More Beauty

After our lovely day in Bath and our night of indulging in the life of the royals, we headed for Cheddar Gorge. My camera batteries by this point were completely dead so I got no pictures. But these pictures I found online give you a good idea of what we saw. It was unexpected as you drive through beautiful, green, rolling hills and farmland and then all of a sudden coming into these fairly large, rugged, rocky cliffs. In the gorge there are several large caves that can be explored. In one of the caves, there was found Britain's oldest complete human skeleton named Cheddar Man, estimated to be over 9,000 years old, was found in 1903.

We arrived on a rather rainy day, so we didn't get much chance to do a lot of exploring outside. We did have lunch however in one of the lovely little tea rooms devouring hot chocolate, strawberries, scones and clotted cream! It was fun to watch the girls sipping their hot chocolate from dainty little tea cups and saucers piled high with whip cream. They loved it and were on their best behavior! We then spent another couple of hours in the cheese shops. We toured the cheese factory and then tasted every kind of cheese made in Cheddar. Of course, you can't leave cheddar without buying loads of cheese and that is what we did! Some of the cheeses are cured in the caves of the gorge and have a distinct flavor! Nothing like cheddar from Cheddar!

During all this time, we had house guests who we had left a key for and abandoned. I decided to be a better host and take them to see some local sites. The first stop was the Hatfield House. I have wanted to see it since we moved in last summer but I have not had a chance to go until now. It was well worth it. It is only 20 minutes from our house!   It is the childhood home and favorite residence of Queen Elizabeth I. Built in 1497. Elizabeth I wasn't the only one who lived there. Henry VIII's other children Edward and his eldest daughter Queen Mary lived there between 1533 and 1536. It was fun to see since I read so much about it in Gregory Philippa's books "The Boleyn Inheritance,"  "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "The Constant Princess." (Excellent books by the way...)

Here is Alex looking out at some of the gardens.

The front

They had the most exotic flowers

I loved these masks on the garden wall

Gorgeous!

Entrance to the more wild, "unkempt" part of the garden still unbelievably green and beautiful! Next time I go, I will have to be sure to see the inside of the house. We came on the wrong day and it was closed.