The Ham Nomads

29 Oct 2014. <GB-ENG> Lode (Anglesey Abbey), E Cambs —

Today we started off religiously with matins in MacDonalds, about 2½ hours of internet blogging and journal writing. Then we set off for Cambridge. We called in to Halford's for more supplies of oil before moving on to Anglesey Abbey, getting there at about 2pm, just in time to have lunch.

The weather started to deteriorate, so we decided only to look at the Abbey itself today, and to explore the grounds on a sunnier day — there are some predicted! We had to rush up to the house because, despite the National Trust clearly stating in its booklet that entry to the house ended at four, with the house itself closing at five, the locals were still apparently working on Summer time, with these events an hour earlier than published! The light was gloomy outside, even gloomier inside, but Warren managed to get a few shots to show you.

Again, this is a place that belonged to the Augustinians and, with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, fell into private hands and the buildings into ruin. The present house was built in the 17th century, incorporating what remained of the old priory. The current state of the house is due to Huddleston Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven, who bought the place with his brother as a base for shooting partridges, racing horses and nearby Newmarket and to oversee the family stud at Great Barton. He remodelled the house to house his extensive art collection.

The library is interesting, in that it contains all the 9,000 books it was built to house, including some early rarities. It also has quite a few paintings, including portraits of mainly Tudor royalty, John Constable's The Opening of Waterloo Bridge, and the shelves themselves are built from the elm-wood piles from John Rennie's Waterloo Bridge, which was demolished, despite protests, in 1934. The library is also a magnificent cheat — when you enter the room, you are overwhelmed by the sheer number of the books in there — until you realise that mirrors judiciously placed at the ends of the shelves multiply the apparent number of books manyfold!

In the Upper Gallery, built to house many of the collected artworks, there was what seemed to be an interesting installation in the middle of the room — two beds, placed end-to-end, with their headboards in the middle. Turns out, however, that renovations are starting in a couple of the bedrooms when the abbey closes next week for the winter, and these two beds have been brought out here as a far cheaper alternative to putting them into storage for the duration!

A 1910 Steinway

A Cat-a-pillar!

Part of the original abbey

This is a very strange home, difficult to come to terms with, but a good insight into the playboy lifestyle of Lord Fairhaven. The other side to the estate is its gardens, developed by Lord Fairhaven between 1930 and his death in 1966 (at which time the entire property was given to the National Trust). It was raining outside, so we left, hoping to revisit the place when the sun is shining, maybe tomorrow.

We went in towards Cambridge, where there is a nice layby near a public footpath on the A1303 (Newmarket Road), just of junction 35 on the A14.

Distance driven — today, 35 miles ( 56 km ); to date, 9,352 miles ( 15,051 km )