Arreton

Our last outing to an attraction of the holiday was a visit to a craft village called Arreton Barns (reference 1). A curious place which has been there for quite a while, so it must get by. Despite banning coaches, a move which we learned was caused by the tendency of coach loads of pensioners to take advantage of the restrooms and to take coffee in the pub, but otherwise clutter the place up without spending very much money - entrance being free. Coaches that care enough to park around the corner and get their pensioners to walk the last couple of hundred yards tolerated on the grounds that it is quite likely that they really want to come.

The map

The farm shop

The smoking den attached to the public house

In the middle of the island, maybe five kilometres west by south of the sea mark on Ashey Down, with an early visit to this last being noticed at reference 2. Complete with spelling mistake. Never was a strong point.

Remarks about coffee notwithstanding, after buying a loaf of bread at the farm shop, we headed to the pub, to take coffee and fizzy water. An establishment called 'The Dairyman's Daughter', with this daughter having been made famous by having had her edifying death at an early age documented by a local parson. A document subsequently published by the Religious Tract Society.

Tract Society's New York HQ

I have not been able to track them down and acquire any titbits about the lady's life and death, but Wikipedia does offer a fine drawing of the New York affiliates' HQ in New York, to whom the lady's chair was presented at some point. The pub offered some compensation in the form of a fine collection of bric-à-brac, including the largest collection of squeeze boxes that I have ever seen. It would have been interesting to know how it had been built up, but as a non-diner I did not like to ask. Nor did I think to ask whether they sold the Old Holborn advertised outside the smoking den, a brand I once used to roll, having moved on from the rather stronger Boar's Head. Nor was it clear whether the place really did start life as a country pub, or whether it had been knocked up as the central attraction of the craft village. Maybe reference 3 explains all.

Carex pendula

There was also a traditional village pond, complete with a good number of carex pendula. Plus some giant rhubarb which must have escaped from somewhere. I managed to get ticked off for stepping across an unchallenging barrier to take the snap.

Buttresses

On to the rather old and rather unusual church. Heavily restored at some point, but there were still some old bits visible. And whoever built it was clearly a bit uneasy about the foundation of the tower, our never having seen such massive buttresses for such a modest tower, with the slit window left probably the twin of that just visible in the next snap. And including the piano already noticed at reference 6.

Change of plan?

Roof light

An unusual roof light, of a kind which one sometimes comes across in Surrey. Note also the rain water hopper, with the date of 1885 clearly visible on this laptop.

1699 bell

A bell which was replaced getting on for 20 years ago, but which they were not allowed to melt down and recycle as it was a listed bell. No idea why it had to be replaced. One supposes that the new timber left echoes something which was something to do with ringing the thing, rather than the wheel which I thought was usual. See next snap, lifted by Google from somewhere or other.

Bell wheel

Old door?

Unusual roof trusses to aisle

A church which was clearly far too big for today's custom and it is not clear to me who ought to take (financial) responsibility for its upkeep. It would be a pity to see these churches go - it is even a pity to see them lose their proper function as a church which has been converted into an arts centre (or whatever) does not seem quite the same somehow - even for someone like me, born and bred atheist. Perhaps the sort of café stroke drop in centre which they manage in the old church at Kingston (upon Thames), while maintaining the church as a church, is the way forward in an urban area where there is demand for that sort of thing, but out in a village?

A large private garden, possibly the source of the giant rhubarb

A derelict wine barrel, made in France

Glass museum - cases

Glass museum - detail

Quite a lot of the craft seemed to involve glass and there was also a surprisingly sophisticated museum of the stuff. Where I found that while one might admire the craft, the overall effect was rather dead. Perhaps this sort of glass does not work well in large quantities. Or perhaps glass as a medium is rather dead? None of the grain of, for example, wood or stone.

The White Lion

We elected to lunch in the village, at the White Lion, rather than in the barns. A place with a large and pleasant dining room, which rather fancied itself. Seats offering little support in the middle, so one was essentially sitting on the frame. Lasagne quite eatable, but rather dry - a dish which I usually find that our public houses can microwave OK. Wine satisfactory.

And so back to Ryde for a bit of terminal shopping, before returning the Brading to pack. Tweeted a low flying buzzard at Arreton and a kestrel at Ashey, this last seeming to be seeing off a number of crows. Missing out on the big church at the top of town, despite discovering that it was both open and boasted a small car park. With our only success with this establishment being noticed at reference 5.

PS: Saturday past, BH turned up an article in the DT about a chap who is trying to photograph all the parish churches in the country, including the suggestion that there are plenty of people of our sort of age who liven up their holidays and days out by visiting the churches they come across. So we are not the only people to take an interest in this part of our heritage - a heritage which is rather different from that of the peoples of the mainland, a lot of whom have the excuse that their countries got worked over by soldiers a lot more often than ours has been. See reference 4.

Reference 1: https://arretonbarns.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=irregularly+triangular%2C+tapering+masonry+piller.

Reference 3: https://dairymansdaughter.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://www.parishchurches.org/.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/07/ryde.html.

Reference 6: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/piano-19.html.