Category: Articles

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Wessex Attractions: Ashdown House

Ashdown House, on the Berkshire Downs, in some ways represents the very heart of Wessex. Centuries before the house was built, the surrounding area was pretty much all that was left of the ancient kingdom of the West Saxons. A victory led by King Ethelred I and his brother Alfred, soon to succeed him as king, led to a change in fortunes, but that is a subject for another article.

The present-day Ashdown House was built in 1662 for William, 1st Earl of Craven. He had donated substantially to the royalist cause during the English civil war, though he himself did not fight, being safely ensconced in The Hague. There, he met King Frederick and Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, who were in exile following Frederick’s defeat at the Battle of the White Mountain. Craven married Elizabeth following Frederick’s death in 1632, Craven provided financial support to Elizabeth, and they are rumoured to have married in secret, though there is no proof of this. Regardless, she came to live in his house in Drury Lane, London. Worried by the great plague in London, he built her a country house in the Dutch style at Ashdown. Unfortunately, she died before it was completed, bequeathing him many of her possessions, which can be seen at Ashdown House to this day.

The house is now owned by the National Trust. The surrounding gardens and woodlands are open all year round, while guided tours of the house are available on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Advance booking for these is essential. The postcode is RG17 8RE, and West Berks Connect bus number 47, Swindon to Lambourn, stops right outside.

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Wessex Attractions: West Somerset Railway

The West Somerset Railway is the longest heritage railway in England, and one of Wessex’s most popular tourist attractions, carrying over 200,000 passengers a year. Originally a GWR branch line covering the 22¾-mile stretch between Taunton and Minehead, it was closed in 1971, one of the last casualties of the Beeching rail cuts. Due to the opening of the Butlins holiday camp at Minehead, its status was listed as “possible return to operation” after its closure, and in 1976, it was taken over as a private concern. It was originally intended to run as a mainly diesel service for the entire length of the route, with occasional steam services aimed at tourists, but the National Union of Railwaymen was worried that it would take too many passengers from local bus services! It therefore became a purely heritage service running only as far as Bishops Lydeard, four miles from Taunton. Occasional special services still join the Bristol to Exeter line at Taunton.

The postcode for Bishops Lydeard station is TA4 3RU and for Minehead TA24 5BG. Buses of Somerset route number 28 runs from Taunton railway station on days when there are no direct WSR trains.

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Wessex Attractions: Royal Garrison Church, Portsmouth

The Royal Garrison Church in Penny Street, Portsmouth was built around 1212 by the Bishop of Winchester, as part of a hospital complex, which also provided accommodation for pilgrims. After the Reformation, it started to decay and was turned into an ammunition dump, hence the name. The church was extensively restored in 1871, but was bombed out during the Blitz.

It is now managed by English Heritage, who are currently undertaking a second restoration. The church is scheduled to reopen to visitors in June 2022. Entry, when the church is open, is free. The postcode is PO1 2NJ. The church is three-quarters of a mile from Portsmouth Harbour station, and is served by bus routes 1, 16, 19 and 700.

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Wessex Attractions: Bristol Old Vic

The Bristol Old Vic is Britain’s oldest working theatre. It was founded in 1766, making it older than the United States of America and the University of London.

The theatre in King Street, Bristol was designed by James Saunders, David Garrick’s carpenter at the Drury Lane theatre. Garrick delivered the prologue and epilogue of the first performance, billed as “a concert with a specimen of rhetorick” to get around the restrictions on theatres caused by the lack of a Royal Licence. This situation persisted until 1778, when Letters Patent were granted by the crown, allowing the theatre to change its name to the Theatre Royal. a name that the main theatre bears to this day.

The Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company was founded in 1946, with Hugh Hunt as its forst artistic director. Early members of the company included Peter O’Toole, John Neville, Timothy West and Dorothy Tutin. The Theatre School was opened by Laurence Olivier shortly afterwards. Alumni of the school include Gene Wilder, Miranda Richardson, Naomie Harris, Jeremy Irons and Pete Postlethwaite.

The theatre was closed for refurbishment in August 2007, reopening in December 2008. The foyer was redeveloped further in 2018. Today, the Grade I listed building houses the Theatre Royal and the new Weston Studio. Its reputation is worldwide. When Hollywood star Christopher Walken was asked why he was appearing in the Bristol-set BBC comedy-drama Outlaws, he said that he wanted to come to Bristol because it was the home of the Old Vic!

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Wessex in Fiction: Inspector Morse

DCI Endeavour Morse is a fictional detective first created by Colin Dexter in 1972, though the first novel. Last Bus to Woodstock, was not published until 1975. Dexter decided on the setting, Oxford, early on. Although a Cambridge graduate himself, he had been working for the University of Oxford as an assistant secretary to their Delegacy of Local Examinations since 1968, a job he continued to hold until 1988, a year after the ITV series of Morse adaptations had debuted.

In many ways, Morse acted as something of an author avatar for Dexter, who shared his passions for Wagner, cryptic crosswords and real ale. He named the character after a fellow crossword enthusiast, his friend Sir Jeremy Morse. There is a myth that Dexter took the name from his national service in the Royal Signal Corps, but he has denied this. It didn’t stop composer Barrington Pheloung from incorporating Morse code into his scores for the TV series, though, often using it to reveal the name of the killer.

The TV series starring John Thaw propelled Morse into the big time, and helped make Oxford a familiar sight to ’80s and ’90s TV viewers, in much the same way that Shoestring had done for Bristol and Bergerac for Jersey. It led to two spin-off series, Lewis and Endeavour. It was not the only time that Dexter’s novels had been adapted for other media, though. BBC Radio 4 had already dramatised Last Bus to Woodstock in 1985, and continued to broadcast adaptations of Dexter’s novels throughout the ’90s. In 2010, Colin Baker starred as Morse in a stage play, which again was broadcast by Radio 4 in 2017, this time starring Neil Pearson.