The Wessex Tour – sort of! Day nine

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We are away by 0915. It took us 15 minutes to pack up and depart. We head over to Frome, where we park in the long stay car park. (Beware, we later discovered that the exit is a really tight left-hand tour through a very narrow road which is heavily overhung with tree branches!).

Frome is lovely and we wandered up the various hills through the narrow streets with their ‘olde worlde’ shops and lovely architecture. It is an eclectic range of shops. Designer clothes boutiques, basket weaving shops, rugs and carpets. Even a big model shop. Sadly, the astronomy shop I was hoping to browse in has closed.

 After an hour or two strolling and browsing and stopping for coffee we head off down the road to a national trust property ‘Stourhead House’ at Stourhead.

Home to generations of the Hoare family, their house in the country was seen as an escape from London and truly became their family home. The collections within the rooms are quite something. I have never been that into portraits. Landscapes, however, are a different matter. They hold extraordinary clues to the geography of the time, so I managed to find some artwork worthy of further exploration.

 The house itself is impressive. Built in the Palladian style, it was designed and built for Henry Hoar 1^st but sadly he died before seeing the house completed and so never got to fully enjoy countryside life at Stourhead. Henry Hoare II rebuilt the west front to accommodate a vast saloon room – yes you read it correctly – it is impressive! He loved art and sculpture so expect to see works by Poussin, Rysbrack and Bampfylde.

The gardens and lake are even more stunning. Draped in their finest autumnal colours and patterns, we walked miles, exploring the various temples, follies and grottos. Designed by Henry Hoare II as a series of carefully constructed views, like scenes from a landscape painting, he built a dam to form the lake and around it he positioned classical temples and Gothic buildings, as well as rare and exotic trees. Although the garden is a secluded world, there are glimpses out to the wider landscape; to an estate of working farms and ancient hamlets.

The garden was at the forefront of the 18th-century English landscape movement and for his fantastic achievement, Henry was nicknamed 'the Magnificent'.

 We finish the day at the CAMC Longleat site. It is large, very wooded, well laid out and practically empty. Most of the facilities were closed, only one block being open. Wifi, smartphone and TV reception is patchy and we were allowed to drive around the whole site until we had found a pitch which gave us the best WIFI signal. We went left after the entrance and that seemed to be the area with the best WIFI. Others told us going right gave the best TV reception. You take your pick!

A few more photos from Stourhead