27th of September, 2025 - Cotswolds to Royal Leamington Spa

A 49 minute commute today, so I had plenty of time to side-track along the way.

I spent the morning at Sudeley Castle. This is the home of Katherine Parr (Henry's surviving widow, lucky girl) and her post-Henry husband, Thomas Seymour - and what a piece of work he was!

Katherine made no secret of her love for Sudeley and you can see her mark all over it. It's hardly big enough to be a Castle, but the same could be said for Hever and I'll fight anyone who tries to take anything from Hever. Apart from anything else, Sudeley is in the Cotswolds, so of course the grounds and surrounds are just stunning. I visited Katherine's grave and paid my respects (if you wanna hear a story, ask me some time about what happened to her body 200 years after she died, wowzers!).Katherine is the only one of Henry VIII's wives to be buried on private land, although it is true that 2 of them are buried in the Tower of London after having their heads chopped off and actually, Anne of Cleves, the one Henry really didn't like the most, is the only one buried in Westminster Abbey. Aaaaanyway...

I love Katherine Parr, she was an extremely strong and progressive woman, although she really sucked at picking husbands. Sudeley is still a lived-in private residence, but, like so many places, they open it to the public to help pay for it. It has a lot of history from the Civil War (Bonnie Prince Charlie n stuff) but I didn't care about that. Katherine Parr all the way for me - must be something to do with the initials.




In my happy place

Royal Owners of Sudeley Castle

Bad man - Thomas Seymour

Katherine Parr's hair and part of a tooth
I'm telling ya, bad things happened!

The beautiful knot garden

Also, the waxworks are really creepy

RIP Katherine


After leaving Sudeley I went to Stratford-on-Avon and hung out at William Shakespeare's Birthplace. It's much smaller than I remember, but amazing to think he and his family were in this exact place, touching these walls, living their best lives.

There was a couple of Shakespeare performers in the courtyard acting out scenes from Shakespeare's plays. There was only 2 of them, but a "Nurse" character in the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet who had to call out "Juli-e-hett" in a high pitched voice every time Juliet said "I do beseech thee". They gave that character to the audience. I was the ONLY ONE who did it! Then I thought "phew, made a fool of myself but oh well".

Four times. Four times Juliet said "I do beseech thee" and 4 times I was the only one who responded. I mean, lucky I was here I guess?






All the boards around it are restoration, but Shakespeare
DEFinitely walked on this board in the middle!

A recreation of a wall hanging in the house that is thought to
have been the inspiration for A Midsummer Night's Dream

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Counting down

Image
  It's almost time! For those interested here's the itinerary for my most wonderful adventure... September 2nd - 8th Lovely London. Staying in the centre of Covent Garden. Sept 4th Evita at the Palladium. Sept 6th Les Miserables at The Sondheim. September 8th - 14th The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn History Tour September 14th - 18th A few more days in London because I'm sure people on the Tour will recommend places that I'd kick myself if I missed! If not, I'll head to Bath for 2 days, just coz I can. September 18th - pick up the car. Head west, do as much Jane Austen (Steventon & surrounds) and Stonehenge as possible then on to Petersfield in Hampshire. September 19th - 22nd Hever Castle History Festival - 13 speakers over 3 days. Staying at Hever Castle in the Anne Boleyn room of the Astor Wing within the Castle itself. YaY for Anne Boleyn's childhood home! 19th More Jane Austen in the morning, be at Hever Castle for 1st speaker at 1.30pm. 20th White Cliff...
Read more

Tour - 8th of September - Windsor

Image
Best. Day. Ever. Met up with the full Tour group this morning. Note to future self - London Tube strikes suck, really, really, REALLY big time. Got to Windsor and checked into the most beautiful (by beautiful I mean SUPER fancy!) Hotel that is literally right across the road from Windsor Castle. We immediately went on a Tour of the Outer Castle, given by a Blue Badge Tour Guide - which is apparently some very special brand of Historical Guide, kinda like London Taxi Drivers have to study for years to get a licence - these Blue Badgers have to be several levels above and beyond to get their accreditation, so feeling very spoilt. All the Tour Leaders are incredibly nice (there's 3 of them) and the passengers are all very keen and eager to have a great time. There's 2 of us from Australia, 1 from Austria and the other 16 are all from America. Windsor Castle is my favourite! Absolutely beautiful stone fortress that just has a warm, lovely, historic feel to the air and the walls and...
Read more

It's raining in London - lovely, innit?!

Image
 What a lovely, rainy day in London. When I came in 1994, I remember wandering aimlessly, soaked to the skin and completely zombified after 58 hours of not sleeping a wink to get here. I finally noticed a man in a bowler hat stopping to give me a VERY strange look as I staggered past, wet through, bedraggled, my soaked clothes stuck to me, dripping water from the end of my nose and feeling miserable, so I sat on a bus, made giant puddles on the floor, rode it to the end of the line, got off, crossed the road while it went around a roundabout then got back on and rode it all the way back to my original stop, just to stay out of the rain until I could check in to my B&B. Today made me laugh because whilst the flight was great and I slept a treat, I spent Day 1 sitting in the open air top deck of a hop on, hop off bus, soaked to the skin, wet, bedraggled, my skirt stuck to my legs, my hair stuck to my head and rain dripping off the end of my nose. Everybody else went downstai...
Read more