Tea the Fourteenth

A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea,
which is one you forget about afterwards.
A. A. Milne - Winnie the Pooh

Ashdown Park Hotel, Wych Cross, East Sussex - Saturday 29th June 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

Olivia Ryan

Pat Ryan

Marion Ryan

Marie Ryan

Kathleen Sands

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A Ryan family tea, this time - with Paul's parents, sister and aunt - not only as part of my ongoing fortieth but also to celebrate the birthdays, just this last week, of Marie and Paul.  All excellent excuses to indulge in another rather lovely country house hotel visit.

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Ashdown Park and the Notre Dame connection

We had spied the hotel on a day out on the Ashdown Forest some time ago, and it looked a very likely tea venue; it certainly did not disappoint. 

The first record of Ashdown Park comes from 1693 when it was enclosed as part of the Ashdown forest, and a mansion has stood on this site since the early 1800s. The heart of the building is still a Victorian neo-Gothic construction from the 1860s. However, on arriving, the extensive wings and inclusion of a sizeable chapel immediately indicate that it has been rather more than merely a fine house.

In 1919 it was purchased by the Order of the Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur, to be training house for novices. The Sisters built two large wings and a church, and ran a convent here until 1971.  As I was educated at a Notre Dame school, this seemed a wonderfully serendipitous link (and has made me feel emotionally proprietorial about the place), and whilst the chapel has been deconsecrated and subsequently converted into function rooms, the legacy of the order's life here remains in lots of small (and not so small) details.

After subsequent incarnations as an American international university and a large bank's training centre, it has been a hotel for some twenty years and is a beautiful setting with its manicured gardens, a lake, woodlands and grazing land roamed by wild deer.

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We took tea in an elegant and comfortable room, with very English understated stately home charm. Service was attentive and prompt, but unobtrusive, and it was a most relaxing setting and situation.

The scones were delicious; fresh and light, and were accompanied by plentiful clotted cream and a choice of jams and honey.  Sandwiches achieved much approval. The cakes were beautifully presented and little chocolate pots filled with raspberry mousse and topped with mint jelly were a pleasantly unusual sweet.

I think we may not need to eat again for some time.

It was, then, both necessary and desirable to wander the grounds after tea, and to make the most of the surprisingly seasonal sunshine.

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Fourteenth Tea - Fourteenth Year

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The Ashdown Forest and the Enchanted Places

The Ashdown Forest is an area of open heathland, on the sandy northern ridge of the High Weald, with  beautiful views across the wooded hills of the Weald itself, to both the North and the South Downs. Despite its name it is only about forty percent wooded, and this is likely never to have been higher. From Norman times the area was hunting forest, and this term applies not to a landscape covered with trees but to a royal hunting ground with special powers to protect the deer within it.  Henry VIII still had a hunting lodge here and from this courted Anne Boleyn at the nearby Hever Castle.  The many place names with 'Hatch' and 'Gate' recall the ancient entrances to the forest's 'pale' or fence.

Originally much larger, in 1693 more than half of the forest was taken into private hands, but the remaining common land of just under ten square miles, is still the largest area with open public access in South-East England.

We often drive across the forest and are gradually exploring more of it on foot.

A.A. Milne lived on the northern edge of the forest and it was here that he set the stories of Winnie-the-Pooh et al.  Numerous locations are easily identifiable, and still recognisable from E.H. Shepherd's illustrations.  On our way to tea today, we stopped off at Gills Lap - named Galleons Lap in the stories  - where one of the 'clumps' of pines, planted on forest summits from the 1820s, affords expansive views.

They walked on, thinking of This and That, and by-and-by they came to an enchanted place on the very top of the Forest called Galleons Lap, which is sixty-something trees in a circle; and Christopher Robin knew that it was enchanted because nobody had ever been able to count whether it was sixty-three or sixty-four, not even when he tied a piece of string around each tree after he had counted it. Being enchanted, its floor was not like the floor of the Forest, gorse and bracken and heather, but close-set grass, quiet and smooth and green. It was the only place in the Forest  where you could sit down carelessly, without getting up almost at once and looking for somewhere else.  Sitting there they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them in Galleons Lap.

From The House at Pooh Corner

Tigger and Eeyore, or should that be Piglet and a Heffalump, approach Galleons Lap.

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Tea the Thirteenth

'Tea?'

'Yes, your lordship'

'Oh?'said Lord Emsworth. 'Ah? Tea, eh? Tea? Yes. Tea. Quite so. To be sure, tea. Capital.'

One gathered from his remarks that he realized that the tea-hour had arrived and was glad of it.

Summer Lightening - P.G.Wodehouse

Chiddingstone Castle, Kent - Sunday, 23rd June 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Sarah Taylor

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Chiddingstone Castle near Edenbridge, in Kent, is only half an hour's drive away from Mayfield, but is one of the many local places of interest that we have thus far failed to visit in our time living here.  It turned out to be a fabulous find, when I finally got here today, joined for this tea by the lovely Sarah Taylor, of whom more anon.

Situated in idyllic rolling countryside in the upper valley of the Medway, the castle has a very English quirky history, where little turns out quite as planned. Older tudor buildings were replaced by a Seventeeth Century mansion, and then in turn a Nineteenth Century owner decreed that he would rebuild it in the style of a Medieval castle. The ambitious project was never entirely completed due to lack of funds, but it is a glorious example of retrospective styling, and an extremely charming house.

After stints as a military base and a school (no doubt very similar establishments) it was bought in the 1950s by an intriguing antiquarian bank clerk, Denys Eyre Bower, who housed his varied and unusual collections here. He led an unusual life and after two divorces fell for the daughter of a Peckham bus driver who deceived him into thinking she was a Comptesse. In true melodramatic style he ended up shooting both her and himself (neither fatally) and then was imprisoned for attempted murder and attempted suicide.  He was eventually cleared of the charges and left the castle and his collections 'to the nation', although, with seemingly inevitable pathos, the National Trust declined to take it on citing lack of sufficient funds.

Now it is a popular local attraction but still has a very attractive eccentricity, and is a very fine place for a stroll and tea.

Sarah highlights a sign that asks a very important question for us all...

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Tea with Mrs T

Sarah has been a fabulous colleague during my time at Mayfield. Excitingly for her, she is moving on to new opportunities in London, but we shall miss her terribly. She has been the most efficient, thoughtful, imaginative, sane and funny of colleagues, so it was lovely to have the chance to have tea with her to celebrate, albeit belatedly, her birthday, to say goodbye and also thank you.

She is exceedingly good company and proved a very astute co-tea-critic.

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We both loved the setting, the house itself and the attractive eclectically furnished tea room. Waitress service was unobtrusive, to the point of having to stick my head through the curtain to the kitchen to get the teapot refilled, but was friendly with quick provision of the comestibles.

Especially to our liking was the fact that all the scones were plain. The china was charming, the cream copious and the conserve commendable. The only flaw was the butter being in little catering wrapped pats, but we will brush over that and try not to think too ill of them.

Simply, all very enjoyable.

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Thirteenth Tea - Thirteenth Year

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Sarah eyed-up the dog statues on either side of the door, but I think that slipping them into her handbag was a project unlikely to succeed.

It was a very British summer Sunday afternoon. The sun tried to shine from time to time, but without obvious success. We set off for a wander in the gardens and found the old Orangery (now often use as a setting for plays and other performances), but then the drizzle descended again and we headed for the car park, with its very pleasing payment system 

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Tea the Twelfth

Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence. Samuel Johnson

Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious,
and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise,
and will not use abstinence.
Samuel Johnson

The National Cafe, The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London - 8th June 2013

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

Olivia Ryan

Steven Farmer

Nick John

Gary Whitlock

Alessandro Spera

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Another opportunity to meet up with friends, and to enjoy tea as part of a day out in London.  Thanks are due to my very kind colleague Jenny, who gave me as a birthday gift a book called 'Tea and Cakes in London' in which I found a recommendation for the National Gallery's unassumingly named 'The National Cafe'. The sun, having finally realised that it is June, came out and a bright and cheerfully busy Saturday found us in Trafalgar Square.

Individual cake stands for each person meant today has raised the record to six (although we did think that fewer, larger ones might have worked better), and accompanied by five teapots it was a busy table.

Tea was good. The scones were large (although only with fruit again - Olivia drank water, ate nothing and looked ascetic), and their crust a little thick.

There were pleasing sandwiches and some attractive patisserie (the chocolate, pistachio and mint offering was especially delicious).

The waitress who took our order, after getting over the shock of a child who wouldn't eat cake or drink hot chocolate, was friendly, but subsequent service was perhaps not in the 'national' stakes - guests in a restaurant should not have to mime their needs across the room to a shrugging assistant.

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The National Gallery

A collection of thirty-eight paintings owned by a wealthy banker bought in 1824 for the nation, was the starting point for what we now know as The National Gallery.  In 1831 parliament agreed to construct a building for the collection in Trafalgar Square.  The location was chosen with a very definite purpose - situated as it was then at the very centre of London, it was felt to be equally accessible to all, both rich and poor.  This was also when the commitment was made to free admission, and it remains an amazing, and genuinely accessible, resource.

The original building was controversial and much criticised. (So the Twentieth Century furore surrounding the building of the Sainsbury Wing was really nothing new for the establishment). Additions and improvements, including the iconic dome, were completed by 1876, and gradually the building became a representative image of culture, art and education for the nation.  It now contains over 2,300 works, dating from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century.

After a very enjoyable hour wandering around the Early Renaissance section in the Sainsbury Wing, it was very fine to sit down in the airy and attractive cafe and catch up with friends.

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Twelfth Tea - Twelfth Year

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Old Friends

Lovely to meet up with old university friends who we have seen shamefully little in recent years, when lives, careers, geographical spread have meant we have all been somewhat distracted. As anyone who knows them would expect, at a tea with Gary and Steven there was a lot of loud laughter.

In another record-breaking feature, this tea also had the highest Deputy Head count, with three of us (sadly unable not to talk shop for some of the time). However, now that Gary is a Consultant, he probably has the most unfeasibly proper grown-up job.  We shouldn't be in charge of anything - where have the real adults gone?

So lovely to see everyone and to realise how easy it is to get together.

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