Cabbages, Kings and Castles*

Yay!  I got my moon calendar back.

We had a busy weekend!

It’s all Barney’s fault.  He likes to go to ‘Somewhere’ when it’s a bank holiday weekend and look at ‘Something’.  And this weekend it’s been villages.  Friday was the thatched village of Blaise Hamlet designed by someone in Bristol probably for estate workers and then across the road to Blaise Castle which involved a steep climb in the hot sun and some quite impressive views.

Not all thatched but all different – this was the prettiest.

Distant thatch

Steep hill and castle on top.  Built so that the owner, who had made his fortune in the slave trade, could watch his ships coming up the Avon to Bristol.

On Saturday, it was a sort of model village in Pendon** and trains at Didcot.  I have to say they were all good choices though the heat was quite punishing for the time of year.   The model village wasn’t so much a village as a small scale representation of the whole of the Vale of the White Horse and very beautifully made it was too.  It was begun, eighty odd years ago by a young man called Roye England, who was much taken by the scenery and the old buildings which, due to depression and economic crisis in the countryside were gradually falling into disrepair and being replaced with modern houses and concrete and tiles.  He made a couple of models and then a few more of the old cottages and then displayed them in his house and then conceived the idea of making a bigger creation which would preserve the memory of the whole Vale.  It’s still under construction but is already a wonderfully detailed and accurate representation of many lovely old farms and cottages and streets now gone from the large scale world.  Oh and a railway runs through it.  One scene, of an old farm with barns and surroundings, took 15 years to make which gives you some idea of the level of detail and delicacy required and delivered.

Barney had a long conversation (with a man who was busy mowing a freshly glued field with a razor blade) about the hemp which was used for fields and also for thatch.  And then I asked about the trees which, it turns out, are all made from a kind of standard modellers’ ‘tree foliage’ set on wire trunks and branches.  We agreed that it would be wonderful if someone could find a way to make horse chestnut leaves and on the way home I spent some time trying to think how this could be done.  And also thinking that willow and birch would be good things to add.  The cabbages* in the garden plots are all hand made from tissue paper (hand cut pieces about 1 & 1/2  millimetres in width).  To make enough horse chestnut leaves to leaf a whole tree (or several) with leaves a millimetre or so wide would be quite a daunting task!

And then there were trains at Didcot.  Two Kings* in Steam.

Donnington Castle*

And the Wisteria is out.

Oh and so are the bluebells.

*Sorry, I already half used this title – Lewis Carroll has a lot to answer for.

**No flash allowed so all my photos came out gloomy and blurred and sadly, no glossy brochure to take home.

Another photo of the Kings, showing numbers, for those of you who need to know these things : )