Exploring :: A Birthday Adventure at Clevedon

Hi there everyone 😀

It's a cold and grey Sunday afternoon in January and I've decided to spend an hour or so trying to catch up with some blog posts that I still want to share from the back end of last year ... starting with my birthday trip to Clevedon.

Back in August 2018 Martin and I had a lovely day out at Weston-super-mare, driving back along the coast road through Clevedon on our way home. It was too late to stop then but we both said that it was somewhere that we definitely wanted to go back to for a proper visit.

For one reason or another, Covid being a big one, we didn't manage to get back there for quite some some time but we did manage a trip for my birthday back in November last year.

We knew it would be a bit of a trek but we were lucky with the traffic and had a really good journey and parked up along the front, not far from the pier, at about 11.00am. As you can see it was more than a little bit murky, with the coast of Wales having disappeared into the gloom ...

Excited to be out and by the sea we were undeterred, got dressed for the weather and headed along the prom for the pier ...

It really is a beautiful pier and we couldn't wait to explore. You do have to pay a small charge to visit the pier and this does include entry to a small museum sharing the pier's history ... we didn't visit the museum, preferring to stay outside for this visit ...

It was still pretty grey and very breezy but the pier did not disappoint. It is beautifully kept, spotlessly clean and it was easy to imagine the old paddle steamers docking on the end dropping off their Victorian passengers in years gone by ...

We took a very steady amble to the end of the pier and it looked like the cloud was beginning to clear ... we could even now see across to Wales ...

We had a good look around at the end of the pier ... where it was more than a little breezy ...

... before making our way back ... and look ... a little bit of blue sky put in an appearance especially for my birthday visit ...

There is lots of information about the history of the pier on line but ... in a nutshell ... it was officially opened on Easter Monday in 1869 and for 20 years provided a new, fast route over to South Wales. The opening of the Severn Railway Tunnel in 1886 began to snatch away the steamer passengers and business faltered, with the pier being transferred to the ownership of Clevedon Council.

The sum of £10,000 was borrowed from the town, to pay for a new pierhead and a landing stage. These consisted of twenty-four massive iron columns and forty-two green-heat piles, 25 feet long. The new landing stage was built at an angle to the pierhead, in order to align with the prevailing Bristol Channel current. The re- habilitated pier was re-opened on 3rd April 1893 by Lady Elton.

Just a year later, the Japanese style pagoda and two shelters were added to the pierhead. The style of these beautiful structures owes much to John Nash’s Brighton Pavilion built several centuries earlier. The Town Surveyor oversaw this work which was undertaken by McDowell and Stevens of the Melton Iron Works. 26 tons of ironwork was thus added to the pierhead.

In 1913, the timber landing stage, which had deteriorated, was replaced by the present pre-cast concrete structure. Even this work suffered temporary disruption by a gale which wrecked sections of the newly installed concrete and ripped up decking.

As time went by disaster struck the Pier at 10:20 on the morning of Friday, 16th October 1970, when under load testing for insurance purposes, the two end spans failed and collapsed into the sea.

It was 1998 before the pier was restored to her former glory and went on to be voted as the pier of the year in 1999. In 2001 it was awarded Grade 1 listed status and the future secured.

Back on dry land for us and, with a bit of blue sky, the view was looking much brighter ...

... and look how clear we could see Wales now ...

We decided to walk back along the front to the other end of the bay to see what we could find ... hopefully somewhere nice for lunch ... stopping to look back at the pier along the way ...

We stopped at The Little Harp Inn for lunch ...

... and very nice it was too. It was also lovely to get warm and toasty ...

Refreshed we continued our walk along the front, ending up at The Marine Lake, another piece of Victorian history brought back to life ...

I can imagine that it would be a lovely spot to spend an afternoon in the sunshine but even on a cold November day there was plenty going on ... there were even a few brave swimmers ...

We walked right to the end so we could take in the view looking back across the lake to the pier ...

Time was getting on so we decided to head back, dropping down onto the beach to get some different views of the pier ...

Back at the car and this was the view ...

... which was just a little bit different from what we'd been greeted with on arrival ...

It was time to head for home, but we decided to carry on along the coast and call in to see what was at Portishead on the way back to the motorway.

We parked up by the lido on the edge of the Bristol Channel and had a bit of a wander and got some fabulous views of the Channel ...

It was a fabulous view of the bridge looking up river, but I was looking right into the sun so my photos are not that good ...

We'd spun the most out of the day and still had a pretty long drive home so headed back to the car for the off ...

I just went to crop out the signs on the top left of this photo and then realised it was a 'do not climb' sign ... which made wish I'd actually got it all in 😂

We'd had a lovely day. Clevedon was a real treat and is somewhere we will definitely go back to. It will be lovely in the summer, though then I guess it will be busy ... and it was nice visiting whilst it was so quiet.

We had another good drive home with a cracking sunset to round off the day ...

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A Week in Somerset #5 - Montacute House NT

Hi there everyone 😀

The primary focus of our week's holiday in Somerset back in November last year was to visit the Longleat Festival of Light, which we did and it was amazing. If you've missed my posts about our visit you can catch up with our drive around The Winter Safari here, our first circuit of the lights in the daylight here and then again, all lit up, here.

We also managed to fit in plenty of other days out and about. We spent a lovely day in Wells and we also managed to take a couple of National Trust properties that weren't too far away.
Our first visit was to Montacute House, described by the National Trust as being ...

"A masterpiece of Elizabethan Renaissance architecture and design. With its towering walls of glass, glow of ham stone and surrounding garden, it is a place of beauty and wonder."

It was a bit of a grey day and, although rain was threatened, it was dry when we arrived so we decided to have a wander round the grounds first and then head inside a bit later on.

We started by finding our way round to the back of the house ...
... where we walked around the East Court, looking for signs of Autumn in the borders ...

... and taking in the views down into the parkland ...

We carried on round into the North Garden, where we were both pretty taken with the lumpy looking topiary ...
We followed it down to the bottom where we were heading for a gap in the hedge ...

... which led us down some steps ...

... which took us either out into the open parkland ...

... or to the ice house, which was our destination ...

It was then back through the hedge for a better look around the North Garden ...

 

... where I think it would be fair to say that Martin got more than a little obsessed with taking photos of the fountain ... 

I had a wander past the orangery ...

... and round to the front of the house ...

... where I did make a bit of an effort to walk down the West Drive ...

... to be able to look back and see the front of the house in all its glory ...

I was just making my way back up when Martin caught up with me ...

After a quick wander down to the stable block and a look around the second hand book store, we decided it was time to have a look inside ...

We didn't take any photographs inside and I'm not normally one for portraits but I did really enjoy the National Portrait Gallery displays where I actually learned that all three of Henry VIII's children, from three different mothers incidentally, went on to become monarch. I never really was a fan of history so apologies for my absolute ignorance of this fact, which I'm sure is not news to the majority of people.

So, that was about it, just two places left to visit ... the shop, where we didn't buy anything ... and the tea room ... where of course we did 😀

Another interesting property under our belts and another lovely afternoon out courtesy of the National Trust 😀

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