Bringing Home the Bacon

It was my brother's birthday last weekend (27th July) and so we arranged a joint caravan trip. Not too far this time, just to Calne in Wiltshire. Hence the title of this post as Calne was for many years a major processing town for bacon. In fact, it was the major industry in the town and the premises of Messrs C & T Harris & Co Ltd was once a major landmark on the A4 road from London to Bristol. The town was bypassed for long distance traffic by the M4 many years ago and the bacon factory has now closed with the building demolished and replaced by a modern shopping centre and library.

With my interest in railways, I was interested to read that Calne once had a branch line built by the Great Western Railway from Chippenham. This short line had an unenviable claim to fame in Dr Beeching's report where it was reported as having the highest loss per mile of any line on the British Railways network.

But, back to our weekend. Along with barbecues, birthday cake and an obligatory trip to an outdoor bar for a celebratory drink or three, we found a few places to entertain ourselves for the weekend.

Bowood House

Not far from Calne lies Bowood House, home to the Marquess of Lansdowne and designed by Robert Adam with grounds by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. Pedantically, what remains is just a small portion of the original house as it fell into dilapidation and was mostly demolished in the 1950s. Nevertheless, it is Grade 1 listed and part is open to visit, as are the gardens. Part of the gardens contains a large adventure playground that attracts many families, bringing in the cash to maintain the rest of the estate.

One side of the remaining house, seen from the garden below the terrace

The outstanding feature of the garden is the Italian style terrace that features perfect symmetry in its construction, as can be seen in the three images below:

The large garden features a substantial lake and in the distance, a summerhouse built in the style of a Greek temple

The lake with Greek temple summer house in the distance

And, naturally, with so much water to play with, you'd expect a waterfall. And you won't be disappointed!

A Car Museum!

As I'm sure I've said before, I can usually find a car museum or a heritage railway on our trips. This time,we were just along the road from the Atwell-Wilson Motor Museum, a small privately owned museum that has an interesting collection of historic cars, some of which are not the usual stuff of museums - which just goes to add to the interest:

Just inside the door we found this early 1930s Standard Light 9. It is similar to the car owned by a friend, other than his car is blue and is a "Heavy" 9.

From a distance, you might think this is an MG-B, but something just doesn't look quite right about it. The bonnet badge gives the game away - it is actually a Datsun Fairlady and dates from 1965. I wonder how many of these there are in the UK?

We all know that this is a Triumph TR7, painted in Persian Aqua metallic paint. It looked to be in good condition - but with some of the usual TR7 rust spots being obvious. I wonder if the headlights work together. Or even at all!

1966 Vauxhall FB Victor 101. The FB version of the Victor was a big seller for Vauxhall in the mid 60s with the 101 being a later revision to the model. It was reputed to be the first production car to feature curved glass in the side windows. Lots of chrome, as was the fashion at the time. Vauxhalls of this period had a justified reputation for rusting away at a horrifying rate, which is probably why we don't see many

Another Vauxhall dating from the 1930s. The chromed bonnet flutes were a Vauxhall feature and only disappeared in the late 1950s. This one appears to be part of the wedding fleet.

A right hand drive Buick convertible with a straight 8 engine dating from 1936.

This one is a 1931 Riley 9 2-seater, but with 2 further occasional seats in the boot. These were always called "Dicky seats" in the UK

Rootes Brothers were masters at badge engineering. Humbers were posh Hillmans and this Sceptre is a tarted up Hillman Super Minx

This could be a period used car lot. In the front, we have two Wolseleys. Nearest the camera is a "Four / Forty Four" - a nicely upmarket but expensive car from the early 1950s.  Next is a Wolseley 1500, from the end of the 1950s and using many parts from the ubiquitous Morris Minor. In best BMC manner, the Riley "One Point Five" was almost identical and sold in competition. Hiding at the back is a poverty spec "sit up and beg" Ford Popular and just visible is an early Ford Consul

Here's a rare one! This is a Lea-Francis Four-light saloon , a model built between 1946 and 1950. An upmarket car of the period, it would likely appeal to you if you were an accountant or a solicitor

There are barn finds... and there are barn finds. Here is a genuine, original and completely unrestored as found Triumph SD motorbike and Hopley folding sidecar that originates from 1923 and which slept peacefully from 1932 until acquired by the museum. The engine is of 550cc capacity and was one of the first machines to use a chain drive to the rear wheel in place of the leather belt that had previously been used.

Think of a 1950s fire engine and this is what comes to mind. Built by Dennis, this is their model F and they could be seen all over the country, but especially in major cities. Power came from a 120bhp six cylinder Rolls-Royce engine, this was once the local machine. It still boasts many of the original features, including the leather strap to ring the bell

Coded ADO16 (Austin Drawing Office 16), we know this better as the Austin 1100. If you didn't own one, someone in your family did and over 2.5 million examples were built between introduction in 1962 and the final car coming off the line in 1974. The mechanicals and general layout were designed by Alec Issigonis using the principles developed with the earlier Mini, suspension design was by Dr Alex Moulton and the styling was by Pininfarina in Italy. You could have an 1100cc or 1300cc engine, two doors or 4 doors in saloon form or a 3 door estate. You could have a Morris, Austin, Riley, Wolesely, MG or Vanden Plas badge, all with differing states of engine tune and plushness of interior.

Bedford had an advertising slogan - "You see them everywhere". At one time this was true of the small CA van which was the default choice for a small van for a trader or builder until Ford came along with the Transit. It formed a good basis for conversions to a camper van with many being so converted by the Kent based firm of Martin Walter who gave the vehicle with the raised roof their trade name - Dormobile.

Another Riley. This time it's a 1950 RMB. The RM model was available with either a 1.5 or 2.5 litre four cylinder engine. The RMB was fitted with the larger unit and a traditional leather and wood interior. Semaphore trafficators were fitted as original equipment, unusually, these were located not on the door B post, but behind the rear doors. In 1949, one of these would have cost you £1224 0s 0d including tax, the equivalent of about £42,000 in today's money.

Lacock Abbey

With the help of our National Trust guidebook, we found that we were close to Lacock. This is a small estate village that was given to the National Trust in 1944. It includes the Abbey founded in the 13th Century, later becoming a Nunnery and after the dissolution of the Monasteries, it became a private house built over the original cloisters of the Abbey.  Eventually, it became the home of the Talbot family and in the early 19th century, the home of an amateur scientist William Fox-Talbot. Hence my interest as he is credited as the inventor of modern chemical photography. Not that we use chemicals for photography any longer, but before the advent of digital images, we all used developer and fixer where today we just use Photoshop.

The village has been preserved as a typical English country village. The houses remain as private houses with numerous shops and pubs, but it is rather busy being a very popular place to visit. It is also a popular location for period film and TV - and especially for Harry Potter films . Several scenes in the films were shot here and there's a guide available to help you locate these as well as other productions filmed here such as Downton Abbey, Cranford, etc

Lacock Abbey from the outside. It was one of these oriel windows that formed the famous Fox-Talbot photograph, taken from inside the house

A different view of the house with the window nearest

As close as I could get to the first photograph. Fox-Talbot's exposure took several hours using a pin hole camera that he made himself. Mine was 1/160th second using a Canon EOS 7D mkII camera. His equipment cost pennies and I'm not admitting in public how much I have spent over the years!

A typical street scene in Lacock. Other than the cars and the modern fashions, we could be in the 18th century

That's another trip over. We're away again in early September, next time to the Roseland peninsula in Cornwall. Might find something to write about in the meantime, though...