Today we went to Lullingstone Roman Villa followed by a visit to Ightham Mote which were both on our list of places to visit, but we just decided to do these two together today, we thought it was a good idea.
Last night we wrote our postcards, but the post box right outside The Smithy had a collection time of 4pm on it so we took the cards with us as we were on the search for a post box with an earlier collection time. We ended up going the “scenic route” to Lullingstone Roman Villa, as the easier route we had chosen was clearly not that obvious or easy so we ended up going through various villages. Otherwise, we would have actually ended up in London!!
Various post boxes along the way had much later times than ours, and we figured that the postman must go around one way in a circular route, and ours much have been the first collection of the day. We didn’t post them just yet though, as we may as well have held on to them until we were on our way back to the cottage.
Eventually we ended up at Lullingstone Roman Villa, the oddest thing about it being a parking fee for an English Heritage site. We have never known English Heritage to charge £2.50 for the parking, but as we were English Heritage Mambers we got free parking, which consisted of a token to put in the machine to raise the barrier.
The remains of the Roman Villa were house indoors, with displays around each side, detailing Roman life, what the rooms in the house would have been used for and so on. It was a large, open plan use of space, and there was a projector screen hanging from the ceiling on which a short film was played. I quite liked how throughout the film, various parts of the remains of the villa were lit up to show what the narrator was talking about, and there were also planson the walls of the phases of the Villa which were also lit up in sequence as the film went on. It was a very clever and good use of space and lighting, I thought.
This place had a very nice mosaic which was best viewed from the second or balcony floor, and the Villa is mostly well known for having a church within the house which had paintings of people worshipping - one of the earliest depictions of Roman Christianity in Britain. It was quite a fun place to go and see, despite there being lots of school parties….! I was also quite surprised to see a baby skeleton on display - I have never seen one on display anywhere before, usually they have an adult (which they also had on display here), but never a baby.
We left Lullingstone to go to Ightham Mote which is the place I first decided I wanted to visit on my Birthday, but for some reason I decided to change my mind in favour of Dover Castle instead. Anyway, off to Ightham Mote we went, which was much simpler to get to, especially from Lullingstone Roman Villa. Of course, we went the wrong way a couple of times, but then again the road atlas doesn’t always have every country road on it, does it? Well ours didn’t anyway…!
Ightham Mote is one of the oldest medieval manor houses in England which is still standing. Being 650 years old, it is in remarkably good condition, and I wouldn’t have thought it was quite as old as it really is just from looking at it. It is a fantastic looking building on the outside, and its quite fun in the inside too. It is surrounded by water - much like a moat - and there is a bridge to get across to get inside - and a central courtyard which is wonderfully cobbly with a listed building inside - the dog kennel! Once inside the house, there were several rooms to explore, all with it’s own character and history, lots and lots of dark wood, carved wood, painted wallpaper (of which the Chinese one was a favourite), and the ceilings had been taken off so we could see the structure of the roof. Just looking at these beams alone would not have told you how old the building was, it is in SUCH good condition. I particularly liked the New Chapel which has a painted wooden barrel domed ceiling, the images are a little feint, but the National Trust had to undo all the work the Victorians did on it to cover it up, as they used oil based painted which were ruining the Medieval paint underneath. It doesn’t look to bad though to be honest, you can see enough of it to be able to imagine that, when just finished, the paint would have been bright and new, and the ceiling would have been SO colourful.
We popped into the shop and bought some goodies (edible, of course!) and said hello to the shop cat who was snoozing with content on the National Trust throws. I almost picked it up thinking it was a displaced cuddly toy - until I saw the ears twitch and the breathing was real!
We got back into the car, and we thought we would try and find a couple of dolmen-like structures which were on the map, but they didn’t seem to be signposted or easy to get to. We tried twice and missed whatever turning it would have been BOTH times, so we decided to head home. We popped into Sainsbury’s on the way to top up with milk, orange juice and to get a couple of pizzas in for dinner, posted our cards on the way back, and got back to The Smithy for our daily dose of cake and tea!
….And tomorrow I get to open presents!!! Finally!!
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