Holiday Pictures

During the summer, the Pershore Rd. crew, plus associated friends usually take a Landmark Trust holiday, and most times we end up in Devon. Well, I say Devon, but Cornwall was only a stone's throw away in the summer of 1998. It rained when we arrived,but the weather could have easily been worse, and we played games, visited places of dubious mythical significance, and rode horses.....BIG horses. Here are some pictures of the beautiful places we stayed and visited.

This is a composite picture of the back of Wortham Manor. We had a rather cold barbeque outside the centre door on one of the last evenings. The food was adequate, which made it probably the least appetising meal of the week thanks to Geoff and Hywel's cooking. Spectacular place isn't it?

This is the rather more grand front to the manor house. We didn't spend a great deal of time in the gardens, except for frantic photography on the last morning.

This is the garden shed! One day, we'll all be fabulously wealthy and own our own castles, but I hope a shed several hundred years old ( at least ) will still impress me.

This is most of the holiday crew after two hours on horseback. A painful, terrifying experience for many, but especially for Neil, who may now never father children! It was all Marie's fault..ahem, IDEA, and there were several cruel people who smiled when the great horsewoman fell off her own horse a few weeks later. From left to right we have Geoff, Hobbit, Marie, Ian, Helen Wright, John, Simon, Megan and Helen Rees. Too many Helens to avoid confusion.

This is the picture after the holiday banquet in the main hall. We all dressed in sort-of-medieval clothes and ate Hywel's superb banquet, and played his murder mystery game... We disappointed and surprised him, and failed to kill one another. Again you can see Martin ( left ), Hobbit, Helen Wright, Marie ( front ), Neil, Geoff, Ian, Simon and John. Nearly all sober, after being too nervous to drink anything that Marie had been near - she was a poisoner, you know.

This was the view from the edge of some cliffs near Tintagel Castle, legendary birthplace of Arthur Pendragon, the once and future king. Below were some caves known as Merlin's Caves. This may have been a recent addition, as I doubt that King Arthur's Bus and Coach Park was Romano-British either.

The view from Merlin's Cave, or at least a cave nearby. Through the entrance can be seen Tintagel Castle itself.

Early July 1999, and a similar group went to a big house again. This time it was Gurney Manor near Bridgewater in Somerset. I quickly took a few pictures as I was leaving, and here they are.

The imposing front entrance to Gurney Manor. I've been there twice now, and the weather is always pretty good. Good enough for blue skies in the pictures, anyway.

Big place, with its own walled garden. This picture gives an impression of the scale. We had a rather good barbecue here.

The gate to the mill stream which passed the garden. This was a wonderful place for a quiet read.