Half-term break - Swindon, and Dyrham Park

This half-term we booked a short break at the Mercure hotel north east of Bristol, which is a country house hotel, very attractive as an early Victorian mansion or Rectory, now with a few corridors of hotel bedrooms tacked on here and there.

The amusingly bad hotel

Nothing was wrong with the room service or the reception service. Most of the staff were troupers. It is true that our bathroom basin had been badly cracked and mended with mastic by a lunatic (it seemed), and that the toilet was also cracked. It is true that the room was very cold when we arrived.  Our complaints were only about the restaurant staff. They were girls of about 18 who didn't know their job was to take orders and transmit them to the kitchen. They did not know anything! Therefore they made frequent trips to the hall to ask the receptionist what they should do. We found it amusing that there were so many staff, but the service was so bad. For example. they would bring you a pudding but no spoon to eat it with. This happened to the man at the neighbouring table and it was a long time before he got a spoon, the attitude of the waitress implying that he was making a lot of fuss about a little thing like a spoon - he was, in fact, remarkably patient. I was not patient, though! When we ordered our desserts, which were part of our package or we should have given up hope of them, they didn't come, and I think it likely that this was because the waitresses were meant to make them themselves, and no-one had told them this, and when they were told they did not know how to do it. The waitresses who brought our deserts on the second time of ordering, did not know which one was which, and we got confused too, so they had to make another agonised trip out to reception to find out what had gone wrong.

In the morning we had to ask a waitress for coffee, but knowing how she did not know the job yet, we suggested she ask us if we wanted tea or coffee. She denied that this was part of her job, and said that we had to ask her. We were amused by this. She brought a pot of coffee, which was fine, but no milk, so I pilfered some from another table. The rest of the breakfast was a buffet prepared by cooks who knew what to do. It was very good.

On the way out we heard another guest telling the receptionist it was the worst hotel she had ever stayed in! I can't imagine what they had done to deserve that. But it was clear to us that the restaurant manager must take the blame for his untrained, unled waitresses.

The first place we went to was Swindon, for the STEAM museum - the museum of the railway manufacturer. It was a terrific museum and very enjoyable but of course, sad, like all these museums that used to house a huge business of 4,000 workers, who took in coal, wood and iron ore at one end, and produced railway engines and carriages at the other. From the drawing board to the upholstery it was all done there - Swindon, and the workforce were proud of what they could do. Every summer the works were closed for 10 days, and the staff with their families loaded on trains - sometimes at night - and all taken to holiday destinations. So they worked, lived and holidayed together, in a tight community. There were jobs for women in the offices, and also in the upholstery-making. In the war they carried on the foundry and the iron work, and even made bombs, but after the war the men wanted their jobs back.

I looked for traces of Brunel, but there was not much there - then a glass case with his drawing board,  much scored, his T-square and his drawing equipment. Of course, Brunel didn't work there at all, his mechanical engineer friend Gooch did, and there was nothing of his on display. Interesting that the engineers not only designed engines but also ran the business for a good many years, putting out edicts about this and that, dealing with disciplinary matters like kings.

The saddest thing was some film of the engine driver working with the coal-man on the footplate. The fire-man had hard physical work, shovelling coal, and said that some drivers could burn the coal slowly and considerately, and others burn it fast and keep them slaving away. They didn't complain because the driver was the boss. They worked very long hours and of course, in all weathers, even being drenched by the sea sometimes, in stormy weather, where great waves come over the tracks at Dawlish. The fireman I listened to said that he had worked fourteen years at a skill that was made suddenly useless. Diesel engines came and the drivers could adapt, but the firemen were not wanted. This came back onto my mind the next day.

Apart from the museum, the other sheds contain shops - it's called an outlet village. Very good too, thought we only went to Marks and John Lewis. But we are quickly tired of shopping and I think that all the world will be tired of shopping soon. We have seen all the tat. We don't want any more of it.

Victorian industrial buildings were sometimes well-designed,
 but I can't find out who designed this one.
Brunel designed stations and workers' cottages;
did he design these? He once wrote to the Board
 of Directors telling them how much money
 he saved them by being his own architect.

So we enjoyed Swindon's large GWR museum. The next day we decided to go to Dyrham Park, where we went on a "deer walk" with a guide to tell us all about the habits of fallow deer - bucks and does - these have been in the park since Norman times. They are very carefully managed. At present it is the rutting season so we were able to see bucks with large antlers strutting around the group of does restlessly. They cannot eat at this time of year. They walk around making a strange deep noise and spreading their testosterone. This puts the does into oestrus. Then the doe chooses the buck - but how, I can't remember. The does are not often in oestrus. I didn't take any photos of real deer (I didn't get close enough) but this is what they look like:

The National Trust had put a lot of money and effort into Dyrham house, because they have had it for 60 years or so and then decided to renew the roof. The roof is made of lead, which was therefore taken off and re-smelted, and new lead added, and now the roof is good. For years the house was covered in scaffolding, but the public was able to go up and look at the work in progress on the roof.

Although I didn't take pics of the deer I did take pics of the trees in the park and the view - which was beautiful -green fields for miles!

This is a pear tree - with small pears on.

On the next day we went for a walk in the Mendips.

These "tumps" were created in WWII
to stop enemy planes landing on the hill

Things to look out for on Black Down • Bronze Age burial mounds on Beacon Batch • Rows of tumps (small mounds) created in World War II to prevent enemy aircraft landing. • Exmoor ponies • Devon ruby red cattle
We saw all these things, and the woodland was also very pleasant to walk in.

Fungi growing in a wood

Lunch at Yeo Valley head office. Sadly for us they told us our tokens no longer entitled us for a free lunch and that we would have to pay for it. I had beet burger - which was delicious.

Chandeliers in the art deco ladies loo

Glittery bin 

Framed photos in the corridor - Prince Harry is a favourite

In the restaurant:
Colanders as wall decoration

In the restaurant - squashes on the table