Wednesday, 5 June 2019. We've been to Beachy Head and the Long Man of Wilmington and our third stop this morning includes toilets - ah at last! I parked in a car park with only one space left. Unfortunately some rich twerp had parked over the line in a Porsche 911 even though his space was the end one with loads of room on the other side if he wanted to overhang. I paused to let Miss Franny out and then reversed in using my wing mirrors, leaving just a bare inch between us. Sadly it wasn't his driver's side to make him wonder how to get in, but in the event it was still there when I left anyway. What a twonk!
This was what we had come to see. This house was given to Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII as part of the gifts given for her agreement to divorce him as his 4th wife. It was, after all said and done, better than the alternative... Once we were in we found that although she owned it, there is no record of her ever having visited it. She lived at Hever Castle - which had been the childhood home of a certain Anne Boleyn. Henry had found her too ugly for his tastes. When they married in 1540 he was 48 and she was 24. I'm sure she didn't exactly think of him as her ideal choice of husband...
The house is somewhat altered since the 16th century, but despite the lack of a carved "Anne was here" it contains much of interest, housing a few museum type collections as well as the period furniture. The main bedroom. It did originally have a ceiling as attested to by the beam sockets in the main beams. It's also worth noting that although the oak wood is very dark with age, it is so only because of its age. When new it would have been a golden honey colour.
I hold my hands up, I'm not really sure what this is as I didn't read the card at the side. What I think it could be is a draught excluder. A screen placed behind the door to a room to divert any draughts from blowing directly into the room.
The room below was set out so that meetings or classes or even meals could take place. I don't think Anne would have recognised the red tables and chairs somehow...
The kitchen. Spits for roasting and a crane for holding and swinging cauldrons and pans over the open fire. Houses in the 16th century were sparsely furnished. A stool or two, chairs if you were rich and a single table were the lot for most folk. In terms of cost to income ratios a simple hand cart would set you back the same as a new car would to us today.
In another wing were the little museum collections. One to ironwork which included lots of examples of firebacks and a display about cannon making. Another had a range of items from an old hand-drawn fire engine to case clocks to a plaster cast of the footprint of an iguanodon dinosaur found locally.
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