Nashoba, Base Green, near Wetherden, Suffolk

More days have whizzed  by, mostly much cooler and breezier than the preceding days. Shorts and sandals have been tucked away for another spell of summery weather and in the meantime it’s back to jeans, socks and covered shoes which were the order of the day for our tour yesterday. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The weather turned on Thursday morning, bringing short sharp showers keeping us indoors until after lunch, when we set off into Stowmarket to visit the Museum of East Anglian Life. The museum is spread over an eighty acre site which was gifted piece meal by the last family to own the farm on the edge of town, land originally part of the Home Farm for the Abbot’s Hall estate. It was never a monastery, but an outlying manor for St Osyth’s Priory in Essex, passing through numerous owners after the dissolution, until it was purchased by the Longe family in 1903. The last of the Longe’s, sisters Vera and Ena, died late in the 20^th century and the Hall was the last part of the property to pass into the charitable trust which continues to run the museum. The Hall was in a rather jaded state, however a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund enabled renovation to be done, the work completed in 2012. The museum was opened to the public in 1967 and this year it celebrates fifty years success.

Displays include steam traction engines, reconstructed historic buildings, an exhibition which explores the history of St Audry’s Hospital which began life as the Suffolk County Asylum in 1832, on the site of an old workhouse. There is a whole building celebrating the region’s engineering success; agricultural machinery and other innovations by Ransome, Paxman, Mumford, Woods, Brackett and other well-known engineering entrepreneurial geniuses. There is also a small farm of penned goats, pigs and sheep to amuse children and three kilometres of riverside and woodland walks. We were intrigued by the exhibition about “travellers” and the caravans on display, careful not to label ourselves in the same genre; we dare not be tarred with the same brush.

We had not allowed ourselves enough time to do the museum justice, but found we could return to explore the Hall without paying further admission fees. Our anxiety about timing related to the fact we were expected in Bury St Edmunds at The Fox for dinner and wanted to make sure we were looking our best for yet another family meal. This turned out to be another success, three delicious courses, all calorie loaded and adding to the extra kilos that have been slowly creeping on over the past month.

We headed back into Bury St Edmunds yesterday morning for a tour of the Greene King Brewery, something we had considered for some time. This is the brewery that owned the second and last of the pubs that Chris grew up in when his parents were publicans until the 1960s, more particularly The Rose & Crown where we dined with Margie last year as a trip down memory lane. 

Greene King is Britain’s largest pub retailer and brewer, founded in 1799 and based here in Bury St Edmunds. Since then, there have been takeovers and mergers, and the establishment of a restaurant chain which together with the pubs the brewery owns, brings in a very handsome profit to the shareholders.  The group apparently owns in excess of 3,100 pubs, restaurants and hotels.

But the brewery itself has had a strong physical presence in the town, and provided income for many in the town in various forms, direct and indirect. When Chris was doing his signwriting apprenticeship, he painted signs and delivered them to the brewer’s yard. Up on the roof of one section of the brewery, we had stupendous views over the town and could see the expanse of the works, mostly hidden behind buildings and walls. 

We had booked the tour early in the week, unable to secure an earlier spot. I was pleased to discover that we were a small party of just four plus the guide, an ex-teacher with no previous brewing experience. We have found generally that the best guides of factories and the like are partly retired employees of the business, who have spent their entire working lives in the business, loyal, passionate and knowledgeable. While our guide was an extremely pleasant chap who did impart many facts and figures, as well as revealing much of his warm personality, he lacked that X-factor. Chris was not quite as enthusiastic about the tour as I was.

As with all brewery tours, we finished up at a bar tasting the produce, and had we taken full advantage of what was on offer, we would have rolled burping out the door and staggered down the street. We sipped tentatively, much of what was poured into our glasses poured down the sink, and truth be told, I didn’t enjoy the beer much. It was the first time I had tried English beer, and I am not a beer drinker at any time, except to share a small portion of a can on a hot summer day with Chris when he has just come in from mowing the lawn. Amongst those we tried were Abbot Ale, Old Speckled Hen and IPA, names that will excite some and cause them to walk out from the brewery shop with souvenir packs. Needless to say we left with nothing.

Instead we found a bench in the graveyard behind St Mary’s Church, the parish church in the Cathedral precinct. Still with beery breaths, barely relieved with sandwiches and bottled water, we headed for the Cathedral. When we called here last year, we had been distracted by the masses of school children; today we were in time for a lunchtime recital by soprano Tara Bungard and her piano accompanist, Edmund Aldhouse, both from Ely. Today’s offering was a programme of 20^th century American compositions, more specifically by Andre Previn, Aaron Copland, Dominic Argento and George Gershwin; little appreciated by my dear husband who silently pulled weird and wonderful faces at me during the recital, all of which I studiously pretended to ignore.

 I was delighted to have the opportunity to hear quality music, albeit  not all to my taste either, in such a wonderful surrounding. And today we were able to enjoy the ceiling, the retro-built tower and the wonderful architecture without the little scholars.

We wandered about the grounds immediately outside the cathedral, admiring the statue of Edmund for whom the place is named and the great tower gate still standing sentinel over the grounds. Entering St Mary’s, we were warmly greeted by a retired police officer who was even more friendly when he learned that Chris’s siblings had been married here, that his nieces and nephew had all been christened here and that he had attended on occasion as a school boy. 

It is a lovely church and has the longest nave, at 213 feet, in any English parish church. It is also the resting place of Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, sister of Henry VIII, and grandmother of Lady Jane Grey who was queen for days before James I was officially made King of England after Elizabeth I’s death. 

Before we headed back home, we returned to Stowmarket and visited the manor house missed the previous day. It is a lovely building and we spent some time here before popping into the nearby Asda superstore.

Our schedule for today was tight, all unnecessarily so as it turned out. We arrived at Margie’s house for an early morning tea, soon after 9 am to find her gone and fortunately spotted the scribbled note tucked in the garden near the door; she had left in a hurry to check on her unwell daughter who was not answering her phone. 

Since we had travelled the distance to Stowupland, we took advantage of the Tesco superstore and stocked up in preparation for our next few days, then returned to our camp to store everything away. From there we drove to Bury St Edmunds and found a car park in a residential street, free of parking metres and far enough from our destination to offer a little exercise.

Our tour today was at the Theatre Royal, one of eight Grade I listed theatres in the United Kingdom, the only Regency Theatre, the third oldest theatre in the country and this the only working theatre operated by the National Trust. The Theatre was opened by its proprietor and architect William Wilkins in 1819, and has changed ownership only a few times. Greene King, the brewery opposite, purchased the freehold in 1920, but the theatre ceased operation in 1925, spending the next forty years or so as a barrel store, a period that is credited with saving the property from demolition. 

In the 1960s a group of local folk raised over £37,000 to restore the theatre. It was reopened five years later and ten years later the building was vested in the National Trust on a 999 year lease, Greene King still holding the freehold. These days the theatre is managed as an independent working theatre by a management company, but it is National Trust volunteers who do the tours. Our tour guide today was an enthusiastic theatre goer and sometime performer who led us up into the gallery, the boxes in the upper circle, down onto the stage, the dressing rooms, the orchestra pit and dozens of other nooks and crannies. We were a large group, all keen to learn as much as we could about this rather unique structure and its operation. 

It was after midday by the time we emerged and made our way up into the busy bustling streets of Bury St Edmund’s market day. Today we had come without our lunch, intent on dining on street food. Chris chose the ever popular burger and chips, and I a small feast of Thai green curry, hardly a sampling of the local cuisine. We found a bench on the edge of the square, squeezed up with an odd assortment of our fellows and enjoyed the fare. The sun had come out and I was regretting my excess layers of clothing, but I was distracted from my discomfort by the promotional cries of the woman in fruit and vege store offering two for one of this and that; she was a dead ringer for a woman from back home.

We made our way back down to Angel Hill where we found dozens of Morris dancers prancing about and a good turnout of spectators. We lingered a little before escaping into the Abbey Gardens. Today we walked around the perimeter, inspecting the sad collection of caged birds, the 14^th century Abbey Bridge and the lovely peaceful rose garden, before reclaiming our car and driving across town to visit Chris’s brother, whose birthday is tomorrow. 

There we sat over cups of coffee and tried to set the world at rights; there is much consideration and discussion to be done regarding these strange times. An hour and a half later and another round of coffee, we took our leave, but only after we had a progress report on our niece’s welfare. She is safely tucked up in hospital and won’t be leaving before we ourselves are gone from Suffolk, however we are all satisfied that she is in the right place.