Number One London

A TOUR GUIDE IN ENGLAND: LONGLEAT

As part of Number One London’s Georgian Tour, our group made a day trip to Longleat, family seat of the Marquesses of Bath. The house was built by Sir John Thynne and was designed mainly by Robert Smythson, after Longleat Priory was destroyed by fire in 1567. It took 12 years to complete and is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of Elizabethan architecture in Britain. Surrounded by 4,000 acres, the gardens were designed by Capability Brown. Today, Longleat is occupied by Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, a direct descendant of the builder; however, management of the estate and all business passed to his son Viscount Weymouth early in 2010. This article may go some way towards explaining why. And of course Emma, Viscountess Weymouth, wife of the current heir, is Britain’s first black member of the aristocracy.

But we weren’t there for family matters, we wanted to see the house. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside, so here are a few photos I swiped off the internet –

So, by the time we were through seeing the house, the skies looked like this –

Kind of half cloudy, half sunny. We’d been told there was a quaint country pub that did good food just about a mile away, at the end of one of the drives leading from Longleat, and we’d planned to walk there through the park.

“What do you think?” I asked the others.

“It’s definitely going to rain,” answered Andrea.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because I’m a charter boat captain,” she said, scanning the skies. “Gonna rain. Not that I mind, my jacket has a hood.”

In the end, the consensus was to risk it, and we started off. All was well until this happened –

Louisa and I were bringing up the rear and were also the only two without a hood or a hat. Well, I was wearing this cap, but it did no good.

“Why don’t you take that cap off? The rain is pouring down off the bill in a sheet. It looks like you’ve got a hose attached to your head,” Louisa said at last.

“I was ignoring it. And hoping you would, too.”

“Pretty hard to ignore,” Louisa said.

At last, the Bath Arms hove into view.

Louisa and I shouldered through the door together and found the others already ensconced at a fireside table. They looked at us askance. And well they should. We were both dripping water onto the floor.

“Told you it was going to rain,” said Andrea, as she perused the menu.

After pots of hot tea, generous portions of wine and a hot meal, the sun returned and we went outside to take in the scenery in Horningsham, the tiny village surrounding the pub.

I’m glad to be able to report that sun continued to shine from then on and that a good, if damp, time was had by all.

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PUB GRUB – IN PRAISE OF THE HUMBLE PUB PIE

Steak and Ale Pie The Quintessential British Pub Grub

On visiting any pub in England one would be hard pressed not to find at least one meat pie on the menu. They have been a staple of pub fare since the medieval era, if not before. There is something infinitely hearty and comforting about meat and vegetables swimming in a rich gravy wrapped in a thick, flaky crust. I daresay working men in England have been popping round to the pub for a pie and a pint in the middle of the day to get them through afternoons on the job since that very same medieval era.

As a historical note, wrapping food in a sort of pie crust has been around since the Egyptians. Once Alexander the Great started building his empire this Egyptian staple soon moved on to Greece and eventually the Romans acquired it… about the same time they acquired Greece. The Romans moved on to occupy Britain and whilst those early Brits did all they could to shove the Romans back to Rome, they did like the idea of baking meat and vegetables into a pie crust so they pilfered the recipe. Seems a small price to pay for slaughtering a large portion of the Celtic population and murdering Bodiccea.

Fast forward to today and the meat pie is part of the very culinary fabric of Britain. And it is definitely one of the very best things to order in any pub in England. Pubs take a great deal of pride in the reputations of their pies. There are even annual contests for the best pub pies in counties, districts, and even the entire country.

By definition, a meat pie is any meat dish served in a pie crust. Which means everything from the lofty Beef Wellington to the lowly Cornish pasty can be considered a meat pie.

Chef Gordon Ramsey’s recipe for Beef Wellington is considered the epitome of Beef Wellington recipes.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2538/beef-wellington

The D-shaped Cornish Pasty, a hand pie with a storied history that comes filled with beef, potatoes, swede (rutabaga) and onion was developed as lunch fare for workers in the ancient English tin mining region of Cornwall. it played such an important part in the history of mining in Cornwall that the dish was awarded Protected Geographical Indication status in 2011 to prevent it being copied by imitators.

Here is a recipe you can imitate for a scrumptious pasty.

https://www.thespruceeats.com/traditional-cornish-pasty-recipe-435042

Now cooking your own pub pie might sound well and good, but frankly I much prefer acquiring a good pub pie in its natural habitat – a pub in the UK! There is something to be said for the flavor added to a pub pie by the rafters and hearth of a pub that has been around for several hundred years. And nothing can compare to strolling about an English village or a stately home or the grounds of an ancient castle only to wind up in the local pub with a delicious pub pie and the local ale or a hot cup of tea on a scarred oak table ready for you to enjoy.

Check out some of the other pubs on this list !

http://www.traveller.com.au/where-to-find-the-best-english-pub-and-pie-13eb4h

For me, however, it is the out-of-the-way, small village pubs that cook up the best pub pies. Nothing can compare to a local cook striving for bragging rights and desiring nothing more than to provide the comfort of a great pub pie for their friends, families, and neighbors.

And nothing can compare to a meal of steak and ale pie at a historic pub with one’s fellow travelers after a day visiting stately homes and a village unchanged in hundreds of years. Sometimes it is the food that makes an indelible memory. Sometimes it is the company. And if you are very fortunate, it is both. Who’s ready to take a trip to The George for some glorious pub grub?

ALL THE QUEEN’S HORSES

From The Horse-World of London by William John Gordon (1893)

In the horse-world of London, the highest circle, the most exclusive set, so to speak, is that housed at Buckingham Palace. To many loyal subjects the Queen’s (Queen Victoria) horses are as much an object of interest as the regalia; and as cards of admission are freely granted by the Master of the Horse, the Royal Mews (above) are probably the best known stables within the bills of mortality.

There are in them from ninety to a hundred horses —state horses; harness horses, coach and light; riding horses, and what not—whose forage bill runs into 30 quarters of corn, 3£ loads of hay, and 3£ loads of straw a week. Immediately to the right of the entrance gate is a stable for ten horses, mostly light and used in ordinary work; to the left is a similar stable similarly occupied. On the east side of the quadrangle are the coaches, state and semi-state, and, among others, the Jubilee landau. On the west side are more horses— sixteen or twenty of them. The state stables for the creams and blacks are on the north side, and to the left of them are housed the thirty-two splendid bays, many of them bred at the Queen’s stud farm at Hampton Court; the rest bought from the dealers at prices ranging from 180L to 200L. Stables there are in London of more aggressive architectural features, and some in which there is a far greater show of the very latest improvements; but there are none more well-to-do looking, none in which the occupants seem more at home. Comfort and order are everywhere apparent; the grooming is, of course, perfection; and there does not even appear to be a straw out of place in the litter.

The Queen has her favourites, and in matters of horseflesh is content to leave well alone as long as possible. If a pair fetches her Majesty from Paddington, it is always the same pair; if she drives in the Park with four horses, it is always the same team; so that practically out of the hundred horses the Queen uses but six. The horses ridden by the equerries and outriders are also kept at their special work as long as they are found fit, and the visitor going the round of the stables after an interval of years, will find Blackman, and Phalanx, and Sewell, and their companions still flourishing, and seemingly more conscious than ever of the distinguished success with which they do their duty in the royal equipage of everyday life.

Of a different class altogether are the ‘ state horses,’ which appear only on procession days, and are as much a part of the pageantry of royalty as the crown and sceptre, and other working tools of that degree. These have a stable to themselves, the ‘creams’ on one side, the ‘blacks’ on the other. The creams, like the dynasty, are of Hanoverian origin, but they have for generations been of British birth, and, like a large number of the royal horses, first breathed fresh air in the paddocks of Hampton Court. In popular superstition they represent the white horse of Hanover; but that peculiar strain died out long ago, except heraldically, and the creams were always distinct from it. Another erroneous notion, fostered, perhaps, for advertisement purposes, is that the state creams are ‘cast’ and find their way into circuses; but the only specimens that are ever allowed to quit the palaces go as geldings to the band of the Life Guards. With that one exception, the creams come to London when three years old, and live and are buried in the service in which they are born. Being either entire horses or mares, they require a good deal of attention; they are never left alone by day or night; and the man in charge, who has the highest post in his department, sleeps in the stable, and claims to have the longest day’s work in the employment of the State.

Opposite to them are the blacks, which though, perhaps, not so graceful, are more serviceable-looking. They also are of Hanoverian origin, being essentially well-bred specimens of the better class of hearse horse, now rare amongst us owing to the preference given by our undertakers to the more sympathetically lugubrious —and cheaper—Flemish breed. They are big, splendidly showy horses, ‘ with a power of pride in them.’

Like the creams, they never appear on duty with unplaited manes, the blacks being decked with crimson ribbons, the creams with purple. A trifling matter this of plaiting the manes, but on trifles oft a crown doth hang. Once only did the state creams go forth unplaited. It was in 1831, when Earl Grey and Lord Brougham waited upon William IV. to recommend the immediate dissolution of the Parliament, which was playing havoc with the first Reform Bill. The scruples of the King at dissolving so young a Parliament had all been overcome, and he announced his intention of starting for the Houses forthwith, when it was pointed out that there would be no time to plait the horses’ manes. ‘Plait the manes!’ said his Sailor Majesty, then ‘—with the loudest and, of course, most dignified of expletives—’ I’ll go in a hackney coach!’ Horror of horrors! the King on such a mission in a hackney coach! And so the manes were left unplaited, and the State was saved.

But the unplaitedness disturbed many courtly minds, and Mr. Roberts, the King’s coachman, above all men, was most indignant. And so it happened that a still more terrible thing took place. The horses had not been out for some time, and being harnessed in a hurry, they were, like their coachman, not in the placidest of tempers. As they passed the colour party of the Guards, the ensign, in the usual way, saluted. The creams took fright at the flash of colour, and broke into a trot. The great Mr. Roberts began to curse the soldiers loudly, and tried to check the horses in vain. On went the coach briskly. ‘It was noticed,’ say the contemporary historians,’ that his Majesty proceeded at a faster rate than usual, in his eagerness to carry out the wishes of his people,’ and, in short, he reached the Houses considerably before his time. All went smoothly enough inside, but outside there was anything but smoothness. The indignant colour-bearers appealed to their superior officers, and Mr. Roberts had to descend in double quick time from his exalted perch and humbly beg pardon for his insult to the outraged Guards. ‘Swear at the King’s colour, sir! Apologise instantly!’ And he did. And if he had not done so, it is more than probable that the King would have had to have called that historical hackney coach for the return journey, while the unplaited team went home, certainly Robertsless, if not coachmanless.

Neither the creams nor the blacks have had much to do of late years. Though they are the leaders of the London horse-world, their appearances are few; but they can be occasionally found taking their exercise in pairs. The work of all the royal horses is necessarily irregular, as, though a few may be sent to Windsor, the bulk are kept continuously in London, and when the Court is away their occupation is mostly mere exercise. But when the Court is in town they have quite enough to do, work in the stables beginning at five o’clock in the morning, and sometimes, as when the German Emperor was at the palace, there is no rest until half-past two next morning. The routine is conducted with much more precision than in a private stable. Great care is taken that every turn-out is as it should be, and at every public function the carriages are paraded and inspected in the quadrangle before they are allowed to leave the stable gates.

A TOUR GUIDE IN ENGLAND: BATH

Our Georgian Tour this year was a bit of a departure, as it was the first tour on which I opted for a period property as our lodging, rather than a hotel. Though I knew that the townhouse in Great Pulteney Street was well appointed, I was anxious to see how it would be received by my guests. As it happened, it turned out to be the perfect blend of period detail and modern luxury.

Bath is extremely walk-able and this was the route we strolled each day – past Laura Place and over the historic Pulteney Bridge with its period shops and into the centre of the City.