6 July 2016 - Lakeside Fishing & Camping, Onehouse, near Stowmarket, Suffolk

With yesterday’s journey a mere fifty miles eastwards, we hung about until well after 10am before leaving our Cambridge camp. Apart from negotiating the hideous speed bumps up Cabbage Moor (the rather strange name of the road on which the camp is located), our trip was uneventful. We travelled a little north on the M11, then turned onto the A14 joining the hundreds of trucks heading in the same direction toward the port of Felixstowe.

At Stowmarket we travelled the scenic route around the town, taking the least likely troublesome streets, arriving at our camp beside this little fishing lake very soon after midday. I am not sure whether our hostess recognised us, but even if she did, she conveniently forgot we had paid a lesser tariff when we were here in May. 

Stowmarket and the surrounding countryside looked quite different; sunshine and the coming of the reluctant summer disproportionately brightens a town up. After lunch we drove back into the town, patronised the local shops buying up more provisions, a pair of shoes for Chris and a new pair of shorts for me. (I say “shorts” although I accept they are a rather extended version of a garment that looks better on youth than a middle aged woman; later I found my sister-in-law calls them “crops”)

Margie called by late in the afternoon, when the level of the wine bottle was already low and dinner was waiting on the stove top to be cooked. It was lovely to see her looking so well, so animated, so ready to face the world again after having passed through the worst year of mourning.  We look forward to spending time with her during the next week between the excursions we hope to squeeze in. 

This morning we woke late to sunny skies, the calls of the birds that make this lakeside spot home and an appreciation that the week ahead can be a kind of holiday, without the stress and pressure of trying to explore every inch of this country within a specified time. 

We lingered over breakfast then laid our maps and camping directories out before planning the weeks ahead of our next camping spot which we booked a week or so ago. In the end we had to wait until returning this afternoon before receiving confirmation of one of the morning’s booking, but I can now report that we have an accommodation schedule set out until the middle of August. By this time tomorrow, we will have dared to extend weeks further than that.

I packed our lunch into the eski late in the morning and we set off in a south easterly direction on the B1115 toward Sudbury then cut through a series of narrow farm lanes to Long Melford, or more particularly to the National Trust owned Melford Hall. This, like other stately homes we have visited over the past few weeks, has had a chequered history, although this one is still inhabited by the last family, or their whanau, who have lived in the Hall since 1786.

The manor originally built on the site of the Hall was constructed, or at least in use, by the abbots of Bury St Edmunds even before 1065. It was then a R&R retreat for the abbot but met the demise of such religious institutions on the Dissolution.

Much later, Queen Mary granted it to her faithful Catholic liege, Sir William Cordell, and it remained in that family, albeit through female lines and marriage, right through to 1786 when it was sold to Sir Harry Parker, 6^th Baronet, son of Admiral Hyde Parker. Even under Catholic ownership, it played guesthouse to Elizabeth I on one of her progresses about the country.

Another famous regular guest was Beatrix Potter, creator of Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck and all their little friends. She was cousin to one who married into the Parker family and spent much time after 1890 honing her skills here until she bought her own property at Hilltop in the Lake District, a charming spot we visited last year when we were over here.

Melford Hall

There is an interesting co-incidence here; later this month the 150^th anniversary of Beatrix’s birth will be celebrated with an exhibition here at Melford Hall, and just in this last week, there have been news reports of the discovery of four original drawings found in library volumes stored away at Melford Hall. Needless to say such treasures could provide the National Trust well needed funding, should they be of a mind to flick them off on the open market.

As mentioned, the current inhabitants are still of that same illustrious maritime adventuring family, now Sir Richard Hyde Parker, 12^th Baronet, and his wife Jeannie, who flitted through while we were enjoying a pre-opening introductory tour. She had the look of a frazzled unprepared hostess rather than a titled lady; just goes to prove we are all human and just as vulnerable as one another.  They have some kind of lease arrangement and live in one wing of the house. The Hall is open to the public only a few days a week.

In February 1942, a group of soldiers broke into part of the house and enjoyed an evening of cards, the fire lit to keep them warm. As the night wore on, they retired from whence they had come, leaving the fire unattended. Alas their negligence led to one wing of the hall being gutted, fortunately with little chattel loss. After the war, the wing was rebuilt, then unhampered by heritage listing regulations. It looks very fine, but an in-depth survey would easily prove that this is a modern build with only a façade of age.

When Richard’s father died in the early 1950s, his mother, Danish Lady Ulla Hyde Parker, opened the house to the public with the assistance of her now grown children’s nanny, in an attempt to preserve the house. Five years later, in 1960, the house passed into the care of the National Trust.

Aside from the quarter hour tour before the house being opened at 1pm, we spent a further one and three quarter hours in the house itself, and half an hour wandering about the gardens. We had arranged to call on Chris’s brother, he who just a week ago was seriously unwell in hospital. 

We arrived as he returned from working on his son’s property; he is not someone to let a few kidney stones get in the way of scheduled work. We sat around his kitchen table over cups of tea debating Brexit, the EU and the woes of the world, coming away with no solutions, but aware that all three of us have very strong views on these and a host of other matters.

Tonight we have spent several hours with half an eye on the television screen, happy to see British tennis player, Andy Murray, go on through to the semi-finals at Wimbledon, and the Welsh bravely battle their soccer foes, albeit unsuccessfully. The fervour of the fans is good for the morale of this country, particularly for the Welsh who were so very disappointed with the UE referendum result.