We went out towards Basingstoke and visited a large woodland
with a rather ramshackle house called the Vyne. It is rather lovely in places.
But as the Trust tries to be too many things, this property was failing to
be anything. First, the volunteers were wrapping up the house for the winter,
so many things were covered in white bags. I think we are supposed to be impressed by the thoroughness and care being taken, and it is curmudgeonly of me that I was slightly put out. White bags aren't very interesting to look at.
Secondly, there was to be a
Halloween ball, so nearly all the surfaces were covered with tacky Halloween
decorations, like, orange cushions with black cats on, spiders, pumpkins faces,
orange tinsel etc. it was just horrible. Our guided tour of the tapestries and
Tudor carvings and so forth was pretty much ruined by this, because I kept wondering how much they had spent in Wilko's and Claire's Accessories and Tesco's on all this tat.
Thirdly, the house
had been knocked about a bit by every owner it’s had and some of the “improvements”
were very cut-price to start with. The Trust is very po-faced and you don't feel as though you are allowed to laugh at the wooden Greek columns. It was raining too much to see the garden
which was unfortunate. The flapjacks cost £2.25 which put them beyond our price range, but the tea room was very attractive.
However, Cliveden was worth visiting and there is a kiosk in the grounds where you can get a reasonably priced cup of coffee and flapjack, and there are many things in the grounds to see. However, we were not able to see the house on the day we were there - it's a hotel, and must be very annoying for the guests to see hordes of holiday-makers peering in at the windows at the smartness and splendour inside.
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