Cranleigh, Surrey

Well, our first house sit in England this year was close to the village of Cranleigh in the south of England, and what a treat to spend it with Madelaine and Davidson. It was Madelaine’s 40th so big celebrations all around. This was after our reunion in France where we indulged in a tasting tour of the champagne Region.

Our number two treat at the house sit was looking after two beautiful boxer brothers, Diesel and Murphy. We didn’t forget to bring some champagne from France for Maddie’s birthday where we forced ourselves to polish off a bottle (OK two… ) and with two great chefs on hand, the dinner menu was a treat.

We were not too far away from historic Portsmouth and Guildford, Cranleigh of course, and quaint Godalming. And of course, walking these two boxers along the nearby canal. So this visit was going to be pretty busy.

We call our yearly UK visit our maintenance trip. We use it to get our UK-registered car a new MOT safety check, personal health checks, computer checks, getting hard to source items for the caravan, and of supreme importance, stocking up on Heinz baked beans and salad creme.

Surrey is a beautiful part of England and walking the dogs along the canal was not only great exercise for us but a look back in time to how these canals were built as a means of transporting goods 250 years ago.

The period between the 1770s and the 1830s is often referred to as the “Golden Age” of British canals. During this period of canal mania, huge sums were invested in canal building. During that time the canal system in England expanded to nearly 4,000 miles. As time went by the canals suffered from both a lack of water and increasing competition from the railway. This one in Surrey was derelict and restored twice in its 220-year history.

And did you know… Councils throughout England have been rescuing canals from about the 1970s along with support from thousands of volunteer hours. Well done restoring so many canals for today’s leisure boat traffic.

A special day with Special people, Portsmouth UK. June 2023

Davidson and Madelaine, dedicated experienced Aussie seafarers, wanted to visit Portsmouth’s famous English dockyard and naval museum. So with Fabian taking charge of doggie brothers Murphy and Diesel, we headed south to discover the history of the English Navy.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Hampshire

When visiting this historical dockyard, you need a good day both in time and in the sunshine and we were blessed with both. The main attractions for us seafarers were Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson’s HMS Victory, HMS Warrior (the first iron hull naval ship), and the Mary Rose.

The cost to enter is 44GBP.

So what’s Victory famous for? It was the most celebrated warship of the British naval fleet, one of 12 new vessels designed at that time to carry 100 cannons and 800 crew (yes 800). She was launched in 1765 and weighed 3,600 tonnes. The tour of this ship includes a handheld audio guide that takes you on an immersive experience back in history to the Battle of Trafalgar and Nelson’s death by a French sniper.

We moved on to the Mary Rose which lay under the surface of a stretch of water between the Isle of White and mainland Britain at Southampton, called the Solent. The ship was built in 1510 and launched in 1511 and served Henry VIII for 34 years before sinking dramatically in 1545 while defending England from an invading French fleet. She lay there for 426 years (I’ll save you the maths) until 1971 when divers discovered the wreck site.

Hundreds of divers and about 11 years were needed to bring the Mary Rose very carefully to the surface (saving you the maths again) on 11 October 1982. The tour told the stories of the men who lived, worked, and died onboard, culminating in a 4D movie being a testament to those that worked so hard to lift the Mary Rose out of the water.

Finally, we headed to the HMS Warrior, Britain’s first iron-hulled, armoured battleship. It was launched in 1860, the peak of Britain’s dominance in trade and industry. On this tour you not only go back in time to the heyday of the Royal Navy, you also get to mingle with its crew of colourful characters (just to clarify, I mean actors not ghosts 👻.)

Farnham, Surrey

The cooler weather in England was a welcome change from the heat of France but some locals didn’t agree. After our first house sit in Cranleigh, Surrey we headed next to Farnham in Kent.

It was a dull and drizzly day when we discovered Farnham and the impressive Farnham Castle. It always amazes me how the age of these old buildings, over 1000 years ago this castle was built. So who built it? Henri de Blois in 1138, Bishop of Winchester, grandson of William the Conqueror, it became the home of the Bishops of Winchester for over 800 years. And did you know… Winchester was the capital of England before London?

What was a surprise was the KEEP (fort) behind the castle which was used as a garrison by the Royalists during the English Civil War of 1642 ending in 1651.

The Civil War was a series of conflicts between monarchy supporters and Parliament supporters in England. The war was part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which also involved Scotland and Ireland. The leading cause of the war was the power of the monarchy and the rights of Parliament, the people.

I have always been interested in world history. After the castle the old town of Farnham is where we headed most days for provisions and exercise for Bella (woof woof), This took us through Farnham Park just north of the township and was a good 45-minute walk from our home base.

Canterbury, Kent

Walking through Canterbury it isn’t hard to imagine you’re back in the past, way in the past, about 2000 years into the past and the Roman occupation, with city walls and gates and cobbles and canals, and then you find a kebab takeaway and a Transylvanian grocers. But then, they had shops then too, didn’t they?

And did you know… that Canterbury was where Rupert Bear came from? Or that Dickens was writing about Canterbury in his famous “David Copperfield” story? Canterbury was home and inspiration to many other famous names in English literature.

Other famous people were not so lucky in this city. Thomas Becket was a great friend of Henry II who made him Archbishop of Canterbury in the 12th century.

Although they remained friends for some time they had some major disagreements over his rule they clashed over clerical privilege. Henry stated that the church was subject to the law of the land, but Becket insisted that the Church was above the law. So Henry sent four knights to sort him out. When they reached Canterbury they found Becket before the high altar. With the aim of frightening him, one of the knights approached and struck him on the shoulder with the flat of his sword. Becket stood firm and the four attacked and butchered him, cracking open his skull and spilling his brains onto the cathedral floor.

Henry was horrified along with me and most anyone else hearing this news. And, believing his words had caused Becket’s death, he starved himself for three days, wearing sackcloth and ashes. The King’s Mile is named after his walk of penance.

On a brighter note, The King’s Mile is now a street of cafes and bars and shops and when we were there the hops festival (blessing of the hops) had taken place and there was costumed whistle-blowing, foot-stomping, batten-knocking and heave-away hove-away dancing to celebrate. We also walked past the King’s School. It is Britain’s oldest public school and is arguably the oldest continuously operating school in the world since education on the Abbey and Cathedral grounds has been uninterrupted since AD 597. The price of attending has increased since opening costing about £25-30,000 a year.

We finished off with a GandT and a walk along the canal admiring all the instagrammers on the banks and adventurous locals in the water

Aldington, Kent.

We voted our homestay outside the village of Aldington (Kent, UK) as one of the most memorable. The cottage was 600 years old and you had to duck to enter the house and to pass into the next room. It made us wonder just how much smaller people might have been so of course I asked Google and got mixed results. Anything from 5ft to 5ft 6in or 1.5mt to 1.73mt. It seems that low door heights and probably also low ceiling heights were also part of the design to maximise the warmth from the fireplace. To get to the bedrooms overhead, you had to climb up a ladder. Luckily for us a spiral staircase had been installed about fifty years back (relatively recently given its history).

Back in the 16th century, this would have been a small two-room farm with a loft space over it, with maybe, chickens, sheep, pigs and a horse or two (totally guessing here).

The original fireplace is still in place and would have been where all the cooking was done over an open fire. Over time (not sure when but probably at least 150-200 years ago) an additional room was built to the side for the new kitchen and later, bathroom area.

Jemima and Tilly kept us company (lots of cuddles and snuggles, but there was also a warmth in this cottage that was hard to explain and a feeling of being safely cocooned. The new-old kitchen with the aga (oil-heated stove) that warmed food, water, and radiators was always on and always warm and the undulating floors (brick in the new part and timber in the old parts) oozed with aged character.

Then there was the garden. We were just as wowed with it. A mix of lawned areas and wild with flowering shrubs to encourage the bees. Most of our days there ended with an aperitif in one of the many seating areas in the garden, overlooking the 12th-century church or the farmed fields stretching for miles, and beyond. We could have stayed for a LOT longer.

Hythe, Kent.

On our first day out while house-sitting Jemima and Tilly in a 14th-century cottage in Kent took us to Hythe a local coastal town only a short drive away.

Didn’t learn much about this town even though it was pretty, and has a canal running through it which was built during the Napoleonic wars as part of the region’s defence. This wasn’t of course the first time France had invaded. It is said that a French fleet approached Hythe in 1293 and landed 200 men, but “the townsmen came upon them and slew every one of them: upon which the rest of the fleet hoisted sail and headed back to France.”

And did you know… Colonel Gaddafi, ex-leader of Libya, was trained by the British army in Kent about a 10-minute drive from Hythe?

Dungeness, Kent.

During our homestay in Kent, several people recommended that we go see the nuclear power site. We smiled, nodded and wondered why? In the end, we decided there must be something to look at and took our chances…. and came across the Dungeness estate and nature reserve. Isolated, flat, sparse and treeless, with a pebble beach waterfront, it’s also a private estate sprinkled with old shacks, along with a couple of nuclear power stations, and lighthouses.

The majority of the shacks at the ‘south’ end of the estate came into being in the ‘twenties’ when workers employed by the then Southern Railway purchased old rolling stock and had them towed off at the end of the line – to become holiday shacks. Some are still recognizable as railway carriages others have undergone serious renovation.

The cost of these holiday chalets way back when, was about £10 (yes TEN pounds). The classy and upmarket ones were double that – a whopping £20. Today they’ll set you back at something over £150,000 for a property needing comprehensive rebuilding to more than £250,000 and rising (What recession?). The result has been an exodus of original ‘locals’ who are being replaced by affluent ‘outsiders’ seeking peace and quiet and who aren’t particularly enamored by the likes of us, wandering around with cameras ignoring the No Photos signs (oops apologies 🥰).

Both the nuclear plants (A and B… such original names) are no longer producing power. B was supposed to, but in 2021 after about 50 years and the uncovering of some problems that were uneconomical to fix, the owners pulled the plug. They are still there, overshadowing the settlement like weird guardians of the barren shaly peninsular and its inhabitants.

After walking around and checking out the lighthouses and the seafood pub, we headed to the famous (5* TripAdvisor rated) Fish Shack on the beach, sat under an umbrella and had what turned out to be the highlight for us. Lunch. Yummy morsels of grilled fish and fried potato wedges… a different type of fish and chips.