Ghostly manors and rude Romans
Mar. 30th, 2014 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatYesterday we incorporated a trip to Brading Roman Villa into a day-long walk across the island
Firstly, a few "the road goes ever on and on" photos:
The cycle track (an old railway line) somewhere between Cowes and Newport:
Trees who are plotting to eat passing ramblers, and will one day reclaim the track for their own, bwahaha!
An ancient sunken lane, coming down from St George's Down into Arreton, one of the oldest villages on the island:
And, finally, a boring picture of some rather boring scenery. This is the inland plain, between Arreton and Newchurch, where quite a significant proportion of the UK's tomatoes are grown, and an even more significant percentage of its garlic. All we saw yesterday were sad cauliflowers, puddles, and the apocalyptic relics of some old crop. The soil is is pretty much pure sand.
Here is Arreton Church, snapped quickly as we passed. This is one of the oldest churches on the island, parish church of one of the four original parishes established by the Normans.
From Arreton to Brading, we were attempting to follow what is called "The Bembridge Trail," but which is pretty poorly signposted for a bridlepath with an actual name. We also thought we were following the Walk the Wight route. As a result, we spent several miles peering around in confusion, saying, "I really, really don't remember this bit on Walk the Wight!" and trying to come up with reasons why we'd both apparently suffered total amnesia for 2 miles. It was quite a relief to check the map over lunch and find that Walk the Wight does indeed divert from the Bembridge Trail for a couple of miles.
The Bembridge Trail was quite a bit longer than the Walk the Wight alternative, and we took a few wrong turns. It also took a lot longer getting down off the Downs to the Roman Villa on the plain below, and my fuel warning light went on about an hour before we reached the villa. I'm afraid I really don't cope well with hunger. I get freezing cold, shaky, dizzy, and utterly pathetic, in a weepy, 3 Sillies sort of way. "What if they've run out of food before we get there!" I was heard to sob several times. "Oh! There's going to be no food left anywhere in Brading! Oh! Oh! I'm going to die! I'm going to DIE!"
Fortunately, there was food, and four cups of tea and a platter of cold meats and breads and oils revived me no end, allowing us to explore the Roman villa.
Here is a Victorian chappy excavating the mosaic of the cock-headed man, and doubtless mangling it and ruining it for future study, as Victorian chappies tend to do.
I liked the line drawings of the mosaics that were pinned up around the place:
I also liked this guy: supposedly one of the four winds blowing on a "conch shell," but clearly actually some lesser god smoking something very interesting indeed.
The Villa currently has an exhibition on Roman Sexuality ("warning: contains sexually explicit material") which is on loan from the British Museum. This was housed in a small back room, with a heavy door, and a guard (well, a nice old lady) who was checking that we could cope with such naughtiness. At the centre was the Warren Cup - so much smaller than I thought it was! - but there were loads of cute phalluses with wings and tails, including a lovely picture of hordes and hordes of them pulling chariots around the Circus.
Pausing only to buy some small wooden chests, we then returned home, by way of the Minghella ice cream van on the Downs, and going past a local Vineyard displaying the following advert:
This time we did follow the Walk the Wight route, which took us past the locally-famed gates of Knighton Gorges. (Knighton isusually called Kay-nighton by locals to avoid confusion with Niton. There are no gorges here, but a Norman called Ralf de Gorges was an early owner.) It was largely rebuilt in the 16th century, and was said to be the biggest and best manor on the island. Long before that, it was owned by the de Morvilles, and Hugh de Morville, one of the killers of Thomas Becket, fled here briefly, before deciding to flee to Yorkshire instead.
In 1718, the local MP who then owned it allegedly committed suicide, but his loyal retainer allegedly put his body on his horse and drove it into a lake to disguise this fact in order to preserve the inheritance. However, in the early 19th century, it was deliberately destroyed by its final owner, because he was so annoyed at his daughter marrying a clergyman against his will that he burnt the whole place down rather than let her inherit it.
As a result of this colourful history, people who believe in such things claim that this is the most haunted place on the Isle of Wight. The dead MP gallops annually into a non-existent lake. The entire manor appears every New Year's Eve, hosting a ghostly party. Only the gates remain, but many people claim to have spotted strange, gargoyle-like creatures sitting on them... and here one is! Wow, it's true!
Finally, back at Arreton, we found that the Bembridge Lifeboat had got a bit confused about land and sea. The man with it was apparently trying to fit cartwheels on the boat. One wheel is propped up against the fence, but he was working on the other one of the other side. I really don't know why.
Firstly, a few "the road goes ever on and on" photos:
The cycle track (an old railway line) somewhere between Cowes and Newport:
Trees who are plotting to eat passing ramblers, and will one day reclaim the track for their own, bwahaha!
An ancient sunken lane, coming down from St George's Down into Arreton, one of the oldest villages on the island:
And, finally, a boring picture of some rather boring scenery. This is the inland plain, between Arreton and Newchurch, where quite a significant proportion of the UK's tomatoes are grown, and an even more significant percentage of its garlic. All we saw yesterday were sad cauliflowers, puddles, and the apocalyptic relics of some old crop. The soil is is pretty much pure sand.
Here is Arreton Church, snapped quickly as we passed. This is one of the oldest churches on the island, parish church of one of the four original parishes established by the Normans.
From Arreton to Brading, we were attempting to follow what is called "The Bembridge Trail," but which is pretty poorly signposted for a bridlepath with an actual name. We also thought we were following the Walk the Wight route. As a result, we spent several miles peering around in confusion, saying, "I really, really don't remember this bit on Walk the Wight!" and trying to come up with reasons why we'd both apparently suffered total amnesia for 2 miles. It was quite a relief to check the map over lunch and find that Walk the Wight does indeed divert from the Bembridge Trail for a couple of miles.
The Bembridge Trail was quite a bit longer than the Walk the Wight alternative, and we took a few wrong turns. It also took a lot longer getting down off the Downs to the Roman Villa on the plain below, and my fuel warning light went on about an hour before we reached the villa. I'm afraid I really don't cope well with hunger. I get freezing cold, shaky, dizzy, and utterly pathetic, in a weepy, 3 Sillies sort of way. "What if they've run out of food before we get there!" I was heard to sob several times. "Oh! There's going to be no food left anywhere in Brading! Oh! Oh! I'm going to die! I'm going to DIE!"
Fortunately, there was food, and four cups of tea and a platter of cold meats and breads and oils revived me no end, allowing us to explore the Roman villa.
Here is a Victorian chappy excavating the mosaic of the cock-headed man, and doubtless mangling it and ruining it for future study, as Victorian chappies tend to do.
I liked the line drawings of the mosaics that were pinned up around the place:
I also liked this guy: supposedly one of the four winds blowing on a "conch shell," but clearly actually some lesser god smoking something very interesting indeed.
The Villa currently has an exhibition on Roman Sexuality ("warning: contains sexually explicit material") which is on loan from the British Museum. This was housed in a small back room, with a heavy door, and a guard (well, a nice old lady) who was checking that we could cope with such naughtiness. At the centre was the Warren Cup - so much smaller than I thought it was! - but there were loads of cute phalluses with wings and tails, including a lovely picture of hordes and hordes of them pulling chariots around the Circus.
Pausing only to buy some small wooden chests, we then returned home, by way of the Minghella ice cream van on the Downs, and going past a local Vineyard displaying the following advert:
This time we did follow the Walk the Wight route, which took us past the locally-famed gates of Knighton Gorges. (Knighton isusually called Kay-nighton by locals to avoid confusion with Niton. There are no gorges here, but a Norman called Ralf de Gorges was an early owner.) It was largely rebuilt in the 16th century, and was said to be the biggest and best manor on the island. Long before that, it was owned by the de Morvilles, and Hugh de Morville, one of the killers of Thomas Becket, fled here briefly, before deciding to flee to Yorkshire instead.
In 1718, the local MP who then owned it allegedly committed suicide, but his loyal retainer allegedly put his body on his horse and drove it into a lake to disguise this fact in order to preserve the inheritance. However, in the early 19th century, it was deliberately destroyed by its final owner, because he was so annoyed at his daughter marrying a clergyman against his will that he burnt the whole place down rather than let her inherit it.
As a result of this colourful history, people who believe in such things claim that this is the most haunted place on the Isle of Wight. The dead MP gallops annually into a non-existent lake. The entire manor appears every New Year's Eve, hosting a ghostly party. Only the gates remain, but many people claim to have spotted strange, gargoyle-like creatures sitting on them... and here one is! Wow, it's true!
Finally, back at Arreton, we found that the Bembridge Lifeboat had got a bit confused about land and sea. The man with it was apparently trying to fit cartwheels on the boat. One wheel is propped up against the fence, but he was working on the other one of the other side. I really don't know why.
