One of the many things I love about living in Oxford is that there are so many beautiful places to visit within an hour away by car. Compton Verney is just such a place. It's a lovely great manor house turned into an art gallery with a Capability Brown designed parkland. In all ways, it is a feast for the eyes.
There has been a home on this sight for over a thousand years and it is referenced in the Domesday Book of 1086 (a survey and census carried out for the Norman king, William the Conqueror, to record land ownership and values).
As with most grand houses like this, it buildings have evolved over the centuries. The first surviving inventory of the house, which dates from the middle of the Civil War in 1642, describes a "house of thirty rooms including a hall, two parlours, seventeen bedrooms, an armoury and study as well as servants’ quarters and outbuildings".
The house and landscape that is there today was shaped most notably by John Peyto-Verney who, around 1760, decided to remodel his mansion and garden. He hired Lancelot "Capability" Brown, England's most influential landscape architect to redesign the parkland.
In 1993 it was bought in a run-down state by the Peter Moores Foundation, a charity supporting music and the visual arts established by former Littllwoods chairman Sir Peter Moores. It was his vision to restore the property into a gallery capable of hosting international art exhibitions. Compton Verney Art Gallery is now run by Compton Verney House Trust.
The Park at Compton Verney that you see today is the result of an 11-year restoration project that is still ongoing to restore the landscape to the one that Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown designed in 1768.
Compton Verney has the largest collection of British folk art in the UK.
The British Portrait collection features portraits of royal and noble sitters from the first great era of British painting: the Tudor period (1485-1603) including Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Edward VI.
It is estimated that Capability Brown was responsible for over 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain, all designed and developed in the mid to late 1700's. Click here for a map of the sites where Capability Brown is known or thought to have worked across the UK.
Happy 301st Birthday today (30 August), Sir Lancelot "Capability" Brown!
I love this willow walk!
I also love this restored Icehouse which dates to around 1771. Ice houses were the forerunners to the refrigerator. They provided temperature regulated spaces, chilled down through the use of ice ‘cropped’ during the winter months. Clean ice would have been collected throughout the winter, and compacted into the insulating brick lined pit.
Across the lake from the house there is a geodesic dome called "The Clearing", a collaborative artwork by Alex Hartley and Tom James. Here visitors can take workshops on how to live in the world affected by the social and climate change that’s coming our way.
Thank you to our dear friend, Kath and Ian, for introducing us to Compton Verney. All in all, it's a delightful place to visit. Whether you like art, beautiful old manor house, sweeping English landscapes, lunch or tea from locally grown farms, or as in my case, all of the above, there is something here for everyone.
I spent a day last week exploring a part of London I didn't know very well -- the docklands, the river area around east and south east London. The docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. There is so much history here from pre-Roman times to the present. It's an exciting part of London that is being redeveloped and it is well worth a visit.
I started out across the London City Airport, located on Gallions Point Marina near the Royal Docks in the London Borough of Newham. Boats, planes, trucks, trains -- there is a lot going on here.
As I walked along the water front, I saw stunning new developments as well as empty and abandoned warehouses and factories like these one. I wonder what will be here in a few year's time? There is a lot of potential in this part of London.
One of the newer developments on the docklands is Emirate Airline's cable-car which crosses the River Thames in East London, between The Royal Docks near Canning Town and the Greenwich Peninsula. It is sponsored by Emirates Airline, hence its title. The Royal Docks Terminal, on the north side, is close to the Excel Centre (a huge convention center). The Greenwich Peninsula Terminal, on the south side, is close to the O2 Arena.
The cable-car ride takes 5 minutes to go from one side to the other and the views of London and the docks below are truly spectacular.
I didn't expect to find an open water swimming club next to the docks. I also was surprised to find an urban man-made beach with lovely, soft sand and plenty of kids happily playing.
The round domed building with the yellow cranes on top is the O2 Arena, a state-of-the-art arena that includes a bowling alley, clubs, cinema, exhibition spaces, restaurants and shopping. The only event I've attended at the O2 was a para-Olympic women's basket ball event. I'd love to see a concert there sometime.
I continued to walk along the water front to Canary Wharf and discovered the Museum of the London Docklands. It's a wonderful museum that covers the history of the river Thames and the docks and port of London through the centuries. I could have spent the rest of the afternoon there since there is so much history here -- from Roman times, through the centuries, the World Wars, and the centuries of the slave trade. If you feel like you've been to all the museums London has to offer, this is one that shouldn't be missed, especially if you love history.
Canary Wharf sits in the middle of the Isle of Dogs, called that because Henry the 8th kept his hunting dogs here for his deer park at Greenwich. Since the 1980, it has been redeveloped on top of the old East End docklands. If you pay attention, the evidence of trade and shipbuilding is still here. Some of old dock areas have been preserved, some with the original cranes, some with sailing and water sports and a few with old barges and sailing ships. New parks have sprung up around the water front with cafes, restaurants and cycle paths and walkways.
Canary Wharf is also one of London's two main financial centers. As you walk around you'll see every bank imaginable as well as trendy shops, a shopping mall, and loads of restaurants and street food stalls. There is still so much to explore of the docklands, I can hardly wait to return.
'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.'
