaped gardens than for its house. And, after our visit, we thought "deservedly so". Visit the house by all means but go for the gardens and the wider estate.

Stourhead is a large country house in the Palladian style - all columns and symmetry. It was finished in 1725 and had taken four years to build. Today it's full of portraits of people I've mostly never heard of and/or, quite honestly, had little interest in. Lots of money spent buying pictures whilst the peasants outside had the scraps off their table. Nowadays it's called 'trickle down'. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now.

A fairly typical landscaped vista from the front of the house. Designed to provide an impressive entrance for visitors and a lot of what was done was done with impressing visitors in mind. All that's missing are a few peasants to add a little perspective to the rural idyll.

And now to the real reason for visiting Stourhead - the gardens. I think we hit it at about the right time for leaf colour. The estate is around 2500 acres. At various vantage points on the walk around the gardens are a number of ornate buildings, which are for ornament rather than function. Although providing a focus for walking and picnicking is a function in itself, I suppose.

One of the largest trees on the estate - a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). It's 150 feet (45.5 m) tall and has a girth of 23 feet (7 m) at 5 foot from the ground. To state the obvious, it's an impressive tree. It never ceases to amaze me what a diet of carbon dioxide, water, light and a few minerals can lead to.

There are a series of three interconnecting lakes in the gardens (or park) at Stourhead, fed by the nascent River Stour (which, coincidentally flows into the English Channel at Christchurch where we were a couple of months ago. Who knew?). The circular walk around the largest of the lakes is just over a mile long and is a not-particularly arduous, but spectacular, stroll.

A nice bit of Autumnal colour.

The bridge doing what it was designed for - adding an attractive vista - with the iconic pantheon on the other side of the lake.

The church of St Peter stands immediately outside Stourhead Gardens and is well worth popping into at the end of your walk. The earliest record of a church here dates from 1291, and it seems likely that the north nave arcade and tower date from that time. Since then there have been a number of additions and alterations, most 'recently' by the Victorians. Above is a rather fine stained glass window in the west wall dedicated to a past rector, John Drake.

Looking down the main aisle towards the altar.

When I first saw this monument near the church, I thought it was a relatively modern folly, in the mould of the Scott Memorial in Edinburgh. But it is the ‘real thing’, a medieval cross. In the 1700’s such relics of the past were considered old-fashioned and valueless; in the case of the Bristol High Cross, it was deemed a nuisance since it was blocking the growing traffic in the town centre of Bristol. Hence, after many complaints, it was dismantled, re-erected on the green by Bristol Cathedral, then taken down again and left in a sorry, discarded pile. Fortunately, Stourhead’s owner, Henry Hoare, saw the ruined cross, decided to rescue it and duly rebuilt it in Wiltshire.

An exterior view of St Peters. It's worth visiting and I found it more interesting than the Palladian nonentity up the hill. I wonder how many visitors to Stourhead feel the same?