Wells next the Sea and Holkham Hall

Sunday morning started with our best breakfast of this adventure. We went to a little cafe in Deep Dale and ate until we almost exploded. Then it was off to Holkham Hall. This amazing 18th century Palladian home has one of the most magnificent grounds we have experienced. There were probably 500 deer within a stones throw of us and as we walked through the woods, another one would seem to pop up. The tour of the house was quite a spectacle. They had an amazing collection of books (20,000) with some dating back to the 12th century. There was a tapestry from Rome from 1BC. Most interesting were the sculptures. In classic fashion, clothing was quite optional so the kids had quite the anatomy lesson. One aspect that had us really intrigued was that as with many places, the family still lives here. In this case, they are probably our age and have 4 children starting at age 2. The old chap is not living the bad life. Their family pictures are all over the house.

From there, we made our way to Wells-next-the-Sea. In Medieval times, the sea was much closer to this village and it was a major port for East Anglia. Now the sea is about a mile away from the village but this is still a popular beach spot. It is most famous for the little beach huts. People were sitting in front of their 6 x 8 foot huts having a nice Sunday afternoon. What was funny is there is basically little to no water. At high tide, the creek is deep enough to navigate and there are some tidal pools but basically there is just sand. The kids loved the dunes and could have stayed all day.

We really needed to move on because our next stop was Baconsthorpe Castle. This is another 16th century moated castle that is now dilapidated. We are realizing that finding off the beaten path type ruins like this is one of our more favorite adventures. In this case, we basically drove through someone's farm and on the back side, was this ruin.

While the second story was not accessible, we realized that with a little rock climbing and a push from dad, the kids could get to the second floor. It was quite amazing and they loved that adventure.

I think what we really love about places like this is that there is a history that is attached to it and mom and dad can dive into the story surrounding the home or castle. In the case of this one, they spent 200 years building the place. It then fell into disrepair. They then turned the outbuildings into a wool factory of sorts until that too fell apart. Someone fixed the gate house up and lived into it until 1920. Then the steeple fell in and the place began to collapse. While we absorb this, the kids explore the nooks and crannies of the place. They'll climb down by the moat or will climb on the walls where a guard might stand.

There were even horses that came to visit us as we were leaving. You can see the gate house in the background.

Of most importance, we were heading home late and hunger kicked in. We decided to stop in Thetford and the first place we saw was McDonald's. We had not been there since August and it was almost October before our first McD's. This even surprised us.

The Owl Barn and Sandringham

We scored the ultimate weekend, thanks to our next door neighbors, Alison and Graham Downing. They have a vacation place that is north of here and the weekend rental fell through and they slipped us the keys. The Owl Barn is excellent. It sits on an 8 acre gated area known as The Grange which is located just outside of Sculthorpe. The plan for the weekend was to enjoy the Northern Norfolk Coast. On our way to the Owl Barn, we decided to drop by to see if the Queen of England might happen to be at one of her many vacation homes. Sandringham was an 18th century Norfolk estate that was picked up by the Prince of Wales in 1862 and it has been in the family ever since. The family will spend Christmas here and Prince Charles comes in July for a week. It is truly amazing. We had quite the tour. John has become infatuated with secret doors in castles and manor houses. He basically waltzes right up to the stewards that are on duty in a room and will ask them if there is a secret door. It is hysterical to see a serious British person crack up. From there, we tend to get quite the personal tour of the room. It actually works in our favor and I think we are seeing things that others don't get to experience. When they showed us where the Queen watches TV, that was a treat. We got to see where they put the Christmas tree and the lady even showed us the mark on the ceiling where the tree scratched a hole because it was too tall. The stable has been turned into a museum and that was quite a treat. This is truly an amazing estate. People come to spend sunny afternoons on the grounds. It is basically a park for the locals.

Grimes Graves, Oxburgh Hall, Weeting Castle

After our morning in Newmarket, we set out for Thetford Forest in search of Grimes Graves. This is the site of 5000 year old neolithic flint mines. The earth is riddled with the craters that are the remains of what was over 400 mines. It is quite amazing to see 7 acre site with all the dips. To date, they have excavated 28 mines and there is one that we are able to explore. You basically strap on a hard helmet and climb almost 30 feet down this ladder into this mine. To give a framework, this is approximately the time when Stonehenge was created and it is thought that flint tools (like the ones from this mine) were used for this type of activity. What is also interesting is that the parks person took a fancy to us and started telling us other stories about the area. He shared that that the farm land in this area was pretty poor and it was a group from around this area that set off in a ship to escape religious persecution. While I have just spent the last hour doing the google and wiki dance, I can get a firm confirmation. For the sake of the weekend, I am going to go with the story that some of the Mayflower passengers were from this area.

We then headed off to a pub for a quick lunch. Most everyone else was having a lazy afternoon drinking some beer and having a laugh. In classic American style, we chowed down on our sandwiches and headed off to our next site. Oxburgh Hall is a 500 year old Victorian house where Mary, Queen of Scots, was held for a period of time. What is most interesting is that the house is still owned by the descendants of the original builders and they still live in the house.

The favorite spot in the house was the Priests Hole. We had to climb through a brick trapdoor and slide through a chute. This is where the family hid the catholic priest in the event of a raid. The tapestries were amazing and this home even had a moat.

The last major find for the day was Weeting Castle. This was from the 12th century and it was thought to be abandon in 1390. It was actually a manor house and it sits off the road in the middle of this big field behind a church. You can see the outline of the moat and kids loved jumping into it. We were pretty done by this time and the light was fading fast. We did a quick run past Lakenheath Air force base (it reminded us of our visit to Germany to see the Crawfords) and then we headed back to the Old Pump House.

Saturday Morning in Newmarket

Saturday was another nice day in the UK. The weather was fabulous. I'll break today into two posts since this was one of those days when the Griswolds covered a lot of ground (you'll need to know Chevy Chase for the reference). We decided to experience a Saturday morning in Newmarket. This is about 3 miles from our village and is our link with the commercial world. We thought that we would give you a snapshot of a Saturday morning.

We started with a drive to the Gallops or the Heath. This is where the jockeys from all around town will bring the thoroughbreds to exercise. Every day starting at 6:30 or so, they start to arrive to train. I would guess there were 75 horses there this morning.

Then it was on to breakfast at the Clocktower Cafe. The clock tower is across the street from the Heath and is at the top of High Street in Newmarket. Basically, this is the major intersection in town. If you look closely at the picture on the left, you can see us at the table with the green umbrella. This is where we ate breakfast. You can see from the picture on the right that Newmarket is hopping on Saturday mornings. Tuesdays and Saturdays are market days with Saturday being the biggest. While this looks packed, this main section of High Street is a couple of blocks long. It just so happens that every single car from miles around just happened by this morning. I'll close this chapter and will share our adventure on the next post.

One final thought for the morning.

We had this reminder that it is autumn (no one here says Fall and they correct me every time I say it) and there is nothing like seeing a big straw truck trying to make it's way through the chaos of Saturday in Newmarket.

Church in the Village & Spanish Lunch

Today we decided to visit St. Mary's Church in the village. It is located on High street and is up the hill from both the school and the town park. It is a nice 15 minute walk up the hill from our house.

For the record, it is 600 years old and is affiliated with the Church of England. There is beautiful woodwork and the ceiling is impressive. It is simple compared to what one might see in some churches but is amazing when one thinks of the history.

We walked in the door and one of John's teachers was standing there. She immediately came and got John and gave him a job that was part of the service to give thanks for the First Harvest. He had to carry a vegetable to the priest during part of the service. We met a lady there today that was married in the church. Her daughter was married there and she hopes that her grand daughter will as well. What was really notable was that her mother was married in the church which would have been 80 or 90 years ago. There was a infant baptism with a family that Vivian knows from school.

After lunch, we headed towards Cambridge for lunch with the head of operations for PPD in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa). What was interesting was that they promised us a traditional Spanish lunch (they moved from Spain to the US about the time we moved to Wilmington and they moved to London about a year and a half ago and settled outside of Cambridge three months ago). We had paella that was cooked in a pan that had to be almost 3 feet across. Sebastian cooked it on his stove and had all the eyes burning. Traditionally, it is cooked on a open coal fire outside and he actually has a special gas burner that he normally cooks it on. They have three kids that are 12, 8, and 7 so they matched up with our kids very well. It was a very nice way to spend the afternoon and it was an interesting cultural experience.

Afterwards, the kids came home and took a dive into our hot tub with the kids next door and then it was off to bed to rest up for week three of school.

Warwick Castle

Early Saturday morning, we are setting out for Warwick Castle. This is rated the best castle experience in England. We are meeting up with our friends, the Gibsons. We pack our lunch and load into the car. Estimated drive time is a little over an hour and a half. We program the Sat Nav (GPS to us Americans) and we are off. Two hours later, we have officially voted to send the Sat Nav lady to the dungeons of Warwick. She took us through every small town and every round-a-bout between The Old Pump House and Warwick. We park and the true adventure begins.

Upon first sight, it is an amazing castle. It technically dates back to AD914 with the first true remnants of the castle dating to AD1070. What is exceptional about the experience is that there were live character actors in full gear. We talked to the longbows man. He was quite impressive and was quite a shot. We saw a falconer which was impressive. The most interesting was the Trebuchet which is basically a large catapult. It was an amazing feat of engineering and we saw them shoot it twice. The ghost walk was something that Marshall, Maggie, and Marshall Jr. did. By the second room, Maggie was shaking and could not stop. She was a sport and survived but I fully expected to have a middle of the night visitor as it was quite scary. I'll say that even dad jumped a bit.

After some icecream, we headed into the town of Warwick which was excellent. The old church was quite impressive and the Earls of Warwick were laid to rest in this church. Dinner was an adventure with 5 tired kids but we somehow survived.

I'll link the rest in and will include some pictures.

http://www.warwick-castle.co.uk/plan_your_day/explore_the_castle.asp

London

Today was our first jaunt into London. It was a great day. We hopped the train into town and then caught the tube to the National History Museum. This is basically their Smithsonian and I hate to say, they may have us licked. The dinosaur fossil collection is breathtaking and the life sized animatronic T-rex was quite the kicker. We took a stroll through Hyde Park and made our way to Kensington Palace. While we were there, we saw a helicopter land and we are pretending that it was Prince Charles. Who knows who it really was but we are going to stick with that story. Then if was off to the Princes Diana's playground which was awesome. The kids appreciated that break. From there, we headed to Waterloo station which is where the London Eye is located. It was so overcast, we didn't ride but the waterfront at the Thames is always entertaining. There are street entertainers that we really enjoyed. The kids were excited to see Big Ben but then decided it wasn't as big as they thought it would be.

Then we made our way to Parliament and past Westminster Abbey and spent some time at the Horseguards. It was quite the day when we didn't leave the house till 10:30 AM and we were back at 21:00 (9:00 if you are not little John). We realized how nice it is going to be to do things like this on the fly.

British Schools

It's back to school and we will be wearing uniforms. Maggie and John will attend Cheveley Primary school and will walk to school. Maggie is in Year 6, the oldest class at the school. John is in Year 2.

Marshall will attend Bottisham Village College and will ride the bus, which picks up across the street from our home. He is in Year 9 based on his age, which is higher than he was in the States. Marshall has a 2 week rotation of classes which include English, Mathematics, Literacy, French, RE (Religious Education), Citizenship, Art, Technology (textiles), Drama, P.E. (Rugby and acrobatics), Music, Geography, Science and History. He is not likely to get bored with his classes because of so much variety.