Ireland day 0306. Sunday 31 July 2022- UKSummer2204

Today’s summary	Visited The Vyne, Hampshire (National Trust) in the morning then went to the Queens College Arms pub near Basingstoke
Today’s weather	Cloudy but bright with occasional very light showers. No wind and feeling warm. Appx 24C

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (No GPX today)

Commentary

In the morning, visited “The Vyne” – a 16th century country house in Hampshire, now run by the National Trust, with family. Very pleasant surroundings and doubtless lots of history which we didn’t have time to investigate. But running a bit short of time so just had a coffee and made a mental note to return sometime.

Then drove 5 mins to the Queens College Arms (which was indeed originally leased from Queens College Oxford in 1965) for pub lunch with more friends. Nice and relaxed and not too busy, despite the good weather and outdoor dining opportunities. Very much enjoyed having someone else doing the cooking and washing up for once!

Sliding into a pleasant evening now, digesting the excess food and drink of the last two days.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


One of several brick “summer houses” in and around the walled garden. Personally I thought they were were a bit monolithic and didn’t really like them, but others differed.	Attractive wild flower bed

Beautifully grown and prepared onions drying in the sun	Another domed brick summer house in the garden

The Vyne house from the side	Path down to the “lake” – recently reclassified as a “reservoir” – necessitating expensive and disruptive flood prevention measures involving construction of a new concrete overflow

900 year old “Hundred Guinea Oak” – which was the price it would have commanded as timber for building warships in the 1800s (the landowner declined)