Keeping up with the Reids: Ashington, Sussex 19 October

Wednesday 19th October

Set off in the morning for Worcester and made our way (after several wrong turns) to the marina where we spent a couple of hours catching up with Elizabeth who we met during our visit to Warwick. Afterwards we explored Worcester, visited the cathedral and then drove out to Croome which was shutting just as we arrived.

tomb of King John

Thursday 20th

Once we were ready and packed this morning we drove back out to Croome and had a look around the house, gardens and RAF museum, before setting off on our drive to Ashington.

Arrived about 6pm and were met by the family. Had a great meal together and a good chat before heading off to bed at around 11pm.

Friday 21st

the family left at 9 o'clock for the airport, leaving us in charge of Cookie and Tally. Spent the day settling in and chilling.

don't let that scary vacuum cleaner get me

Saturday 22nd

I went out first thing for groceries, then Aaron went to rugby. Kids and I stayed home and they spent a happy afternoon bike riding in the woods and went for a long walk.

Sunday 23rd

stayed home, baked biscuits

Rest of the week

28th October Arundel
Took an afternoon drive to nearby Arundel where we viewed the castle from the outside and had a poke around the church of St Nicholas with its magnificent painted organ and the cathedral.

Arundel Castle

Arundel village

The Priory Church of St Nicholas

the Fitzalan Chapel on the far side of the grill

The Fitzalan chapel is the burial place of the Dukes of Norfolk in the grounds of Arundel Castle. It is part of the building of the parish church but was sold to the 12 Earl of Arundel by Henry VIII. In 1879 it was determined that the Chapel did not form part of the Protestant parish church but was an independent ecclesiastical structure and therefore remains Catholic. A glass wall and grill now divides the Chapel from the parish church.

looking back up the aisle into the parish church

Arundel Cathedral

After exploring the town we ventured to the edge and enjoyed a walk around Swanbourne Lake

October 30 Petworth

Went for an outing to visit Petworth House and hopefully see some deer rutting in the park.
We started in the pleasure gardens and Holly completed the wizard trail before we explored the historic kitchens which housed some costumed staff members explaining the various jobs and equipment in the large kitchens. As the park is some 700 acres, we drove to the north car park to explore the park. Didn't see any deer rutting, but plenty of mature stags about with their impressive antlers.

October 31
Trick or Treating
After the mornings leaf raking and pony riding, we dug out some costumes from the large collection in the shed and worked on our face paint ideas ready for trick or treating. I did a supermarket run and detoured around the local village of Ashington to check out the best areas, finding a street with plenty of halloween decorations going up. So when we set off at 5.30pm across the road bridge we had a good starting place. Plenty of pumpkins out indicating participating houses so a jolly hour or so was spent collecting a huge bag of lollies, and some chips from the local fish & chippy.

4 November
Bramber Castle

Today we took Cookie out with us to explore the scant remains of Bramber Castle and then continue on for a 4 mile walk around the area taking in St Nicholas Church

St Peters Church

Corona

the font installed in 1307

Then on to the saxon church of St Botolphs

which originally had a North Aisle, now only the filled in arches are visible from the outside.
St Botolphs is also notable for it's Tapsel gate.

A Tapsel gate is a type of wooden gate, unique to the English county of Sussex, which has a central pivot upon which it can rotate through 90° in either direction before coming to a stop at two fixed points. It was named after a Sussex family of bell-founders, one of whom invented it in the late 18th century. Only six examples survive. Tapsel gates have the dual advantage of keeping cattle out of churchyards and allowing the efficient passage of coffins carried to and from the church during burials.