A view from the Blackdown Hills of the Somerset town of Wellington.

On an early autumn day a couple of years ago I was driving along the northern ridge of the Blackdown Hills when I came upon a car park, above Quarts Moor, a short distance east of the Wellington Monument.  The car park allows a fine view of the town of Wellington and the Wellington Monument to the west.

I, of course, parked up and took some photos.  In the picture below two buildings are prominent.  On the left is the red brick factory building of Tonedale Mills and on the right is the Church of St. John the Baptist.  In the background are the Brendon Hills on the left and the Quantock Hills on the right.

A view of the Somerset town of Wellington taken from the Blackdown Hills.

Tonedale Mills was owned by Fox Brothers, a family firm originating from 1796.  Clothmaking and the dyeing of wool was carried out at the factory which was rebuilt in brick after the original burned down in 1821.

Of St. John the Baptist Pevsner tells us: “The best part of the church is its red sandstone tower of good ashlar.  Tall, sturdy, and with the stair-turret rising high and placed in the Totnes position – i.e. in the middle of the south side.”

I will take the liberty of following the marvellous example of Michael Portillo and quote what Bradshaw’s Handbook of 1863 had to say about Wellington.

Here is a Gothic church of which W. S. Salkeld was rector in James I’s time.  The Duke of Wellington, who derives his title from this place, is lord of the manor.  A pillar, in honour of The Hero of Waterloo, was erected on Blackdown Hill.  This range of hills is on the Devonshire borders, and produces stone used by scythe grinders &c. 

Quitting the station, and again crossing the Tone, we enter an excavation which conducts us to the White Ball Tunnel, a fine piece of arched brickwork nearly one mile in length.  About the centre we attain the highest elevation between Bristol and Exeter, and on emerging from its obscuration we find ourselves in the magnificent county of Devon, with the Wellington memorial cresting the summit of a distant hill on our left, and the long range of precipices, known as the Blackdown Hills, far away before us, apparently extending to the very verge of the sea.

Bradshaw also informs us that the population of Wellington is 3,689.  I very much doubt he could have imagined its population today would be approaching 15,000!

"Dislike of England" the SNP's motivating force? Professor Vernon Bogdanor asks in The Times.

I came across an interesting letter from Professor Vernon Bogdanor in the January 9 edition of The Week.  He implies that dislike of England is the SNP’s motivating force – surely not!

The letter was first published in The Times. I reproduce it below as it appeared in The Week.

St. Andrew’s cross

To The Times

In a Commons debate last week, Ian Blackford, parliamentary leader of the SNP, declared that “Scotland is at heart a European nation”, and indeed that she had been well before the Acts of Union in 1707.  The SNP seems to have acquired this insight somewhat recently.  In the 1975 referendum it was the only major party in Scotland to recommend leaving the European Community. 

Voters are entitled to an explanation of why the SNP changed its mind.  Dare one suggest that dislike of England rather than love for Europe has been its motivating force?

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government, King’s College, London.

A view of the defence policies of the Social Democrats Party.

I reproduce below the defence policy pledges of the SDP taken from the Party's website - I hope they don't mind!  

The aim of enlarging the size of the Army and the Navy's surface fleet is especially to my liking - "quantity has a quality all its own" as someone once said!  Be that as it may, support for yet another "rebirth" of the Fleet Air Arm would be welcome.  I believe the country should return to its traditional policy of having a strong navy to protect its merchant shipping routes while avoiding at all costs entangling the Army in overseas expeditions. 

It is surprising that no mention is made of the RAF, but in future I would hope to see priority given to purchasing aircraft which were suitable for seaborne operations. In such circumstances RAF and Fleet Air Arm squadrons would have the flexibility and interchangeability to operate from land or sea as required.

All the policies advocated below are eminently sensible and should appeal to patriotic centrist voters.

POLICY PLEDGES:

• Maintain Britain’s membership of NATO and observe the NATO target of spending a minimum of 2% of GDP on defence.
• Maintain the independence of the British Military and resist any attempt to absorb it into a European Army.
• In keeping with our membership of the UN Security Council, Britain shall play a full part in fully authorised UN peacekeeping missions.
• Maintain and update Britain’s nuclear defence capabilities – essential in a world where unstable regimes have, or are, developing a nuclear capability.
• The size of the British Army will be increased and recruitment shall be put back under Army control.
• Complete the Carrier programme and related air/naval investment to make and keep HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales fully operational.  Aircraft carriers will form an integral part of our ability to protect our Overseas Territories. A larger surface fleet is also necessary to protect the Carriers.
• Learn from the mistakes of recent decades in relation to UK involvement in foreign wars.  Future decisions on defence spending will focus primarily on the defence of British territory.
• Increase spending on Intelligence to combat terrorism and cyber-warfare as a proportion of the overall defence budget and commit to the UK’s continued participation in the ‘five eyes’ security system.
• Build the UK’s own Satellite Navigation system with trusted partners such as Canada and Australia.
• Offer a significantly enhanced deal for our veterans.  Increase housing priority, dedicated medical services, and reduce employers’ National Insurance for employment in the first two years after leaving the armed service, giving businesses a clear incentive to employ veterans.

"Best Foot Forward" by Somerset born Colin Hodgkinson. The autobiography of the RAF's other legless fighter pilot of World War Two.

I recently read Colin Hodgkinson’s autobiography Best Foot Forward (Odhams Press Limited, London. 1957).  The story of the RAF’s other legless fighter pilot of World War Two.

Hodgkinson was born in Somerset in 1920 and grew up on the Mendip Hills.  He lost both legs after a flying accident in early 1939 while training to be a naval pilot. 

Inspired partly by Douglas Bader, the RAF’s legendary legless fighter pilot, Hodgkinson transferred to the RAF early in the war with the aim of fulfilling his ambition to fly in combat.

He eventually flew Spitfires under the command of some of the RAF’s most successful leaders, including the renowned “Johnnie” Johnson.

By November 1943 he was a flight commander in 501 Squadron when the oxygen supply failed in his Spitfire during a high altitude weather reconnaissance mission over France.  His aircraft crashed and he was so badly injured that he was repatriated to Britain.

As he was being transported on a stretcher across Germany on route to Sweden, he witnessed the lynching of four US airmen by a crowd in a railway station.  He feared he would be next if the vengeful mob saw his uniform.  Luckily for him his uniform and stretcher was covered by a blanket.

After the war Hodgkinson flew jets with 501 and 604 Squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force.

In 1957 he appeared on the BBC’s This is Your Life - before the famed Douglas Bader.

The book is a remarkable story of courage and determination. It also includes his account of an eventful family life on and around the Mendip Hills between the two world wars.

It is well worth reading.

A stroll through the Arlington Court Estate in the neighbouring County of Devonshire.

One from the archives!  Back in November 2011 my wife and I enjoyed an autumn stay in a National Trust holiday cottage at Loxhore in North Devonshire, a village on the edge of the Trust’s Arlington Court Estate.  The cottage, named Mortuary Cottage, is tucked away in a wooded valley through which ran the River Yeo.  The back door of the cottage was only a few yards from the riverbank. 

The cottage was given its rather sombre name due to it being designated the village mortuary in the Second World War.  Apparently every village had to have a building for use as a mortuary in case it was bombed by the Luftwaffe, but why the Germans would want to bomb an isolated village in North Devonshire is unfathomable. 

Mortuary Cottage at Loxhore in November 2011.  Cott Bridge over the River Yeo is behind the trees on the right of the picture.

 

Almost every day during our stay I went for a walk into the Arlington Court Estate. The house and estate belonged to the Chichester family for eleven generations.  I followed the footpaths along the slopes of the valley and down to the River Yeo and then on to where I eventually came upon the lake where the river is dammed.  The footpath continued across the dam and up through the wooded hillside to Arlington Court. 

Footpaths in Webber's Wood on the Arlington Court Estate.  Autumn 2011.

Autumn colours in Webber's Wood on the Arlington Court Estate in North Devonshire. November 2011.

I never went into the house - with boots muddied from the walk I doubt if I would have been welcome - nor the National Carriage Museum which is housed in the stable block.

The house dates from 1822 in its current form, but viewed from the outside it did not strike me as being one of the more attractive buildings in the Trust’s care.  However, the estate’s walks are difficult to better.

The Lake and its piers.

To quote from the National Trust information board:

“Sir John Chichester formed the lake in1850 by damming the River Yeo. 

Having built the lake, Sir John decided to impress his guests by building a long approach drive to his house which would be carried over the lake by a suspension bridge.  He died in 1851 before the project was complete.  The piers remain.”

The Lake and its piers on The National Trust's Arlington Court Estate in North Devonshire photographed in November 2011.

National Trust being led away from its core purpose.

Another letter in The Week (November 21) which I totally agree with!

The National Trust’s mission.

To The Times

Those who doubt that Hilary McGrady (“National Trust told to learn from slave row”) is on a mission to lead the National Trust away from its core purpose of looking after the buildings and land placed in its care need only read the autumn edition of the trust’s magazine.  In it, the director of volunteering, participation and inclusion says: “At the National Trust we have a duty to play a part in creating a fairer, more equitable society.”  It is clear that the National Trust Acts from 1907 to 1971 place no such duty on the trust.

However, the actions of the director-general and her staff suggest they have this ambition at the centre of their strategy.  The trust must not become a vehicle for those endeavouring to use for social and political purposes.  The trustees have a responsibility to ensure that the director-general and her staff focus on the trust’s charitable objects.  If they fail to do that, the Charity Commission should step in and do the job for them.

Dr Alan Hearne, Woodstock, Oxfordshire

The National Trust discovers Britain had colonies and links to the African slave trade - who would have known such a thing?

The National Trust seems to have just discovered that Britain once had colonies – who would have known such a thing if they had not informed us!?  And – shock, horror, - Britain was once involved in the African slave trade.  I can’t imagine that this would be startling news to anyone who was given a half decent education.  I learnt about such things at junior school in the late 1950s.

Be that as it may, in order to keep up with the wokies in academia the National Trust’s historians have compiled a list of properties which have links with colonialism and the slave trade.  The fact that practically everything British has such links does not appear to have occurred to them, therefore the national list, not surprisingly, is a long one.

In Somerset there are four properties listed: Clevedon Court, Bath Assembly Rooms, Barrington Court and, amazingly, Glastonbury Tor.

Barrington Court’s presence on the National Trusts dossier is due to the fact that the house, acquired by the Trust in 1907, was leased in 1920 to Colonel Arthur Abram Lyle, the grandson of the founder of Abram Lyle & Sons, a sugar producing company.  The business was founded after the abolition of slavery so for some reason the Trust went to great lengths to find a connection to a supposedly morally dubious past.

Here is Barrington Court’s “crime sheet” from the Trust’s national report “Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery.”:

The National Trust acquired Barrington Court in 1907, in a derelict condition. From 1920, Barrington was leased and restored by Colonel Abram Arthur Lyle (1880–1931), using architectural salvage collected from other houses. Lyle was the grandson of the founder of Abram Lyle & Sons, a sugar-producing company of which the colonel became director, and which merged to form Tate & Lyle in 1921. Both businesses were established after the abolition of slavery. The early nineteenth and early twentieth century British sugar industry was predominantly supplied by Caribbean plantations, founded under colonialism and supported by enslaved labour.

As for Glastonbury Tor being on the Trust’s dossier, words fail me!  It strikes me that those running the National Trust cannot be happy in their job if they think many of the properties in their care have dishonourable links.  Perhaps they should resign and let pragmatists take their place.