The Quest for England
My beautiful daughter, Georgie, is back from New Zealand after being there a year. I wanted to ask her how she got on, what life is like on the other side of the world and how it compares to the UK. Georgie is in her mid twenties and went with a girl friend with the […]
Julia and I are out for a stroll around the wooded area at Hooksway in West Sussex, a few miles north of Chichester and close to Chilgrove. We start at The Royal Oak pub and take a short circular walk alongside beautiful autumn woodland through the East Dean Estate. En-route, we discover a delightful fairy […]
Julia and I are in Vobes Kitchen. Today we are trying to make soda bread, a simple bread made using Bicarbonate of Soda to make the dough rise instead of yeast. The wholegrain stoneground flour we use comes from Burton Mill, near Petworth, an historic water mill that grinds flour between stones in the traditional […]
I am with Tom Brown, the head gardener of West Dean Gardens in West Sussex. Tom takes me to have a look at the lesser part of the fabulous gardens there, the Arboretum. It is autumn and the magnificent trees are changing colours. Join us as we stroll up the chalky slopes of the Southdowns […]
This is part two of my look at Abingdon Abbey in Abingdon-on-Thames. Today Tim Miller, the curator of the abbey takes me around the extant buildings that survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He explains what they were used for and how they are utilised today. Abingdon Abbey dates back to Saxon times but have […]
I am furthering my exploration of Abingdon-on-Thames and today I am joined by American curator, Tim Miller, to look at the rise and fall of the once magnificent abbey that stood in Abingdon. The Saxons were responsible for their being a religious house here in the first place, but when the Danes came they burnt […]