Ashby De La Zouch Castle & the National Brewery Museum

Today was a fine, albeit brisk, Sunday afternoon so we decided to hit a couple of sites.  The first was the Ashby de la Zouch Castle [wiki link] just over 30 minutes away.  It was going to be a family affair as usual, but Alex attended a sleepover birthday party with 6-8 other boys and let's just say he wasn't quite up for it.  So, it turned into a nice father/daughter day out.

Coincidentally, my buddy Jay happened to visit the castle yesterday (great minds think alike) and I am going to shamelessly plagiarize his blog for the description (thanks Jay).  Any factual errors are Jay's fault.  :-)

The castle was built in the 12th century as a fortified manor house.  William, Lord Hastings, acquired it in the late 1400's and made improvements to the property, including fortifying it into a castle.  (A side note on William was that he was a very generous lord, he paid his servants too much and didn't charge his guests at all which led to massive debt.  Generosity was probably not very common in those times.)  The castle eventually became an important footnote in the English Civil War.  The owners at the time were on the side of the Royalists, or Cavaliers, and housed retreating Royalist forces in 1645.  The Parliamentarians . . . caught up to the Royalists at the castle and laid siege to it from September 1645 to March 1646.  Terms of surrender were eventually negotiated with the family being allowed to leave because the castle was never breached.  (Some kind of chivalry thing I guess - the better the loser fights the more favourable their terms are.)  Some of the Royalist forces were killed but the castle was demolished as part of the terms which is why it is in ruins. 

The castle is also famous from Sir Walter Scott's 1819 novel Ivanhoe.  The novel mentions the castle by name [Steve here] and turned it into a tourist attraction in the 19th century.  

The audio tour didn't take itself too seriously and actually featured some role play acting between the 2 characters that both Nicole and I enjoyed (better than a dry monologue). 

On to the photos . . .

A shot of Nicole on the grounds.  I wanted to make sure to get the frost.  It was just above freezing but obviously not in the shade.

View of what remains of the tower.  The rest was blown up as part of the surrender.  Look at those blue skies.  We don't get that too often this time of year.  Or any, really.

Sunken gardens and more frost.

Closer view of the tower.  We would walk the 98 large steps up to the top.  It's a rule of castle viewing -- you must climb to the top!  Larger rooms on the left; smaller on the right.  I find it interesting to see these multi-story cutaways without the floors.

at the top as promised

 view of the [former] gardens below

semi-artistic shot #1 -- I liked the funky moss at the top

St. Helen's Church next door.  Can you make out the remaining Roman numerals on the lower part of the former clock?  At least that's what I thought it was but the numbers are 6, 9, 7 and 3.  What?

semi-artistic shot #2.  Nicole requested this one.

arches from long-ago vaulted ceiling

School next door.  Wouldn't that be creepy?  It's only 100 years old or so.  Modern even.

semi-artistic shot #3

self shot -- if only my arms were a little longer -- happy days

very cool tunnel within the complex -- very dark, most of the light is from the flash

 good shot of Nicole and the castle ruins from across the grounds

On our way from Ashby to site #2 in Burton-upon-Trent, we saw this Greyhound Inn. Had to stop and take a photo given our history with greyhounds.  Too bad there's a tacky curry night sign up.

Quick tangent on the drive.  It wasn't that far away but it was painfully slow through many towns.  I actually like the roundabout system here in the UK for the most part, but this route had lots of mini-roundabouts with painted circles rather than a median in the middle.  Very difficult when you aren't familiar with the area.  Don't care for the mini-roundabouts.

Next stop was clearly my vote and not Nicole's.  Burton upon Trent has quite a brewery tradition and the National Brewery Centre  is located here.  Two of the larger breweries were Worthington and Bass which merged back in 1927.  In the early 2000's it was purchased by Molson Coors!  From the Burton wiki page:

For centuries, Burton has been associated with the brewing industry. This is due to the quality of the local water, which contains a high proportion of dissolved salts, predominantly caused by the gypsum in the surrounding hills. This allowed a greater proportion of hops, a natural preservative, to be included in the beer, thereby allowing the beer to be shipped further afield. Much of the open land within and around the town is protected from chemical treatment to help preserve this water quality.

a very large can o' Bass

 only 4 ingredients in most beers -- barley, hops, yeast and water (cool beer wiki)

The photo above is an example of what they have in the museum (stressing the more manual aspects of beer making before mechanization). Given the off-season, I should have tempered my expectations, but I was a little disappointed.  They still have guided tours at 11 but we missed that by a lot.  The shire horses, steam engine and actors are off until spring.  There was a decent amount of info for a self tour.  It was okay but not great.  I'd recommend waiting until spring for those interested.  No actual brewing on the tour either, btw.

Ah, but we did get samples (unfortunately served in these dentist rinse cups).  These are my 4.  Nicole got soda -- I didn't take hers.  I also opted for the mid-tour break rather than the end tour sample since I was driving and all.   I had Worthington's Winter Shield, Worthington's White Shield, Brewery Tap and a stout (8%!).  Can't say I was that impressed.  The Brewery Tap was the best and the Winter Shield was okay.  The stout was pretty bitter and the White Shield was nasty.  I've realized that I prefer American or Belgian beers.

A rare Coors Light tap.  Don't know that I've seen one here but I haven't been looking either.

Had to settle for a life sized photo of a Shire Horse (bred for pulling heavy loads like grain and beer carts).  Nicole was purposely placed to cover the anatomy (it was a little graphic for some in this audience).

 very cool beer bottle car in the not so cool winter shed

Ah yes, my wonderful wife.  I did not forget her.  As mentioned earlier, Alex was at a sleep over last night so we capitalized by ditching Nicole and having our first UK date (after 10 months -- phew).  We went to a nice gastro pub up the road in Duffield called The White Hart.   Kuk had a seafood pizza for her main.  Notice the rocket (arugula) in the middle.  Very British.

I splurged and got the fillet (pronounced fill it here -- snicker, snicker).  Came with a wonderful peppercorn sauce, fancy potatoes, onion rings, grilled tomatoes and marinated portabella mushroom.  I found a good British steak!  (though not cheap at all, in fact the filet mignon here is quite pricey -- this was £23; okay for a special occasion).

 shared dessert of another local treat -- sticky toffee pudding

Continuing on the weekly food theme:  Nicole made a challenging vegetarian chili with cheese quesadillas).   It was a good effort but we all wished for some ground beef in the end.  :-)  Kuk missed out on this as she continued her jet setting ways and was in Germany the latter half of the week.

And finally to follow up from last week, here's where the "polenta" (corn meal) ended up.  Sauteed chicken with an interesting salsa of mango, corn, beets, cilantro and garlic.  Better than it looks (food pictures are tough).

That's all for this week.  Thanks for reading.

Bolsover Castle and Hardwick Old Hall

Well, we are back in the UK and back in the swing of things for the most part.  I thought we might take the weekend off, but it was reasonably warm (50F or so) with a decent forecast (partly cloudy though I'm not sure who got the partly -- we just got the cloudy) so back on the trail we went.

Note:  I stretched the template a bit and I'm using larger photos.  Let me know if you like it or hate it.

I decided to tap a few English Heritage Trust properties to the north of us (< 1 hr away) today.  First up was Bolsover Castle.   It was interesting to realize that many of the castles/estates to the north of Derby are very much intertwined (Peveril, Bolsover, Chatsworth, Hardwick Hall, etc.).

The castle dates back to the 12th century when it was built by the Peveril family.  It changed hands a few times but ended up with Charles Cavendish (son of Bess of Hardwick) in 1608.  Charles set about rebuilding it and that work was finished by his son William Cavendish.  England was at peace then but it was quite fashionable to have a mean looking castle to impress your friends and all the little people.


Here's a view of a model that may help with the visualization.  We entered the outer courtyard at the top right.  The large stable range is the brown set of buildings on the right.  The Terrance range (expansion wing more or less) is in front and the Little Castle is on the left.


View as you enter the courtyard.  Little Castle is out of view on the right; Terrance Range straight ahead.

Inside the courtyard looking at the Little Castle--"a fantasy house for leisure and lavish entertaining" according to the guidebook.  The Terrance Rooms are to the left.

Troops in front of the large door into the stable rooms.

Inside one of the stable rooms -- nice hat.  William Cavendish was big into horses.  Boys and their toys.

one of the views out over the countryside -- notice the green in January -- quite a contrast to what we saw recently in the eastern US

 former dining room area (Terrance Range side)-- obviously missing a few floors these days

Inside the Entrance Hall of the Terrance Range looking back to the Stable Range.  Big door.

 another room in the Terrance Range.  It was fun to walk around and explore the ruins.

 we had walked down the ground floor to get a different view

 kitchen

 part of the Stable Range

 Alex taking a look down the hill (I like this shot)

Okay, now we are in the inner courtyard called the Fountain Garden.  Interesting.  Too bad the fountains weren't on.  Not sure how much the water would normally cover those lower angry men statues.  Alex thought the little boy anatomy features were later add ons.

entrance to the Little Castle

some of the rooms had dark paintings and woodwork and others were bare --here's an example of both (sorry, couldn't resist)

These were some funky plants out on the grounds.  They looked like cacti from a distance.  Anyone know what they are?

 Little Castle from the other side

As we were walking out, little man was swinging his audio device around and got himself all tangled up.

Cool tree.  Spooky without the leaves.

Next, we headed down the road to Hardwick Old Hall.  There's a "new" hall next door, but it was closed.  I knew that and will save it for another day.  It should have taken about 15 minutes to get there from Bolsover but our Sat Nav (GPS) lead us down some secondary road that had a gate and then the chief navigator lead us astray so it took 30-40 minutes instead.  All was calm (we are experienced at getting lost now).

Bess of Hardwick (wiki link) was a rich and strongly connected women.  She married 4 times, amassing more fortune with each husband's death, and was thought to be the second richest women (next to the Queen) in the country.  Her second marriage was to William Cavendish and they had 8 children.  First son William became Duke of Devonshire (lived in Chatsworth).  Grandson William (from son Charles) because Duke of Newcastle (lived in Bolsover Castle).  She was chiefly involved in the designs of both Hardwick Halls.

Required Jay Seppanen Steve Frey domesticated animal shot as we were pulling up to the Hardwick Hall grounds.  (Catch Jay's blog if you want another view of ex-pat life in the UK).

 Hmm.  Doesn't look open to me . . . Too much trouble to take down the sign, eh?  I found this humorous for some reason.

 We passed by the closed, Hardwick (new) Hall enroute to the old one.  As you can see, New is relative.

 cloudy, countryside view

View of the Old Hall.  It's a little more ruined than the new one.  Some of its bits were sold off after they moved out.

Four stories with a relatively contemporary design.  She liked her windows and glass too.

All the big to-dos were on the top floor

 some of the plaster/masonry remains

full view of the height

 scary in many ways

 I enjoyed this partially ruined state

Despite the decrepit state of the previous photos, there were some sound stairs that led us to the top where we were rewarded with a nice view of Harwick [new] Hall.  I guess the old one just wasn't big enough.

 and now to cap things off, we stopped at the Hardwick Inn for some refreshments before heading back

Couple of half pints to sample between us.  Bess of Hardwick Best Bitter on the left; Theakston Old Peculiar on the right.  I couldn't find anything on the first and I suspect it might be made by Blacksheep.  Fairly typical.  Slightly better flavor but just a little too hoppy (neither of us like the hopped up beers like IPA, etc.).  I've been noting/complaining about a lack of variety in the beers here and the Old Peculiar was actually different.  It was complex and well, peculiar.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  Good effort, but not quite there.

I purchased this one in the Bolsover Castle gift shop (alcohol in the gift shop, can't beat that).  I've always wanted to go Wassailing among the leaves so green . . . . I'll have to report back on how it tastes.  Not sure it's my thing but I wanted to try it.  Too bad it didn't say A Full Bodied Beer with underlying Happiness.  Always looking for some of that (it says hoppiness for those that can't make it out).  Happiness in a bottle is probably more than £3.

Here's the first verse of the Wassailing Carol for those interested.  It's actually a New Year's song so somewhat appropriate.  We have a version on our Scottish Christmas DVD that we always listen to (except this year -- oops).

Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a-wand'ring
So fair to be seen.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.

Not sure why the travel blog has turned into the Food Channel, but I did spend some time cooking each night this weekend so I thought I'd share even if the photography isn't that great.  This is a UK version of Beef Stroganoff.  Picked up some Scottish rump steak at the store and it was good.  It used creme fraiche which apparently is a French sour cream (more fat, less sour).  It used French brandy too, so maybe it wasn't UK, but French.

In continuing my roast adventures, I did a chicken roast stuffed with garlic, lemon and thyme.  Also yummy.  A few too many potatoes, but I might as well cook up all of them.  Notice that they leave most of the feet on the drumsticks -- takes getting used to.

Side note:  spent 10 minutes (and 2 trips) looking for corn meal in the store.  Had to Google it to find out it's called polenta here.  Polenta back home implies the cooked stuff I believe (or at least in my mind).  One of those things that's quite irritating at the time. 

Related side note:  cornstarch is corn flour here.

Not so related side note:  many of the vegetables are different as well (zucchini=courgette, eggplant=aubergine, cilantro=coriander, arugula=rocket, rutabaga/turnip=swede).  Most times it's obvious but others it's not. 

No Nicole meal-of-the week this time.  I gave her the week off on this short week.  She'll be back next time.

Thanks for reading.