Clive Best

Just arrived home in Italy after a 2 day drive from Tunbridge Wells.  Fabulous weather once you reach further south into the high pressure area in France, although today that may change as a cold front moves through. We stayed the night in Verdun which was the battlefield for one of the first world war’s most costly fighting between France and Germany. It is engulfeld in the tragic  loss of life of young French and German soldiers. It has the same deep emotional impact as the Somme memorials that I visited a couple of years ago with my son. This week Harry Patch, the last surviving English soldier from the First World War died at age 111. My grandfather fought in Picardie and in Gallipoli. Most of his friends were killed. He always talked of the comeraderie, but some memories were always buried. He was commissioned in the field after a disasterous advance when the young officer was shot. Somehow he survived - otherwise I wouldn’t have been here. I think he was wounded twice before being demobbed with not much hope of a job.

Anyway - the centre of Verdun  is attractive (once you find it) and we managed to stay in an old family-run hostellerie right in the old town. Incredibly there was also a rock concert in progress in the main river area - just like our first night’s stay in Arras.

We are leaving Godmanchester today to pick up our daughter Naomi in Potters Bar before the long trip back to Italy. Godmanchester is a pretty village just outside Huntingdon which is more or less unspoilt.  We have a little flat near the River Ouse with a communal garden down to the river - which is lovely. Our daughter Louise works nearby and she part owns the flat - hence the connection with Godmanchester. You can easily walk into the centre of Huntingdon from here and even as far as the station for the London train. Huntingdon itself would also be a great town if it hadn’t been “developed” by enlightened “town planners” in the 60s and 70s. There is a pretty awful shopping centre running out from the high street and several original houses/shops “re-developed”. Despite this it still retains  charm and still has some lovely original parts. Huntingdon was the birthplace of Oliver Cromwell.

The village of Godmanchester centres around the river Ouse with a slow moving duck pond area at its centre. The centre is unspoilt with original houses, although further on a new housing estate has been built on the outskirts. The main part of the village though is very attractive with long walks along the river and around the great meadow. This is the largest water meadow in Britain and acts when needed like a flood storage plain. The rest of the time it is left alone to grow wild flowers and be home to wildlife and dog walking. The circumference of the meadow is about 2.5 miles.

A beautiful morning today with no clouds after 3 weeks of mixed weather. Of course I have to spend most of it in a car but still managed to go round the meadow at 7 am first!

Headed first for Sudbury which is a very pleasant market town. We found a wonderful English tea shop with a selection of different coffees and teas - full of women. I had some Mount Kenya fresh ground coffee which was not bad at all.  A quick walk around the town confirms that it is a classic Suffolk market town which was also the birthplace of the painter Gainsborough  famous for his idylic rural landscapes. There has been some encroachment from banks and the big shops however, whose mission in life seems  to be to  homogenise all towns. 

From Sudbury we headed to Long Melford - a fabulous place with a large National Trust house - Melford Hall. We didn’t stop here as cars have a life of their own - but probably should have done. From there we started to move through some fabulous villages particularly Cavendish, Clare and Stoke by Clare. We stopped properly in Clare and took some photos. All these villages have old centres with medieval houses brightly painted. Clare is the biggest with some lovely pubs and shops.

Finally to Cambridge which we know well - although not where to park! We ended up in a car park east of

Trumpingdon Street

the town called Queen Anne’s and proceeded to walk the wrong way into town - eventually coming in on Trumpingdon Street. The place seemed to be swarming in tourists and we couldn’t get into the first pub (some tourist trap self-proclaimed as  the most famous pub in Cambridge). Still it was raining so we went in the one next door. Cambridge is a wonderful place and would be a great place to live as you can walk or cycle to most places in the city centre. The only thing that puts me off is the intellectual snobbery of the place. Since  I didn’t actually go to Cambridge university I can’t help feeling that you could end up being excluded on the basis of elitism. Certainly you can’t walk into the Colleges without being part of that elite.

A wonderful end to the trip was a stationary traffic jam on the A14 back to Huntingdon. We had exactly the same problem last Friday afternoon and this implies strongly that no-one works on Friday afternoon. They all leave work at around 2-3 pm despite the recession and head home for the weekend. So we wasted about an hour fighting our way back through the traffic from Cambridge to Huntingdon.

Yesterday we headed east mainly to revisit Saffron Walden, a town I particularly liked from a previous visit a couple of years ago. It is a reasonable sized historic town with local butchers, bakers etc. and with some interesting craft and clothes shops. It must be an affluent town because house prices are quite high and there are some up-market restaurants and shops. The town centre is very attractive and it is certainly a place that you can imagine living in. The other advantage is that is just a few miles from Stansted airport and probably commutable for both London and Cambridge. A dry lunch today in an old fashioned tea shop with home made sandwiches and a selection of 10 different tea blends all served in pots through a tea strainer. Tea bags have to be a stupid invention which we can’t now do without as the idea of emptying tea leaves into the bin is just a little too much for our sanitised lives.

I followed the “tourist route” out of Saffron Walden to arrive in an amazing little town village called Thaxted. I had never heard of it but it is a wonderful spot with lovely old houses - including “Dick Turpin’s cottage”. This was actually for sale in an estate agents’ window for the seemingly absurd price of 240K - I think it must have been a small part of the whole building though. Thaxted has also a huge church which means that in earlier centuries the village/town probably was more important and has now been by-passed leaving it in medieval splendour. A very nice place to walk around !

Then on to Colchester. I have always imagined Colchester as an Essex satellite town of London, probably with rows of nondescript houses overtaken with commuterland. In reality Colchester is an old Roman Town with a long history and an impressive town centre. Several buildings date back 500 or more years and the town centre is very attractive. It is large enough that we got lost and needed 30 minutes to try to find the car park where we earlier parked the car. Colchester used to be a centre for clock making and there is a museum featuring old 18th century clocks and grandfather clocks made in the town. The museum is in a lovely old tudor house and admission is free.

Then we decided to head off for the coast and where better to go than Clacton by Sea. I have never been here before but had always imagined it was a gory seaside place with fish and chip shops and arcades. Well it is in fact a formerly elegant place with fish and chip shops and arcades. It has obviously seen better days and several hotels are closed or being converted into apartments. We are staying at the Esplanade hotel which looked about the best available and it is half empty. Yesterday we went along the pier which is long and very wide and hosts a fun fair. The beaches are sandy and look quite OK really although the sea has that grey colour probably from a muddy bottom. Clacton lies north of the Thames estuary and the most startling feature today is the construction of a large off-shore wind farm. When this is finished it will dominate the sea view, and whether you like it or not we are going to be stuck with them for 30 years or more. I have decided to really research into what is going on with the wind farm industry as now the government has pledged to build a thousand more wind mills which I can’t help feeling is based on pure politics rather than science.

Anyway last night we went out along the front to discover that Wetherspoons pub was booming and most of the others were suffering. They have hit on a magic recipe. The beer costs almost half as much as other pubs as I suspect their volume has enabled them to negotiate supermarket like deals with brewers. Then the food is also reasonably cheap and although fairly plastic is not worse than anywhere else. They have also brought the check-out type till to the bar! Firstly there are a set number of prices and each till has a

Off Shore Wind Frm

TV screen showng you the customer exactly what you have ordered and more importantly the exact price as the drinks/food is marked up. This speeds up service and automates food preparartion etc. Wetherspoons are the first to bring supermarket efficiency into pubs, and they are making big profits at the expense of old fashioned pubs.

This morning we are leaving to drive back to Godmanchester via Sudbury and let’s see where else we end up.

On Tuesday my daughter Naomi graduated as a vet from the Royal Veterinary College after 6 years of hard work. The college is the oldest vet school in Britain and was formed around 1780 first in Camden and later with a campus near Potter’s Bar. There were just 200 graduates and the ceremony was held in the Guildhall in the City of London.

The Guildhall is a wonderful building whose crypt dates back to the 13th century. The stone building survived the great fire of London and the Blitz of the second world war. The graduation took place in the Great Hall which dominates the whole building, and it is also here where great state banquets are held for visiting dignataries. Before and after the ceremony refreshments were held in the Crypt and the adjoining halls so we more or less saw everything.  I must say that the RVC organisation was superb and the speeches just the right mix of being witty and short. The most moving moment was to get all 200 graduates to swear the oath of the Royal Society of Veterinary Surgeons, only after which could they practice legally as vets.

Summer Exhibition Royal Academy

The next day we visited the Royal Academy to see the Summer Exhibition. I hadn’t realised that many of the pictures were actually for sale, although they are not cheap. Prices range from 4,000 to 70,000 pounds for an original painting and from 400 pounds upwards for prints. We really enjoyed the exhibition however and despite what you hear the majority of the paintings are really excellent. Only with a few of the works did you get the feeling that they were taking the p.. !

Stamford is a wonderful town on the Lincolnshire border, only about 40 minutes from where we are staying in Godmanchester. The whole town is completely built in stone and unspoiled for over 400 years. Somehow it escaped the development disease in the 60s and 70s, such that it has no shopping centres whatsoever. The high street is more or less intact and there are some wonderful  roads down the the river. With 3 ancient churches, one of the oldest coaching houses in Britain - The George, and some wonderful old pubs it is a great town to visit and I guess also to live in. The town is big enough that it has all you really need and some old shops and crafts which make the place unique. It must have grown as one of the main junctions on the road from London to the North as at one time the A1 ran through the town. The plaque on the George says that Crusaders stayed there on their way to the holy land.

We visited a beautiful area of Suffolk today especially the medieval village of Lavenham (see above). Our first  stop though was in Stowmarket for a coffee - a pleasant town with river but with an encroaching shopping centre. From there we headed on to Lavenham.

We soon started passing through some small villages with really exceptional thatched cottages and lovely painted frontages, stopping briefly in a village called Bildeston surrounded by old painted cottages. Arriving in Lavenham you are immediately struck by the number of wonderful wooden framed houses all painted in different colours. I have never seen wood stained white, yellow, black and red before all 400-500 years old. The Guildhall is pure white and dates back to the 1400’s. The town grew up on the wool trade and by some magic it has remained perfectly intact. There is not one Starbucks in sight! The place has a timeless atmosphere and despite its reputation very few tourists. The fact that it was raining heavily part of the time helped this, but the town itself seems impervious and parking is free as it always used to be. There are no gift shops or other trappings of tourism. A really great English town .

Next onto Bury St. Edmunds, a town I new little about but which I discover has a long history originally growing up around  a monastry founded in 600 - the Abbey was of course “dissolved” by Henry VIII, but the old gatehouse and original walls are still intact and there is a beautiful cathedral next door. The town itself looks nice but we were illegally parked (this time not in one of the hundreds of empty disabled spaces) so we had to cut short a real appreciation of Bury St. Edmunds.

On to Newmarket for lunch. As soon as you approach Newmarket you realise this is the home of British horse racing. You run first past a long gallup and pass by what appears to be some serious stables before

Horse Racing Museum

arriving in the town itself. We got a nice parking place opposite the Horse Racing museum and went for a walk. Just before the rain started up again we found the Wagon and Horse - a pub which was showing live the racing channel and appeared to be full of racing related guys including a couple of jockeys. We had a drink first before looking through the menu for a light snack - deciding that the best bet was a simple sandwich. Then a couple of guys sat down next to us with doorstop sandwiches with inch thick bread and loads of chips. Since we had only 3 hours ago had full English breakfast ( me - a traditional kipper) we chickened out and decided to head for Huntingdon.

Suffolk looks an interesting area to investigate further and we never even saw the coast.

Arrived in Godmanchester for a night before heading to East Anglia, somewhere I have never been. Thursday morning we head out first to Wisbech which was a bit disappointing . The town centre had been homogenised by the major shops and food stalls but we still managed to have a coffee. At 11-30 in the morning  everyone else seemed to be eating cakes or baked potatoes - UK does have an eating problem, as can be seen at the large number of overweight people. Then up the A109 to Kings Lynn, which again on first sight I thought  had been ruined but later found the old part of the town near the tidal river docks and some lovely original houses around the main church.

As far as I can see Council “planners” and commercial interests demand from all towns not strong enough to stand up to them:

- one or two “shopping malls” ex 70s “shopping centres”. These tend to be bland concrete areas with always the same shops in all towns of Britain - namely: Boots, WH Smiths, Carphone Warehouse, Clinton Cards, Argus, Phones 4us, plus estate agents. This could be anywhere in any town and you wouldn’t be able to tell. The real character of each town lies in those remaining market squares, old pubs, churches and the  non-developed areas. Britain must preserve what’s left - just like Italy has always done. In Venice there is a MacDonalds but the sign and frontage of the shop has been unchanged for centuries. The council insist on in tune shop fronts/signs.

Headed north past Sandringham - the Queen’s estate. Amazing woodland and walled estate which I am sure are wonderful but why is it that only the Queen has enough money to mainatin classic houses and why is it that we are so culturally stupid as to accept the damage done to our public villages and monotone architecture. Finally we arrived in Hunstanton.

Hunstaton is a pleasant seaside town for many retirees and again there were mobility scooters flying all over the place. Some of the occupants were my age but grossly overweight. Being obese can makes you “disabled” so rather than addressing the real problem - overeating and lack of exercise the social services hand out a disabled sticker and a mobility scooter. As a result you can’t find a parking place anywhere  because half the parking places are reserved for the “disabled”, and then we get run over by electric scooters driven by dimented physically challenged people on the pavement.  I can honestly swear that in 20 years I have never seen one electric scooter on any pavement in Italy. There are plenty of 80 year olds but they seem to remain slim and active to the end.

Next we went along the north Norfolk coast making a brief visit to a lovely beach which has really beautiful golden sands before  arriving in Wells-next-the-sea. This was the first town in East Anglia  that immediately impressed me. I remember as a boy hearing stories about East Anglians being a bit dense and inbred etc., but of course  one can’t say such things today and nor would I dream of writing such nonsense on this blog! Wells has a nice estuary harbour and is obviously a haven for crab fishing.

We headed for Fakenham imaging that it was a wonderful village - but it turned out to be pretty ordinary and devoid of even a hotel to spend the night, so I decided to head for Norfolk. Finally arriving in the town around 6pm we got  bunged up in a central jam with road works but realised from the side streets that here was a town really worth visiting. It had lovely lanes, an ancient wall and churches. So we were keen to stop - but the only problem was there were no hotels. It seems that Norfolk doesn’t want visitors - no signs and no hotels. Finally we fought our way through the traffic to a Premier Inn spotted in the distance only to find it was  booked out. Clearly other people had the same problem so  I headed for the station, because surely at any main railway station there are always Hotels - but no, not in East Anglia. There are none at all and there is no information booth or helpful hotel information stand in the station. Come to think of it there are no road signs in Norwich - it is almost as if it hasn’t occurred to them that a) someone mght want to visit their town and b) they haven’t a clue where they are going. Then a flash of a Holiday Inn near the Norwich

View from room

Union Football stadium. On arrival I was asked for my blue attendance badge - you see they had some conference on and certainly they were not interested in giving us a room for less than a minimum of: 175 quid/night.  So we hit the road again assuming we could find a hotel somewhere.

Cornwallis Hotel

Finally at a small place called Eye we found a wonderful old country hotel called Cornwallis Hotel. It was a 500 year old dowager’s house with massive rooms. We had the best room in the place for 90 quid plus a good meal and gazed down the 40 foot deep well sitting under a sheet of glass in the bar.

We left Shrewsbury this morning and headed finally for the motorways with first destination Stratford (pictures above). I think I have only once been in Stratford when I was a child so decided it really was time to check it out again. Stratford could be a beautiful place and it has loads of fabulous mediebval timber framed buildings but somehow it has been spoiled. The ambiance is really one of a tourist theme park. there are too many new developments and glitzy shops to see the town as it should have remained. On the way to Stratford however we passed through Henley on Arden which struck me as being a great little town unspoiled and peaceful. Of course it is worth a detour to visit Stratford and there are some fabulous buildings but somehow you couldn’t imagine actually living there. The river is not actually in the town but lower down and here is where the RSC theatre. This is a modern building which obviously has some problems as it is currently under scafolding.

From Stafford we headed towards the Cotswolds stopping for lunch in yet another Pub on the way. We went first to Chipping Camden (pictures above) which is really a knock out place. It is just wonderful, completey unspoiled and 100% in beautiful golden Cotswold stone. Of course as a result it has become somewhat expensive and posh. despite this the place is a delight. One of the best old houses in Chipping was up for sale at 1.4 million and a 3/4 bedroom cottage on the high street would still be about 600K. Still  doubt whether you could really live in the village when probably many properties are bought as weekend retreats for wealthy Londoners.

Stow on the Wold

From Cipping Camden we headed for Stowe on the Wold. There are also beautiful villages Bourton on the Water and Upper/Lower Slaughter which we missed out because we had never been to Stowe. Stowe is not as beautiful as Chipping Camden but still exceptional. The stone is slightly greyer and must come from a different quary. Lots of nice hotels, pubs and shops. From Stowe onwards to Chipping Norton where we decided to stay the night. WE are staying in the Crown and Pillow which is a nice hotel with old fashioned restaurant, bar etc. Tourns out that the hotel used to be owned by Keith Moon - the crazy drummer for the Who ! Chipping Camden is not a twee as the other Cotswold towns but it is on our way across now to Huntigdon where we are aiming today.

Cardiff Opera

We spent the weekend in Dinas Powys just outside Cardiff where Anna’s father lives. Cardiff is also a great town and the Test match was being held while we were there. The Bay area of Cardiff has seen huge development over the last few years and is beginning to get really nice. However there is so much space down there that it can seem a bit bleak.

Clive, Anna, Jack @ Sully

This weekend there was a food festival going on which transformed the area outside the Welsh Opera House. This transformed the area and created a really nice atmosphere.  Then on Sunday we went down to Sully for lunch with Celia and Meirig (old friends) and Jack (Anna’s father). Sully is almost exactly opposite Weston Super Mare on the other side of the Severn Estuary. In fact you can see Steep Holm and Flat Holm from both places.

This morning we left with the idea of travelling north  towards Shrewsbury. It

Hay Castle Bookshop

turns out that exit 25 doesn’t exist on the M4 so we had to take the A40 north towards Abergavenny. Although we didn’t stop in Abergavenny it looks a really lovely place set just east of the Breckon Beacons. Then we passed through Crickhowell before stopping at Hay on Wye - the famous book shop town. The town is pretty with a ruined castle but the main attraction are the book shops. You could easily spend hours in each one as they have vast numbers of rare and unusual books, all well cataloged. We bought a few but had to stop ourselves from spending all day there - and what better way to stop than going to the Pub for lunch. 

Ludlow is a really outstandingly beautiful place. I reckon it must be one of the best preserved anciant towns in Britain. There is a wonderful castle and St. Laurence’s Church which complements the whole town which dates from medieval times with 100’s of buildings from the 15 and 16th century. Recently it has also got a reputation for its restaurants. We couldn’t stay long as we our destination today was Shrewsbury which we reached through heavy rain. Found the hotel using the parking technique and all is well.

Now I am writing this sitting in an ancient pub opposite the hotel with free Wifi. Turning round I saw a mural of the Last Supper on the wall. The landlady says that it was discovered by decorators only 10 years ago when the young painter told his boss - “there seems to be wallpaper under here”. The Kings Head pub moved location a few hundred years ago and  took over a building which was itself much older and used as a  chapel and the mural had been painted around 1200! So here I sit looking at it thinking it must be priceless. She says they are not allowed to clean it despite the fact it was sitting there under many years of cigarette smoke. Pictures of Shrewsbury below:

The next morning I got up at 7 and went for a run along the river. The Severn flows in a big meander round Shrewsbury and the banks are very beautiful with nice long walks, cycles etc. Later I saw a woman

Cyclist with cat & dogs

cycling towards me and whistling to her two dogs which were obediently running either side of her cycle. She seemed to be leaning forward a little but otherwise going along quite fast. Looking back I saw her cat was perched on her back quite happily going along for the ride. She obviously does this trip every day and the cat just wanted to come along as well. Only in Britain do you find such eccentrics - especially with pets .