Living Britain’s history
Debbie Griffiths enjoys the opportunity to sit back, relax and let someone else organise her holiday as she sees parts of England most tourists don’t get to experience.
Asmiling ‘‘Granny Mop’’ meets each of us at the door of the 15th-century manor house in Somerset, with the words ‘‘mind the step’’. She knows from experience that we’ll be too busy looking up and around in astonishment at the medieval banquet room to notice the abrupt change in floor height.
Vera is the 89-year-old mother of Blackmore Farm’s Lord of the Manor, Ian Dyer.
‘‘It’s an ancient title that basically means that if you misbehave, I can have you flogged,’’ he says, with mock gravity, to our group of 23 Kiwis, Aussies, Americans, Canadians, and South Africans.
‘‘If you bring your plates nicely back to mother after lunch, she’ll cross you off the flogging list.’’
If it weren’t for our modern clothes and the number of smartphones and cameras now directed at Ian, we could easily be convinced we’d been transported back in time.
The arch of the massive stone fireplace is well above Ian’s head height, and a full coat of arms stands to attention in front of plush red velvet drapes. The whitewashed walls are decorated with lances, swords and ancient muskets.
This exclusive ‘‘Be My Guest’’ lunch takes us off the well-worn tourist trail to give a unique insight into the life of an English family living in a Grade One-listed stone house that dates to 1486.
While Vera laughingly recalls hosting parties that involved mass conga lines ducking under the low door lintels through the rabbit’s warren of interconnecting bedrooms, Ian tells me his mother got the nickname Granny Mop for chasing him and his siblings out of the house so they wouldn’t dirty her freshly cleaned floors. He remembers playing in the rooms before they were restored.
‘‘We only lived in one end of the house,’’ he says. ‘‘We used the other end for playing hide and seek or firing water pistols at each other. Most of the
rooms didn’t have electricity and some windows were missing. It was terribly rough.’’
It’s been a 35-year labour of love for Ian and his wife Ann to restore the manor to its original-style state into what is now a boutique bed and breakfast. He scours flea markets and auction houses, collecting antique furniture and artefacts.
‘‘Modern furniture would look terrible in here,’’ he says. ‘‘We want people to walk in and go ‘wow’ and to feel as though they’re stepping back in time. It’s a lifetime of collecting, but it’s fun. I have some rare and unusual things.’’
He’s referring to the steel man trap (‘‘every home should have one,’’ he laughs), and the startling array of medieval weapons adorning the walls (‘‘we put them up high because if the kids got hold of them, they could do some damage’’).
Some pieces have been specifically commissioned to fit the age of the house. There’s the impressive 20-foot-long solid English oak dining table that now has two dozen of us sitting around it, and the woollen drapes on the walls of the old kitchen that are designed to retain warmth from the open fire.
Our Trafalgar travel director Vanessa Suss isn’t surprised when I tell her on the coach afterwards that it’s easily one of my highlights of the United Kingdom. She pauses her check with each of our group members to sit and talk with me.
‘‘You wouldn’t find these places by yourself,’’ she smiles.
‘‘Yes, you see Stonehenge, the Roman Baths and Cardiff Castle, but you also go to a working farm and have lunch with the lord of the manor. You come and see what tourists expect to see – but you get more. We make sure you get that little bit extra. The off-the-beaten-track, the unexpected.’’
I have to admit to feeling a little lazy as I snooze on the coach between chatting with my fellow travellers and admiring the rolling English countryside out the window.
It’s such a genuine treat to have someone else worrying about activities, what to see, where to stay, admission tickets, and navigating around a foreign country.
One of the optional evenings is another wee gem of an experience. Our coach is expertly manouevred down tiny country lanes into the ‘‘chocolate box’’-style Devon village of Kenn, past the cob-walled houses with thatched roofs to have dinner at a 700-year-old village pub. Then we walk across the road to St Andrew’s Church.
The warden, Simon Preece, gives us a tour of his parish. It’s easily the oldest in the area – another Grade One-listed building, constructed around 1250.
‘‘I’m blessed with having such a unique historic building to look after,’’ he tells us. ‘‘I love to share what we have here. The stained-glass windows and the ornate carving on the wooden screen, which is quite unique. They’re real treasures.’’
He uses a torch to point out the wooden beams high on the roof above.
‘‘I saw some [buttresses] in another church today and they weren’t even painted,’’ Preece says sounding incredulous. ‘‘Ours are lovely, just look at them.’’
He tells me later that it’s a genuine rarity to see something so original and old.
‘‘I’m a bit of a church anorak when I go on holiday,’’ Preece laughs. ‘‘I look at other churches, so I know how good this one is. You don’t have to be religious to appreciate it. It’s a beautiful historic building. I’m very lucky.’’
Suss has been with the company for four years and loves being able to surprise her guests.
‘‘It’s not just dinner, you know, it’s that the church warden is passionate about his church in this tiny village. It’s very special and exclusive.’’ ‘‘Travelling is an adventure,’’ she says. ‘‘The good and the bad. Even those times when we’ve been caught out in the rain, later it becomes a funny story. It’s a very satisfying job.’’
Suss stands to continue making her rounds of the group.
She’s busy perfecting the details along the way, allowing us to simply sit back to enjoy the ride.