Well, this is Sunday and our last full day in Nottingham. As if we haven't seen enough castles and country houses, we went to see Hardwick Hall. HH is in Derbyshire and an Elizabethan country house. It was built between 1590-1597 for the formidable Bess of Hardwick. She was the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth I and her house was built to be a conspicuous statement of her wealth and power. There is a tragic story about Bess's granddaughter, Arbella that was told throughout the house. Check it out Arbella Stuart on Wikipedia.
Front of Hardwick Hall
Left: Silkscreen of Arbella Stuart
Right: A room dedicated to document filing, about the size of a kitchen
A Frieze on the wall of the drawing room
A guest bedroom
On our way home, we did a drive-by at Newstead Abbey. We did not go in, but walked around the grounds and gardens. It is in Nottinghamshire, very close to our B&B in Nottingham and was formerly an Augustinian priory. It was converted to a domestic home following the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry III and it is best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron, the English poet.
Newstead Abbey
It's Monday and Sharon and I are headed from Nottingham to Bletchley which is just NW of London. Bletchley Park is in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. It was the central site of the UK's Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which during WWII regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers - most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The official historian of WWII British intelligence says that the intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by 2-4 years and without it, the outcome of the war would have been uncertain. It is now an educational and historical attraction celebrating those accomplishments.
Bletchley Park was amazing....forgot to mention....the film, "The Imitation Game", starring Benedict Cumberbatch was filmed at Bletchley. He played Alan Turing who essentially invented and built one of the first computers to interpret the intelligence they gathered from Germany, Italy and Japan.
Movie poster
Cottages that the codebreakers lived in
The huts were numbered and each hut had its own function, then passed their work through passageways to the next hut
Bletchley Park was amazing....forgot to mention....the film, "The Imitation Game", starring Benedict Cumberbatch was filmed at Bletchley. He played Alan Turing who essentially invented and built one of the first computers to interpret the intelligence they gathered from Germany, Italy and Japan.
The huts were numbered and each hut had its own function, then passed their work through passageways to the next hut
interpret secret messages from the enemy
On the way to Bletchley, we stopped in Leicester in the East Midlands in the county of Leicestershire. In 2012, archeologists dug under a parking lot where an old church had once stood because they believed that this was where King Richard III was buried without recognition. He was a very controversial King and was killed in battle, but his body was never found. There is a King Richard III Society that pushed for an investigation and eventually this led to the dig......well, I'm not sure what the odds were, but they found his skeleton and were able to track down a descendant and, from mitochondrial DNA, determine the authenticity of the bones. His re-interrment and service, complete with a parade and fanfare, etc., was just held in March of this year. I had never heard this story, but my first B&B hostess told me about it and sent me a link to the story. Check it out here King of the Car Park!
Leicester Cathedral
Richard III's tomb
Since we didn't have a B&B reserved, Sharon found an historic hall turned into a hotel for us to stay the night It was Chicheley Hall, which is an ancient manor house that belonged to the Pagnell family but was given by them to the church. Cardinal Wolsey gave it to Christ Church, Oxford, it reverted to the Crown and was eventually bought by a merchant....fast forward....now it is a hotel that specializes in weddings and conferences. It was built between 1719 and 1723.
Tuesday and I am dropping Sharon off at Heathrow Airport early afternoon and then make my way to Colchester in the county of Essex. I am sad to see Sharon go, but we have had a lot of fun and it was great to spend some time with her.
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