Day 0 Chipping Campden

Weather notwithstanding, we’re here! The outlook for the next few days is actually improving, even if tomorrow looks foul.  There is, though a high out in the Atlantic, moving towards the UK, and hopefully it will stall when it gets here and spring will truly start! Can I possibly be as lucky as I was last year?

It seems unlikely. Certainly the omens yesterday weren’t initially that great.  I went to Gatwick to collect John and Yasmin on their flight from Crete, and at the airport my rimless glasses disintegrated in my hands while I was trying to clean them. I couldn’t see to fit them together again and flailed around hopelessly until eventually I managed to do a temporary repair.  After John and Yasmin arrived I discovered I had lost my parking ticket, for which the standard replacement fee is £40, an exorbitant amount for such a minor misdemeanour.  With John’s help, I retraced my steps but to no avail. Ultimately I gave up and prepared to pay the fee at a parking machine, wondering if these disasters were some sort of augury for the future of this venture.  I pressed the “missing ticket” button and a voice demanded to know my car registration number and arrival time. Seconds later, he had located my car arriving on CCTV, and I paid the correct parking fee of a couple of quid and was out of there!  I didn’t know whether I was more worried that tracing every movement of every individual and car in the UK has become such a humdrum affair, or delighted that I had saved a minor fortune!  Meanwhile, back at home, my optician cemented my glasses back together in minutes and all was well! So, is this good luck or a bad luck story?  Too early to tell!

The journey to the positively charming Chipping Campden was uneventful, the only sad bit being the parting from Veronica at journey’s end. It cannot though compare to the emotional low I experienced just over a year ago at the start of LEJOG, and of course, this is just a strenuous holiday in the rain, as opposed to the journey of discovery that I was embarking on last year!  We have already cased the joint as the pictures below will attest, selected our pub for supper tonight (The Eight Bells), and John and Yasmin are thereafter heading for a music recital in the local church, while I try to find a way onto the net to post this blog.  The village is undeniably beautiful, but the most interesting building so far is our own B&B.

Sir Baptist Hicks was a London merchant who made a fortune as a money lender in London to King James I amongst others early in the 17^th Century. He built a huge house in Campden and various other buildings including the gatehouses, the market square and the almshouses pictured below. His stables may have stood on the site of our B&B.  His great house was burned to the ground in 1645, possibly by Royalist troops to prevent Cromwell’s troops from using its facilities and it was never rebuilt. After Sir Baptist died, his properties including our B&B were left to his daughter Juliana, who had married one Edward Noel, who later became the first Viscount Campden.  The stables were converted into a house for Lady Juliana, and it has remained in the ownership of the Noel family ever since. Our hostess is indeed a direct descendant of the Noel family.  The house changed hands between family members, and in 1982, our hostess’s recently widowed mother married Peregrine Fellows, the father of Julian Fellowes who you may well recognise is the author of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey. The house is full of paintings and photograph of this illustrious lineage, most of which were inherited from her father Lord Dormer. The Dormers were a recusant Catholic family and apparently one of the oldest families in England. It is her hope that her eldest grandson, Charlie Defries will eventually inherit the house, continuing an unbroken line of ownership since it was first built around 1613.  We will breakfast tomorrow in a rather special dining room!

Tomorrow we make for the village of Stanton, and despite the weather, I’m looking forward to the off. The one serious issue is that John has hurt his back, wielding a chain-saw in Crete.  Although he is putting a brave face on it, I am seriously concerned that he may not be well enough for a walk this demanding. At least there are plenty of villages in the area, so if he has to call it a day, we shouldn’t be too far from a taxi.  Let’s hope I’m right……

Sir Baptist’s Market Square

Sir Baptist’s Almshouses

The Gates to the big house

A beautiful house in Campden with a “Cloud Hedge” (Veronica’s description, just before she left for home)

A beautiful farmhouse in Campden

Flying the flag in the village centre