A visit to Ashton Court Mansion

In a recent blog, I recounted a visit to Ashton Court and remarked that despite being a local, I'd never been inside the mansion belonging to the estate. And because this was a situation that clearly needed remedying, I looked up the Friends of Ashton Court Facebook page and discovered there was to be a tour just three weeks later, so I booked myself on it.

There's been a dwelling on the site of the mansion since Saxon times. (We know this because one's mentioned in the Domesday book.) 

The current building boasts features in a hodge-podge of architectural styles, including Gothic, Tudor, Italian Renaissance, English Renaissance, Strawberry Hill Gothic Revival, Victorian, mock Mediaeval, etc. 

The current facade has a good stab at Classicism.  

Fireplace in the Great Hall

Although it's actually in North Somerset, Bristol City Council bought the estate in 1959, when the house had already been unoccupied for some time and was starting to decay. There's never been enough money to make the necessary repairs, with the result that it's now one of very few properties in the country that are Grade I listed and also on Historic England's 'Heritage at Risk' register. (The repair bill would probably come to about £80m.)

The former Winter Gardens, now a spectacularly gloomy bar

The Music Room ... 

... with its beautiful fireplaces

Visitors are no longer permitted to go on a full, free-ranging tour of the upper floor because the ceiling is falling down in places, but if you don a hard hat, you're allowed to go up the grand Victorian staircase and have a peek.

To one side of the staircase, you can just glimpse the original stone stairs underneath.

A Tudor door

The service corridor

Another Tudor door leading into the Tudor Room

Workmen in the 1960s were instructed to remove the panelling. It was stacked against the walls and now it would be too warped to reinstate, even if the walls were in a fit state.

It's a shame to see the house in such a state. It belongs to the citizens of Bristol, and would make be a fantastic community space for the arts, something for which part of the ground floor is already being used. And since, like all the big houses around Bristol, it benefitted, at least indirectly, from an influx of tainted money, it would be a good location for a much-needed Museum of Slavery too. 

Wandering back to the top car park, I was stunned by celandines. Field of the Cloth of Gold. 

A pear tree

Sweet chestnuts

Forever Imber

Yesterday was Son the Younger's birthday and we finally got to visit a place that had eluded us for years, which was exciting. First stop, though, the Boot Inn in Berwick St James, seven miles north-west of Salisbury for lunch. 

Because my daughter Jenny and her partner Alex had been held up in traffic near Woking, the rest of us had half an hour to spare so I nipped along the road to St James Church, an ancient flint and limestone building near a chalkstream, all of which speaks far more of the South of England than the West Country.

I've visited a few country churches during the pandemic but not so many that it doesn't feel like a novelty. This one has a 12th century Norman doorway ...  

... a 12th century font ... 

... and a 15th century stone pulpit, a rare survival from before the Reformation.

The Ukrainian flag

Graffiti 

Standing stones believed to have been removed from Stonehenge in the 17th century, where they functioned as an altar stone, to be used to build a bridge

After lunch we drove on to our destination, the remote 'ghost' village of Imber. 

The village gets a mention in the Domesday Book, and in fact dates back to at least 967 AD, but in 1943, its population of 150 was evicted so that it could be used as an exercise area for American troops in readiness for the invasion of Europe. 

Few of the original buildings remain. Seagram's Farmhouse dates from 1880. Meanwhile, Nag's Head cottages occupy the site of one of the village pubs.   

Like the cottages, most buildings here have replaced the demolished original homes, having been constructed for Urban Warfare training. 

The 13th century Church of St Giles is still standing, and is open for just a few days several times a year, as is the rest of the village. 

More solidarity with Ukraine

Its glory - at least from my point of view - is its mediaeval wall paintings.

Here's the Seven Deadly Sins - a bit difficult to make out, admittedly, though you can see the red devils quite clearly. Apparently it was a new addition in the late 15th century, courtesy of the lord of the manor, Sir Walter Hungerford, who'd been promoted on the battlefield of Bosworth Field in 1495 - ooh look, a link with my jaunt of two weeks ago. 

 

A set of 17th century bell-ringing changes painted on the wall of the tower

It also doesn't disappoint when it comes to graffiti with serifs.

Also in the tower there's a mason's mark in the form of a hexafoil or daisy wheel.

Outside a modern gravestone brings home the implications of the story of Imber. 

Albert Nash was the village blacksmith. It's said that the day the villagers had to leave, he was found crying over his anvil, and that he died of a broken heart. He was brought back to his beloved village to be buried.

The villagers fully expected to return after the war, as promised by the Government, but the Ministry of Defence took the land over completely. A rally was organised in 1961 to demand the villagers be allowed to move back, but a public inquiry round in favour of the military. 

Albert's wife, Martha, only returned after her death in 1967; their son, Cyril, in 1989. 

An open day organiser in the Church told me the villagers were only tenants, and that they knew the land belonged to the MoD, so would have realised they wouldn't be back. I say the land belongs to those who have worked it for generations, who have its dirt under their nails and in the creases of their palms. 

And another thing. With all those soldiers around, couldn't some of them rebuild the fine 17th and 18th century tomb chests that have been allowed to fall into ruin? 

Home, then, for birthday cake - a rather more convivial get-together than the previous two years permitted, owing to lockdown - and a sit in the field to watch the sunset and think about how everything changes, nothing can be taken for granted.