Queen's College Library

We visited Queen's College Library while in Oxford and it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. 

To read all about it go here.

Let's Talk About: Secrets of Chatsworth

After visiting Chatsworth in England I watched the documentary Secrets of Chatsworth on Netflix. 

I found it to be so interesting. 

I tried to look it up on there again and it looks like they have taken it off but you can watch it on YouTube. 

I highly recommend checking it out!

Highclere Castle

Highclere Castle is beautiful. 

If you are a fan of Downton Abbey, I am sure it is on your bucket list should you ever find yourself in England. 

So of course when I was there we had to visit it. 

Highclere Castle was designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1842. He also designed the Houses of Parliament in London and you can see the similar styles. 

You have to get tickets from their website and they offer limited tours throughout the year. Sometimes they do special parties and events and other times it is just a time that you are allowed to come tour. You can tour just the house and gardens, just the gardens, or also add on the Egyptian Exhibit. 

When you tour the house you get to see the Library which was absolutely beautiful. It was a dream come true to walk through that library. 

You also tour the Music Room, the Drawing Room, The Saloon, The Dining Room and you walk around looking into the bedrooms as well. 

The gardens are extensive and you could spend hours on them alone. 

In the Egyptian Exhibition you get to learn a lot about the 5th Earl of Carnarvon and his discoveries. He, along with his partner Howard Carter, discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922. It was extremely interesting to see this exhibit. 

You can eat in the house as well and they have a little gift shop around back. 

I was a little disappointed in the gift shop as their collection of Downton Abbey themed items was very small. But they still had a lot of beautiful items and I was able to get some Highclere specific things. 

It was a wonderful experience and I highly recommend a visit to Highclere!

To read more about our visit go here.

Canterbury Cathedral

This is a great video on the history of Canterbury Cathedral....

To read about my visit to this Cathedral go here.

Jane Austen's Home

"...each of them was busy in arranging their particular concerns and endeavoring, by placing them around them their books and other possessions, to form themselves a home."

Jane Austen lived in this home in Chawton, England with her mother and her sister Cassandra from 1809 until 1817. 

It was in this home that she wrote Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion as well as another novel that she never finished because of her illness. 

She revised Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey here as they had yet to be published. 

She left her home in Chawton to go to Winchester before her death. 

Cassandra and her mother lived here for the rest of their lives. 

When Cassandra died in 1845, the cottage was split into three dwellings for the labourers that worked there and remained this way until 1947 when it was put up for sale. 

Mr. T.E. Carpenter bought the house and turned it into a museum dedicated to Jane Austen. 

To read about our visit to Jane Austen's home go here. 

Winchester, England

We visited the Winchester Cathedral and the Great Hall in Winchester, England. 

To see more of the cathedral watch this video on the Cathedral's website HERE.

To read more about our time in Winchester go here.

Stonehenge

 We have all heard of Stonehenge. 

It is one of those places that pop up all of the time. We see pictures of it. We hear the myths and theories about what it is. 

But I never thought I would actually go there. 

Stonehenge is in Wiltshire, England very close to Amesbury. 

It is believed to have been built from 3000 to 2000 BC. 

While I don't think anyone knows for sure the exact reason for Stonehenge, many believe it could have been an ancient burial ground. In 2013 Mike Pearson led a group of archaeologists in excavating upwards of 50,000 cremated bones of approximately 63 people buried at Stonehenge.  These had been moved in 1920 when William Hawley found them and re-interred them into one hole as he considered the discovery unimportant. 

The five central trilithons (a structure consisting of two large vertical stones supporting a third stone set horizontally across the top), the heel stone, and the embanked avenue are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the sunrise of the summer solstice. 

There are theories of it being simply a place to tell the time of year, that it was a place of healing, that it was a place to celebrate deceased ancestors, and even that a giant helped Merlin to build Stonehenge.

(the heelstone)

The Heel Stone is a large stone set apart from the main stone circle. 

There is a folk tale attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth about the heel stone: 

"The Devil bought the stones from a woman in Ireland, wrapped them up, and brought them to Salisbury plain. One of the stones fell into the Avon, the rest were carried to the plain. The Devil then cried out, 'No one will ever find out how these stones came here!' A friar replied, 'That's what you think!', whereupon the Devil threw one of the stones at him and struck him on the heel. The stone stuck in the ground and is still there."

Whatever the reason for Stonehenge, there is a very distinct, quiet feeling there. 

You know that whatever it was built and used for anciently, those that built it did something incredible. The stones are huge and it is crazy to think about what it would have taken to create it. 

In 1977 it was roped off to no longer let visitors walk throughout and touch the stones but you can still get into the stones and off the pathway through special tours and solstice celebrations. 

I highly recommend a visit to Stonehenge if you are ever in England. 

See more pictures of our visit on Gingham Owl here.

Bath, England

To read about the rest of our time in Bath and our hotel check out the Gingham Owl post here.

Roman Baths and Sally Lunn's

To read all about our trip to the Roman Baths in Bath, England 

and our visit to Sally Lunn's to try the famous Sally Lunn bun, 

go here. 

 

Bath Abbey

Bath Abbey was the first European Cathedral that my mom and I visited and it blew us away with its size and beauty. 

The location of the Abbey has been the site of Christian worship for over a thousand years. 

It was first a monastery from 757AD until it was destroyed by Norman conquerors who then built a Norman cathedral in 1090. By the late 15th century this cathedral was in ruins and the present Abbey was built beginning in 1499 after the Bishop, Oliver King said that he had a dream where angels descended from and and ascended to heaven inspiring him to build the new Abbey church. 

It would be the last great medieval cathedral to be built in England. 

The first King of England, King Edgar was crowned on this site in 973. 

In 1539, the dissolution of the monasteries by orer of King Henry the 8th led to the Abbey being in ruins for over 70 years. On January 27, 1539 Prior Holloway and 18 monks surrendered the Priory to the officials sent from the King and signed the Deed of Dissolution. The Abbey, other buildings, and the land were then sold. 

In 1560, Edmund Colthurst asked the City Corporation to consider using the Abbey as a parish church. It was still in ruins with walls fallen in and no roof on the nave. In 1574 Queen Elizabeth the first granted them permission to fundraise for the Abbey. 

The restoration was completed in 1611. It then began to be used as a parish church. 

Through the years improvements were made, things were added and changed.

The Bath Blitz occured on April 25-27th in 1942. 400 people were killed in the city and 872 wounded. The Great East window and all of the Abbey's north side windows were blown out. 

In 1948 they began to raise money to repair the damage. It took many years to raise the funds and complete.

You can feel all of this history as you walk around the Abbey and there are so many more stories and history to learn when you visit. 

Check out their website here.

And check out the post on Gingham Owl about our visit to Bath Abbey here. 

Hotel Hilton Paddington and Paddington Station

I was planning on writing about my trip through the UK on this blog.. but since I am writing the whole thing on my personal blog I didn't think I would want to copy it word for word over here. 

So, to see my post about our stay at the Paddington Hotel Hilton and Paddington Station go check it out by following the link below: 

Europe Adventure: Hotel Hilton Paddington and Paddington Station

 

I will link all the UK related posts here as I post them over there. 

If you are a Scones and Crackers reader and comment over on Gingham Owl, let me know below and I will add two entries into the S&C birthday giveaway!

Let's talk about: Travel News

That's right!

Scones and Crackers is going to London!

For years I have dreamt of going to Europe, especially England. 

It has been my #1 travel dream since marking Prince Edward Island, Canada off of my bucket list. 

My husband Doug and I have talked about it many times. How to afford it? When to go?

Then last summer he said, "We can't go for a while with the kids but you should see if your mom wants to go with you."

My mom is one of my favorite travel buddies. She lets me plan pretty much everything (I admit I am a control freak.), she puts up with (and enjoys, I think) my commando type traveling, and we like so many of the same things that it makes it easy to figure out which are the most important things to see. 

So I called her up. 

We talked about it and have been planning ever since. 

Finally over the last couple of months we have put our plan into full speed ahead. 

And we are going!

Our trip is still about a year away but I have most of our hotels booked and am holding out hope for a good airline deal. 

We will be visiting England, Wales,  France, Switzerland, and Germany for three weeks.

But on this blog I will only post about England and Wales where we will be spending the most time.

I wanted to bring up my trip so that I can post occasionally about the places we have found to stay in, things we plan on seeing, and of course a full report on everything when we get back.

But I also want to post on places I find that we won't be staying in and things we might not do... just in case any of you are planning a trip and could do those things. 

I hope you will all enjoy the travel posts as much as I will enjoy writing them!