Category Archives: UK September 2012

The sun coming up over the London Eye

September 15 2012

Back in the home of the real Mrs Windsor. Had a spectacular walk along the Thames this morning from the Tower to Big Ben. Gorgeous English sunshine and all of the fit young things out jogging – mine was much more of an English stroll.

The best hotel I have ever stayed at in London and under half the price I have ever paid before. Great location right opposite the Tower. Quite a long drive yesterday. Ran through the spooky streets of St Ives at 5.45am, pitch black and the wind blowing a gale across the headlands where my car was parked. The night before, the headlands were alive with the raucousness of the Merry Wives of Windsor that I thoroughly enjoyed. We booed and hissed, whistled and clapped in the darkness, with the sea swirling below – not sure it was exactly what the Bard of Avon had in mind.

Too many ghosts in St Ives so was totally convinced I was going to be murdered high above the swirling sea as I attempted to leave my gorgeous seaside fishing village. My imagination was working overtime as I jumped at every shadow. I turned out of a steep cobbled stone land and ran straight into a large and burly man. I was convinced that I had met the St Ives version of the ripper at 5.45am but alas it was just the garbo with a big truck collecting St Ives rubbish.

The drive back, whilst long, was so easy. Past Stonehenge and across English green fields to West Sussex to collect Craig. We decided to drive to Highclere (Dowton Abbey) but the damn place was closed for the day. It really didn’t matter though as the villages surrounding were gorgeous and we found a pub for the obligatory bangers and mash.

Left the car at Heathrow and had the 15 minute train ride to central London. There was news on the train of riots in central London at the US embassy so thought it wise to catch a cab rather than brave the underground. I really love English cabbies – they should be running the country – hmm perhaps they do – I am sure lots of politics is discussed, debated and decided in the back of an English cab. Well my cabbie was true to form and I got a 20 minute political speech on everything that was wrong with the Olympics – highly entertaining really.

Well bracing myself for the flight home so plan to spend today visiting my friends the mummies, Victoria and Albert  and proper English shopping at Liberty of London – and yes I might just fit in fish and chips in newspaper at my favourite chippy in the West End.

… and hey Nick  here is Big Ben

Big Ben

Well my drive into the beautiful Cornish fishing village of St Ives deserved the hand full of clotted cream shortbread and buckets of good Yorkshire tea that were consumed after I survived the drive through a village that was never supposed to have cars. OMG what a gorgeous place but OMG the drive in. I arrived into St Ives after a leisurely drive through Cornwall. The GPS took me into the centre of the most gorgeous fishing village that I have ever seen; down tiny cobblestone streets where I was hitting the sides of stone cottages as I was attempting to avoid people wandering up the street – talk about valium inducing road navigation. I couldn’t find Hicks Court where my cottage awaited on the map. Look at the stone arch below where my cottage hides and you might get a feeling for the reason why. I eventually found a carpark and parked the car – I had to sit for 45 minutes on the side of the road waiting for a car to leave the carpark but the view across the Cornish Coast was magnificent. I had to turn on my phone and use GPS to try and find where on earth I was meant to be – still no signal for my cottage but found a street quite close. Imagine sloping streets, brick paving and stone cottages crowded together and you start to get the idea. Well my house is on Hicks Court but I sort of envisaged a real Court not the tiniest little entrance with five cottages crowded in the tiniest area possible.

A short walk to fish and chips consumed on the beach, more buckets of tea and to bed dreaming of pirates, treasure and dented cars scraped against the unforgiving stone of seaside Cornwall.

September 7 2012

Buckfastleigh Devon

I knew that my 5^th great grandmother was born in Exeter in 1752 and was married in Dean Prior Devonshire on the 3^rd of June 1781. My work avoiding ancestry.com habit had led me to the village of Buckfastleigh in search of a mystery. The fascinating Henrietta Harriet, my 3^rd great grandmother had been sentenced at the Old Bailey and had been sent to Van Diemen’s Land as a 17 year old. It is funny isn’t it – anywhere else in the world a relative in prison would be something to hide but I feel so lucky to have such a wonderfully interesting family background. Well Henrietta had a son Henry Goldsmith who married Ellen Hayman in 1875 (my 2^nd great grandmother). Ellen’s family line intrigues me. I wonder whether it is that my wonderful Auntie Nellie (her granddaughter) shared her name and she was such an influential woman in my growing up.

Ellen’s line all come from the small Devon town of Buckfastleigh. The Hayman’s, Lee and Hoare’s seem to go back many generations. Ellen’s father Abraham Hayman– is there a Jewish link? I have a vague memory of Auntie Nellie taking about Barbara Lee (mother of Ellen Hayman). Auntie Nellie’s (and my grandfather Ned) mother was Barbara Lee Goldsmith and I remember her telling me stories of the Lee’s. I was a little girl so my memories are so scant and oh I wish I could remember more.

 I set the GPS and drove to Buckfastleigh. A gorgeous small market town, Buck-tied-fast-in-the leigh, was famous as a wool centre and Axminster factories still produce carpet. The Benedictine Abbey is beautiful and the town itself full of postcard images. I wandered the streets thinking about grandparents past.

As I headed out of town I saw the sign to Dean Prior church and thought I would stop. The beautiful 14^th century church is on the side of the A38 between Exeter and Plymouth. The flag of St George flying from the bell tower and the chickens wandering amongst the gravestones didn’t prepare me for what I would find.

I blindly wandered in past gravestones and stood in a beautiful church imagining my 5^th great grandmother Agnes Hoare being married here in 1781. Was she a blushing 29 year old bride when she married Phillip Lee? She seemed old for a bride of those times and what was her story? A bit surreal to be standing in the same church well over two hundred years later. I sat for a while and wandered out into the spectacular sunshine. Thought I would have a quick look at the graves just outside the church door and found myself surrounded by generations of my family – a tiny graveyard but full of my ancestors; my camera is full of weather beaten gravestones and I can’t wait to while away the hours chasing family that lie beneath the Devon soil.

Donna’s grandmother lived a few minutes walk from my grandma and papa in Victoria Street Eaglehawk and a few minutes drive from Dean Prior I found the village of Ugborough; the site of Donna’s ghosts of past.

Buckfastleigh Devon

Buckfastleigh

Buckfastleigh

The church at Dean Prior

Where my grandmother stood?

Dean Prior graveyard

The village of Ugborough

 

Early morning in Devon

September 7 2012

I am not totally convinced that William Blake ever imagined that a completely off key woman with an Australian drawl would belt out Jerusaleum as she sped down the A14 but it somehow seemed fitting as I drove across England’s green and pleasant land. I am sure he no longer sleeps peacefully in Bunhill Fields as the noise within the car was enough to wake the dead.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountain green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

While I was sure that I was waking the dead, I never imagined that in the next day I would have a surreal brush with ghosts of time past at the beautiful St George Martyr Deans Prior; but more about that later.

As I crossed into Devon the patchwork fields of England were on all sides. The GPS was set to a postcode and the woman talking to me seemed to know where we were going – I had no idea but the scenery was so fantastic I really didn’t care. The English sun was shining, I was on my fiftieth rendition of Blake and the drive was easy. It really is imminently sensible that a small group of numbers will take you directly to someone’s house but the Aussie in me was highly suspicious. As I found myself in a maze of tiny country roads only wide enough for one car my suspicion increased.

Highways in Devon !!

While my singing of Blake’s pride rendering poem really was doubtful my brush with large Devon livestock aka Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee made it clear that I am neither a singer of British Hymns or an Aussie knife wielding croc hunter. Coming face to face with a herd of Devon livestock along the skinniest road I have ever driven along was a slightly oh shit moment – the fact that the cows stood their ground and expected me to back back was made very clear by the look they gave me. When five minutes later a massive piece of machinery came hurtling along the road (read goat track) toward me I realised that my driving skills fitted well with English roads ie I always say I drive better backwards than forwards!

While I knew Ruth lived in a picturesque part of the country, nothing quite prepared me for the sight of her thatched room farmhouse that went back to Domesday times. Parts of the house were quite new (400 years old) but the room that I slept in was much older. The thatch made the house incredibly comfortable but I felt like Hagrid with the tiny doorways and fantastic narrow staircase where I had to grab a rope to swing myself up the tiny winding staircase.

Ruth had her friend Julie visiting from Jerusalem and I feel like I have made a new pal as she regaled me with stories of the City of David – yes I am now desperate to visit Jerusaleum.

We piled into the car and went for dinner (yes into the maze of tiny roads again) to the village of Spreyton for proper English supper at the Uncle Tom Cobley pub. A huge pile of chicken and leek pie, proper chips and of course peas had me groaning as we piled back into the car.

Tom Cobley’s pub Spreyton

One of the farm workers was picking up large round hales and placing them on a machine that wrapped them – he worked late into the night – when the weather is good they work – I went to sleep with the sounds of the farm outside and dreamt of Devonshire defiant cows on narrow country lanes.