Norway - guest post by Les Gosden

On the cruise itself - we had a great time, service on board was excellent as approx 40% of those on board were staff . Food was presented in the modern way of using trendy plates, vibrant sauce colours, no large portions but just right in size. Taste and quality were excellent. Drink prices were fair, it was best to buy a bottle of wine at the meal table than buy by the glass, as the Wine Waitress always sealed the bottle ready for the next day. The wine list was extensive and they had some good Australian Reds. The ship was very stable and sea was moderate 90% of the time. Passengers on board could roam freely and the crows nest (situated on top deck, there are 10 passenger decks) was a social area with tables and chairs and stunning views looking out to sea, with background music. We spent a few evenings chilling with a drink and watching the light fade as the ship gently glided from one fjord to the next. Waiter service was excellent and the guys remembered who had what drinks, even into the next day! The ship had a large theatre with regular shows featuring a South East London magician to singing and dancing troupes.

Aurora cruise ship

Cabins were spacious and spotless, with their own flat screen TV and SKY plus screen digital map updates showing progress of the ship from Southampton to Norway. Showers very modern, clean and spacious. We had a large oval port side window with a wide internal ledge, where you could casually recline and relax with a glass of red, which I did upon leaving Southampton and watched other sea craft in the Solent as we sailed by, very nice.

We travelled through the night and were level with Scotland by Saturday morning, arriving at our first port of call, a fjord with the town Stavanger, berthing Sunday morning.

Watching the ending of another day......

There are certain times when a Pilot has to be onboard the cruise liner. The Pilots boat has come along side the Aurora to despatch the Norwegian Pilot and is now leaving

                                                                                 Aurora in Norway

Evening meal was semi formal and we sat with the same group for the cruise duration, in our case six were all English. Consisting of a retired couple living in Manchester, mother and daughter from Devon & two Essex ladies. We all got on well, had a good laugh, making meal times fun, one evening we were the last sitting and had to move as the second sitting were due in. There were other places you could eat in if you did not want to have the regular slots. There was a burger bar and a pick what you want from a set selection of cooked/uncooked with a vast range of food and some lovely cakes!! Plus an endless supply of coffee, tea or water. Lovely glass sided sun decks, considering we were in the North Sea it was surprisingly hot and sheltered!

Aurora in fjord

Splendour of Norway

Norway we found out is a very rich country and proud that they did not join the EU. The cost of living is high and they have a large pension fund..

Fjordland

Harbour scenes

Splash of colour in Norway

Ypres - Belgium

We disembarked at Dunkirk which looks like a flat as a pancake twin to Calais, windswept seashore with extensive breakwaters stretching out far into the sea and a long channel into port. To your left you can see three massive superstructures being built at the shipyard in the distance, marooned like beached whales on the flat featureless landscape. It is not the greatest entry to the world’s top tourist country.

Leaving the ferry we followed the column of vehicles out towards the main auto-routes and almost got mashed by a Polish lorry with trailer that decided to run ahead into our lane without warning, suddenly tons of trailer loomed at the left edge of our car and proceeded to push us into the line of boulders at the side of the road. Fortuitous braking by our driver avoided a nasty collision where being in the passenger seat I would have been the first one to have been 'kissed' by the lorry.

To get to our destination we decided to follow the auto-route to Lille and then head north into Belgium, but somehow we found ourselves heading up the coast from Dunkirk. However this mattered not as all we had to do was splice off to the right at some point and head into the agricultural plains of Belgium towards Ypres, or Leper as they call it here. So soon we were heading east across a flat Romney Marsh type landscape, without hedges but plenty of ditches alongside the rather straight roads.  A preponderance of tractors told us that this was the Belgian agricultural heartland, a ruler straight horizon only broken by the liberal sprinkling of farmsteads and outbuildings. We passed through a succession of villages which were united in their blandness, with colourless, rather utilitarian dwellings often displaying windows with white closed blinds giving them a rather bleak look.

Ypres town centre

Ypres was smashed in the First World War but is now a stylish town with a great centre and rebuilt public buildings notably the magnificent Cloth Hall which dates back to the 13^th century and St Michael’s Cathedral which were both reconstructed after the Great War. The centre is one of those typically wonderful and rather impressive large European cobbled open areas surrounded by a bevy of classy looking buildings, some big, some small, which create a perfect palette for the eye. It is here under a blue sky that you should sit enjoying a Belgian beer and perhaps a chocolate waffle at one of the numerous cafes and bars around the square. If you head down to the eastern end of the square the road funnels into a residential street leading to the famous Menin Gate, constructed in memory of the 300000 soldiers who perished in the Ypres Salient in the Great War. This is a massive structure in the form of an archway into the town centre covered with the names of countless soldiers. Every day the ceremony of the Last Post is carried out at 8pm. When we were present there was an appreciable crowd and a school choir from Gresham’s School in England performing. It is a poignant and touching memorial to a terrible conflict.

Ypres town square

 

The Menin Gate sits astride a canal which runs through the town centre. Tree lined ramparts with  paths run alongside the canal. You can walk or cycle around the canal network in the town on an extensive web of paths. Cycle hire is a great idea for this area as the whole place is set up for bikes. We went to one bike shop after a midday croque monsieur at a bar just on the edge of the town centre. Here the music took us back to the eighties with its Supertramp background beat. In fact there seemed to be a common theme around the town of slightly dated British rock music. The bike proprietor offered us a normal bike for 10 euro and an electric bike for 25 euro for the rest of the day. We thought this was too expensive for just half a day, and he missed a trick because he could have offered us a discount for a few hours, so we didn’t think much of his entrepreneurship. We found another place nearer the town centre at the Ambrosia Hotel, where a friendly young female helped win our custom.

 Ypres is an insightful window onto the awful catastrophe that was the First World War, and the famous Ypres salient has numerous famous battle-sites such as Hill 60, Hill 62, Hoodge Crater, Sanctuary Wood and Passchendaele. All these are within a few kilometres of Ypres. It was a tremendous education for my somewhat partial grasp of an important historical era. The rebuilt Cloth Hall in Ypres has a tremendous museum of the conflict , modern, clear and easy to negotiate, with the option of ascending the tower of the hall to catch great views of the town, including straight down to the Regina Hotel below.

Sanctuary Wood cemetery

The museum has tons of interesting exhibits including of a dig a few years ago at a First World War underground installation where all sorts of items were retrieved from the water and mud like flasks and daily tools. There are also write ups on the different armies involved in the campaign, Belgian, German, French and English, with full uniforms displayed. There is a cart that was used to transport the injured together with exhibits of medical kits and instruments. There are also stories about the air corps and aerial photography, life in the trenches, and the rise of the German stormtrooper as a supersoldier.

We also visited the education museum which is lodged in an old church building just off the town square. This traces the history of education in Belgium through history, but unless you are a real education obsessive you shouldn’t spend more than an hour here. You have to learn to ‘speed read’ museum exhibit notes otherwise you’ll be stuck in the seventeenth century section for half an hour. I loved a picture from medieval times which looked like a Belgian Hogarths woodcut of a couple of teachers in a room looking after a huge class of kids who were doing virtually everything dodgy you could imagine, a scene of chaos that seems not far removed from some modern day classrooms. Nothing changes! There were lots of posters and teaching aids on display including the first Apple computers used in classrooms. It was also interesting to see the trend from more didactic teacher led learning to more child centred learning in recent years, a feature reflecting more universal trends.



Chaos of a medieval classroom!

 

St Michael’s Cathedral is a monster church sitting right next to the Cloth Hall, a couple of titans sitting together in a town that could easily be a lot bigger to accommodate such a pair. Again it was rebuilt after the First World War, and dominates the centre of town. The outside is rather gaunt and grey, but the inside is pleasantly more colourful, with impressive decor and stained glass windows. Craftsmen were working on the floor whilst we were there.

 

Inside of St Michael's Cathedral

The Regina Hotel sitting snug on one corner of the square opposite the Cloth Hall gets a very positive review from us. We all had our own large ensuite double room with very comfortable beds, coffee and tea making facilities including a coffee making machine, and of course TV which I did not switch on at any time. My bathroom was clean and large, although the shower head was attached to a fixture just above the bath which is annoying for a tall person like myself who wants to stand properly underneath a shower jet. Full marks for the power of the blast however. The restaurant was OK, quite expensive, but not the best place we ate at. However we did get bed and breakfast and the breakfast was a more than sufficient start to the day in the restaurant area. The proprietor was a very friendly young Belgian with a good sense of humour.
The fire alarm went off at midnight one night and the proprietor and his aide sped around the second floor making sure everyone was OK and trying to find the culprit. It seemed someone had been smoking in their room, a serious breach of decorum.

Regina Hotel from the top of the Cloth Hall

 

We bought a map of the region around Ypres from the Ambrosia hotel which displayed marked bike routes. This is an excellent idea as it corresponds with signs dotted all around the area directing cyclists down one pathway or another, alongside a canal here, a little country lane there, or along the extensive network of cycle paths alongside all the main roads. ‘Nodes’ on the map are little circles with numbers in that mark the end of a particular stretch of route, and a clear sign marks every node in reality. Its cyclist heaven as you’d expect in the Low Countries, with no more than slight undulations in the landscape and a clear separation from main road traffic. Cobbled streets in Ypres are just a little hard on the tyres and bum!

One day we cycled out on a very rough circular tour south - south east from the town centre and ended up taking a detour to Sanctuary Wood and Hill 62. Here there is a large cemetery for British soldiers with significant numbers of tombstones  marked 'known to God.' Just a few yards down the road is the Sanctuary Wood shop, café and trenches. Here for about ten euro you can see an enormous amount of junk from the first world war but all on a rather disorganised basis. There is a bar where you can have a beer or coffee, but beware of the cats if you don't like them wandering over tables! From the bar you can access the museum which has a right jumble of jetsam and flotsam from the war. We spent a while looking into 'magic boxes through a narrow slit for the eyes to observe tons of black and white photos from the war which gave a realistic 3-D impression. That's quite fun. After perusing the museum you can wander out into a small area of woodland with a network of trenches crisscrossing through, with bits of corrugated iron reinforcing the sides, for surely the trenches would have collapsed a long time ago. There is another separate building full of more First World War paraphernalia, but to be quite frank this museum needs an update overhaul compared with the splendid displays in Ypres.



Sanctuary Wood trenches

 

 

No visit to Belgium would be complete without a trip to that chocolate box capital of chocolatiers and top draw medieval prettiness, Bruges. Head north from Ypres on the autoroutes and you are there within the hour. Plan your parking before you go or you might get badly stung. We investigated a city centre car park first but it was time limited, then we found out that to park on the street was expensive even though there were no apparent signs. A local advised us to park at the rail station for about 2 and a half euro, so off we went to find the station but lost it in the traffic , so just found a side street a bit out of town.

You can swan around Bruges for hours looking at the great buildings, medieval town square, admiring the canal system and getting lost down lots of dinky streets. It’s like a big theme park but what did spoil things a little was the funfair in the town square which was almost as incongruous as the Occupy movement tent city outside St Paul’s Cathedral. You can take a boat around the city centre for seven euro, with an audio talk from the captain extolling the ancient buildings surrounding you, you just have to be prepared to wait a while on the boat for it to be filled up.

 

 

 

You can also do the historium in the town square and participate in a walk back into history by wandering through a succession of themed historical rooms with videos telling a love story against the backdrop of medieval Bruges. An audio guide makes things a lot easier.  Mind you this attraction did get some bad reviews on the internet! If you can slip past a chocolate or pastry shop you will still be caught by a posh cafe or restaurant that will suck you into its clutches.

Chic apartments in Bruges

Canal side in Bruges

Whizzing home from Ypres we decided to stop at Poperinge, a small town about eight miles west of Ypres and on the way to Dunkirk. This town was a big time logistics centre for the British army and a place behind the lines which provided field hospitals and also solace from the horrors of war for many a soldier. Here was Talbot House, an oasis for the British army in the very centre of the town, a large house with its quiet gardens where they could relax, Although not a church house as such, it was a place where the Anglican church had a presence. With its light airy rooms, it is now kitted out for bed and breakfast, and the warden serves you a welcome cup of tea in the downstairs dining room before you take a tour of the house. At the top of the house in the attic is a lovely room done out as a chapel, one of the most attractive I have seen.

Here in Poperinge two death cells are preserved in the Town Hall, and also an execution post in the courtyard used by firing squads.

The area is famous for growing hops and the national hop museum is just up the road from Talbot House.

 

 

 

Talbot House chapel

 

Quebec House and Chartwell

Here’s another double dip trip you can do within easy reach of London, Quebec House in Westerham, where General Wolfe of Battle of Quebec fame was brought up, and Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s beloved home, just a few miles down the road. Both are National Trust properties and can be done quite easily in a day. We went there from Worthing, West Sussex via the M23 and M25 if you want a quick run, but if you are staying in London the area is very accessible to visitors being just outside the M25, the London orbital motorway.

Westerham is a little town that tumbles over the Kentish downs at this point, south of the M25. It has a triangle of green in the centre appropriately with statues of both General Wolfe and Churchill. If you are heading east through the centre the main road dips down past the green on the left and then passes Quebec House before bending left where a car park can be found a little further on to the left.

Quebec House

Quebec House sits right on the main road and is backed by the coach house which is now the National Trust official entrance to the property. Here you can pay your entrance fee of £5 then have a cup of tea in the tiny café before climbing the staircase onto the first floor for the exhibition room, a very interesting display on the great war in Canada when General Wolfe took Quebec from the French in 1759 with his British troops and lost his life in the process due to injuries from three musket balls, as did the French commander. Using the St Lawrence River, the British landed below the town and forced the French into a retreat through standing firm. There is a helpful DVD that charts the course of the battle, as well as many helpful wall displays and illustrations on the progress of the battle. Wolfe was a mere 32 years old when he died as a major military commander, makes you wonder what you’ve done with your own life! You could consider him a pivotal figure in world events, because the capture of Quebec led to the capture of Montreal which finished French control of the country. Hence his posthumous title, ‘The Conqueror of Canada.’

The Coach House

Once you’ve read up on the battle, you nip downstairs at the other end, have a peruse around the garden and then station yourself at the front of the main house as we did ready for it to be opened at 1pm. The house is decked out as it would have looked when Wolfe spent his childhood there, lots of dark polished floorboards, displays, rugs and big bits of furniture.

Game table

The bicentenary room

The bicentenary room at the back of the house is a highlight with a military display arrayed across the large table in the centre of the room. Here there is a uniform of the time in bright red livery, a goatskin bag for a soldier to carry his kit, a flintlock musket complete with musket balls and bayonet appendage, a couple of grenades (hence the name grenadier), a case to carry cartridges, a pair of black breeches, and a pair of shoes, both of which are exactly the same, no left and right like today. You can handle the rifle which bears a tidy weight, and finger the goatskin bag, which when new emits a pungent odour which assaults the nostrils as soon as you enter the room with, you’ve guessed it, the smell of goat!

The drawing room

Upstairs the best room is the drawing room at the front of the house where the family would have relaxed, another classic old English space. Here you can practice your calligraphy by picking up a quill, dipping it in the inkwell, and writing upon the free paper provided to see whether you have any talent as a sign-writer. There is also a table with games upon it like cards, etc, and a piano.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chartwell - home of Winston Churchill



After you’ve had a quiverful of General Wolfe and his exploits you can jump back in your car and take a right turn off the main road almost opposite Quebec House onto the B2026 which takes you up into the cosy Kentish hills that surround London. It is here that Churchill found his beloved Chartwell that he lived in for so many years from 1924. You follow the country road and then take a left turn up a narrow lane. As you wind round up to the right you stumble upon the site which spreads over a quiet fold in the downs to the left of the road. You can see why Churchill loved it, barely a few miles from the edge of the London conurbation you are in the midst of classic England, enclosed in the North Downs and with a view to die for out to the south and the Kentish Weald.

The house is very distinctive, large but very much a home rather than a mansion. It sits high on the lip of the grounds, looking out over the valley and down to the lake at the bottom. It has quite an ordinary but still impressive enough frontage just off the road, with a gravel drive going in one entrance and out the other.

Chartwell front of house

You can imagine General Eisenhower in his jeep swinging in with a couple of US military police and jumping out dressed in camouflage green to have a parlez-vous with the great man during the war.

The house looks better if you approach it from the National Trust entrance, or from down below in the valley, then its distinctive size and attractive shape come into view.

First room of the tour is a downstairs sitting/living room, then you can see the library before going upstairs to see a large lounge and also dining room with round table and green décor, as well as bedrooms. There is a really nice atmosphere, all peace and quiet and you can see why Churchill loved it. Churchill’s study is a highlight with the standing desk he worked at. Behind this room is his bedroom which it was agreed would be kept from public view. Another section has cabinets showing the various uniforms he used to wear, including the famous siren suit. There is a great museum or exhibition space with exhibits of gifts that were given over the years by foreign dignitaries as well as write ups and photographs of Churchill’s life. You finish in the kitchens before exiting for a bit of fresh air.

Goldfish pond

There is also a great restaurant there where you can take lunch either before or after your visit, and a very interesting shop with lots of inviting gifts to buy for yourself or others. Like a bottle of Wilberforce freedom ale which I bought (and may even drink today if the mood takes me). I love National Trust shops, stuff can be a bit pricey but you are looking at a bit of quality.

You can swan on down to Churchill’s studio where you can see over 130 pictures painted by Churchill himself. How he found time to do all this as well as being a politician, writer, family man and builder one can never know. He obviously liked Mediterranean scenes, visiting islands like Madeira to give his brushes an airing. There are also more mementos displayed, including a letter from Field Marshall Montgomery.

Also you can mosey around the gardens including the walled kitchen garden, some of the brickwork having been done by Churchill himself, and also wander down to the lake where you can see a large sculpture of Churchill. All in all a visit well worth taking. Do it!

Chartwell grounds

A typical English house party in the early twentieth century - imagine the scene!

Reginald picked up the ancient black receiver.

‘I say Aunt Sybil, he said in his clipped King’s English honed giving orders on the Boer war battlefields. ‘Have you been invited to the house-party this weekend near Dorking. You will have a most marvellous time. The express leaves Victoria Station at 5.22pm on Friday evening and takes a most agreeable course out of the Old Smoke through the salubrious suburbs of Sutton, Cheam and Epsom. There’ll be quite a few of us on it, we’ve booked a carriage with our own trolley service. It then steams out into the Surrey Hills, a most wonderful green lung for the denizens of our great capital, and stops at the little halt of Trumpington. Here you alight and catch the charabanc up the hill to the house. It's quite a climb, but I'm dashed certain you'll enjoy the views.'

Reginald could almost hear his aunt's ears prick up with interest.

'It is a most splendid setting, you really will love it. Acres of rolling hillside and sheep filled meadows, capped with glorious woodland, you will have a real ball. When the motor bus arrives at our stately pile some dapper young footmen will relieve you of your luggage, whilst the master of the house will escort you to your room. There you will have a wash and brush up, deposit your clothes in the voluminous wardrobes, then descend the central staircase to the morning room, there you will be greeted by your host for the weekend, Lady Egremont, who will ply you with champagne and canapés and give you a schedule for the weekend. Here you will be introduced to your fellow weekend house guests, an assorted constellation of politicians, film stars, artists and writers.' His voice fell to a whisper, 'You know I've heard the Prime Minister will be there, the Prime Minister, isn't that just dashed exciting?'

‘Oh Reginald, said the squeaky voice at the other end of the phone, ‘it does sound such frightful fun. I have to come.’

'You will then return to your room to dress for dinner. The ladies will be expected to wear any shade of pink, red, scarlet or purple, complete with millinery flamboyance. The gentlemen will wear full top and tails with black bow tie and white shirts. Everyone will speak in a posh upper class accent.'

Aunt Sybil squealed with delight.

'Dinner will be served at 7pm sharp as Lady Egremont runs the house like a German warship. All provender springs from the bounty of nature that is the local farm, fresh duck, chicken and  lamb served with new potatoes, fresh vegetables from the kitchen garden and lashings of onion gravy followed by homemade Box-Hill tart and custard.'

'The weekend will flow like a vintage barrel of wine as the chaps stock up in the gun-room with a suitable flintlock and then tarry forth into the rolling downs to shoot some of those dumb pheasants, down some pigeons and terminate some grouse. The locals will provide beaters to pummel the living daylights out of the local undergrowth and stir up some beaks. After an exhausting day pointing guns into the sky, our trusty band of fellows will return in triumph to the gentleman’s lounge and smoke large Cuban cigars in front of a roaring fire, whilst others will have a golly good game of billiards and take a few bets on the afternoon’s race at Ascot, the results of which will blare out on the sideboard wireless.'

'Meanwhile, the ladies will indulge in all day chatter between bouts of eating and drinking. Madam will mingle with the ladies and do a little subtle matchmaking, avoiding any whiff of scandal of course. The new  'His Master's Voice' record player will blare out the latest jazz number by Fats Waller. It is a most pleasant way to spend the afternoon in the library, more a living room with books, with its annexe containing Madam’s favourite study with its beautiful views out over the Surrey hills. If you are lucky, at 4pm on the dot you may join madam for tea and cake at the other end of the corridor. Here intimate conversation flourishes among the cream cakes.'

'Saturday evening is the ball and they've booked a simply spiffing jazz band from Chicago for the entertainment. These black chappies know how to tinkle the ivories I'll tell you. The ball is the highlight of the weekend, you will simply love it, it's so nineteen twenties my darling. Mind you there are a fair few cads and bounders there. Watch out for Monocle Marmaduke, he fancies himself awfully with the ladies.'

By now Aunt Sybil was squealing with delight at the other end of the phone. 'It sound simply scrumptious Reginald darling.'

Of course, many of the rooms have ensuite facilities, a truly revolutionary idea. When you awaken in the morning, or perhaps in the afternoon if you had a late night, you can adjourn in your big fluffy dressing gown into the bathroom and get high on the bath salts. Underfloor heating, another technological marvel, will ensure your tootsies will not suffer.

Of course most will rise rather late on Saturday and Sunday morning, but for those who arise early you may adjourn to the upper landing where you can admire portraits of past heroes of the British Empire. Or you might want to read from a pile of one of those capital upper class magazines like ‘Country Life,’ ‘Shooting Times,’ and ‘The Lady.’

‘By jove, it’s basically a jolly good weekend for catching some fab country air and mixing with people just like yourself. Mummy came last time and she thought you would love it!

Aunt Sybil roared with laughter at the other end of the phone. 'I will commence my packing now Reginald. You have converted me.'

National Trust property  - Polesden Lacey

Polesden Lacey

Polesden Lacey sits hidden up in the Surrey Downs not far from the towns of Dorking and Leatherhead in the stockbroker belt outside London. If you don't know the geography, London sits in the Thames basin surrounded by some absolutely gorgeous countryside if you know where to go. That's why many London commuters like retreating to their homes at the weekend because they can enjoy wonderful open landscapes barely a stone's throw from the office. Whether you head north west to the Chiltern hills, south east to a garden suburb like Woldingham, or south west to the Surrey hills, you are guaranteed the full English countryside experience on London's doorstep.

House and downs

Statue in grounds 

The Surrey Hills are an AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty for the uninitiated), a swathe of rolling countryside with big views to the south and south west of London. They are full of interesting villages and towns with bags of history and acres of open fields and woodland. Here mountain bikers, horse-riders and walkers can reach for the sky.

Polesden Lacey is in the top ten National Trust properties to visit, up there with Chartwell and Stourhead, and when you get there you can see why. I visited on a snowy March day after catching the train from home via Barnham, Arundel and Horsham. You alight at the little halt of Box-Hill and West Humble. Box-Hill itself is well worth a visit as it is a well known beauty spot in the south with fantastic views over the Weald of Sussex and out to the South Downs. This area was used for the first road race of the 2012 Olympics when the riders used the local hills before powering their way to the centre of London and the finish line. Shame we missed a medal there despite Mark Cavendish being a favourite.



Looking up to the house

View of house from formal gardens end

The main arterial A24 Worthing to London road whacks north-south through the countryside here with lots of 50 mph speed limits on scary bends at this point. It is a fine and very scenic road for much of its length, and this stretch past Box Hill is no exception. I often use the road when heading north from Worthing, but had little idea of the attraction of Polesden Lacey.

  I had my bike with me and using a map printed off my computer I cycled up to Polesden Lacey through attractive scenery. It's quite a climb and you need a bit of puff, but eventually you get to the grounds of Polesden Lacey snug and high in the Surrey hills. Here you can park up and get a bite to eat at the restaurant before doing the house and grounds. Even on a cold March day the eatery had a healthy buzz, so try and plan your trip for an off peak time. It was ideal for me as there were very few wandering around the house and grounds, and visitors that day were in their hundreds rather than the thousands.

Polesden Lacey

Being a member of the National Trust this year, I can swan into any National Trust property I want for nothing, so it was a pleasure to flourish my card and breeze through into the main attraction. You can stroll around extensive grounds with lots of footpaths. Immediately adjoining the house are the formal gardens on a typical stately home plan, huge rectangular areas stretching along the top of the downs. If you wander outside the formal gardens you can admire the mixture of leafy lane, rolling hill and woodland surrounding this elderly matron of a stately home. 

The home itself has been used as a regional HQ for the National Trust, but more recently some of the upstairs rooms that have been used as offices have been opened up to the public e.g. the suite of rooms used by the 'hostess with the mostest,' Mrs Greville of house-party fame. Most of what there is to see is downstairs. You enter the main door to find yourself in a large entrance hall, to the right of which is a large dining room with a rich red carpet. A large table is decked for dinner although it has simulated desserts on the table. Homely it is, and one can imagine it being a very cosy roomful on a cold winter's evening. Returning to the entrance hall, take a left turn down the corridor and you arrive at another suite of rooms. To the left is the library with adjoining study that the lady of the house used, with its desk topped with photos of her parents, a Scottish brewery multimillionaire and Helen Anderson. Next to the library is a huge, grand room with a spectacular chandelier and lots of gold and mirror work and impressive views out over the adjoining hills.To the right of this room is a lounge where Mrs Greville would entertain guests in the afternoon to tea and cakes, and moving right again you enter the man-cave, another very  large room with armchairs round a fire at one end where the chaps would smoke and chat away the day, and a huge billiard table at the other end. Next door and at the end of the tour is the gun-room before you exit the house, but unfortunately there are no guns to look at or pick up to go and do a spot of grouse shooting.

Surrey hills from Polesden Lacey

Upstairs as I said you can wander the suite of rooms used by Lady Greville herself, and watch a DVD of the history of the house in the early twentieth century. On the landing you can pretend to be one of the previous house guests and sit and read the papers/magazines after rising for the day before everybody else!

Polesden Lacey was a magnet for the great and the good/not so good in the twenties and thirties. Winston Churchill was a visitor here, and the Queen Mother and George VI had part of their honeymoon here in 1923, such was the reputation of the place. Their honeymoon suite is not open to the public.