Monday 8 August 2011

Somerset , Dorset, the Red Arrows and fish and chips

The Grandma, the Mother and I are all members of the national trust we therefore delight in visiting said properties.The plan was to go to Kingston Lacey. This house,built after the Civil War belonged to the Banks' family. The family house was bestowed to the National Trust in 1981,seeing its heyday(thus a lot of the house was furnished in this style) in the Edwardian Period. It is told that Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Kingston Lacey in 1908, he apparently twisted his ankle on a rabbit hole,shame he didn't go to wonderland we could have avoided a war.

Another anecdote that we learnt was that Henrietta Banks was a very domineering mother. Whenever he daughters (Daphne and Viola) went horse-riding on their own, the mummy dearest would follow them on her bike to make sure that they didn't get up to no good, God forbid if they talked to a commoner!

The family moved to Kingston Lacey after the Civil War but prior to this they lived in Corfe Castle, Now as you've probably already guessed dear readers, we visited this too. The castle is now a ruin.The castle was partly destroyed in 1646, hence the family needed to build a new house.  Damn those Parliamentarians.



It was rather intriguing to know that Enid Blyton based one her famous five stories on the village of Corfe Castle so we had to buy lashings of Ginger beer...

Oh I do like to beside the seaside....actually I don't but majority rules so it was decided that we should have fish and chips by the sea. Swanage just so happened to be the host of the red arrows that evening, the planes flew this way,that way, forwards and backwards over the Irish sea.....kidding we weren't actually in Ireland.

If you wanted us to have had our fish and chips you will be sorely disappointed,  but whether it is fate or just a co-incidence that we ended up going to eat the 'best fish and chips' around is up for debate.

The chosen pub just so happened to be the photographed pub in England, who makes these statistics up I just don't know but I won't pass up a photo oppurtuninity.