Faithful but Unfortunate

The family motto -- Fiel Pero Desdichado -- is still used by descendants. It was coined by the impoverished cavalry captain Winston Churchill, who paid a huge fine -- £500 was big money in those days -- for backing the losing Royalists in the English Civil War. But he soon (1650) sired the second of nine children John Churchill, who had the good sense to switch to the winning side in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, went on to the Captain-Generalcy of all British forces, and won the Battle of Blenheim (1704). Queen Anne and the grateful nation granted him the Manor of Woodstock, the funds to build Blenheim Palace, and the title Duke of Marlborough.





I decided two Saturdays ago (while Ellie was nursing along her thesis) to take a lovely summer day and see some of the environs. (Not Blenheim itself, as that is a day trip we'll take together.) My first goal was to see the Combe Mill: the original ‘power house’ of the old Blenheim Palace Estate timber mill and workshops.





The Mill has an original 1852 "beam" engine and the even older water wheel, plus a lot of neat museum stuff focusing on old technology. I visited on one of the few days they crank up the old steam power; the place is full of older gentlemen volunteers eager to share their stories of the old days and the old tools. The thing I enjoy most about this is meeting older folks who really have a passion and a history, whether it be for steam engines, clocks or old cars.






Nigel started with a 17th century village clockworks, ended with Big Ben, and told me more about the huge leaps in horology than I ever thought possible.

Old Jack as had his vintage roadster for nearly forty years, and was here for a rally of old time MGs.









Tying all this together (for me, at least, on a glorious summer afternoon) was a five-mile run through the countryside around Blenheim. Park in a country church-yard, jump into running shorts and shoes, jog up the farm lane and out onto the stoney road leading up the ridge, and catch the view across Oxfordshire. Sometimes along the edges of fields, sometimes through the wheat-stalks or forests; but I stop at a stoney house.



Greeted by a pack of curious house dogs and their peg-legged master, I learn that yon hedgerow, which my trail will follow, is the medieval path north from Oxford to Bladon. And this was the path taken by the aforementioned Royalist army in June 1646, retreating from Oxford to Bladon, led by Charles, the king whose career was cut short by a severe neck injury. Local legend has it that in this house (well, the oldest stone portion) the King spent the night, but I will take the trail upon which that elder Churchill doubtless followed his master, for I am to pay my respects to The Great Man.

Sir Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim in 1874, and for all his life frequented Bladon, the town just outside the estate. Many Churchills are buried in the yard of the 12th century church, and so -- after a State Funeral in London in 1965 -- was he.

But I still have two miles back to the car, up lanes, across stoney fields, dodging horse pies and nettles.

"The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read." -- Winston Churchill

Laphroaig

It burns on the way down, but it is one of the great malt whiskys, made on the Isle of Islay, off the west coast of Scotland. (And that's not a typo: it is the way they spell it.) Islay was a little too far on road and on boat to fit into our Scottish vacation with Ellie's daughters Sophie and Heidi, but we did make it to Arran. Just a 40-minute ferry ride from Ardrossan, home of sheep and one of Britain's largest wind farms, but it's wonderfully wild.

Arran is home to Goat Fell, at 874 meters, not quite one of the Munros, but a good six-hour hike nonetheless. (Mountain peaks in Scotland over 3,000 feet are called "Munros" because Sir Hugh Munro in 1891 produced a definitive list of all 284.) We started right at sea level, driving to Brodick Castle, the start of the trail. The castle is over 600 years old, and has some crusty battlements from Robert the Bruce's struggle for Scotland, but was mostly destroyed in fighting in 1455 and later. Conquered and occupied by Roundheads in the seventeenth century, the castle also received a gracious 17th Century makeover for the 10th Duke of Hamilton, whose forebearer received the island and castle as a bauble from his cousin James IV. About 100 years ago Brodick Castle passed into the hands of Mary, Duchess of Montrose (daughter of the 12th Duke of Hamilton) who revitalised the gardens. She was quite a lady, as I hope you will learn soon (from Ellie), as Lady Mary has a direct connection to Ellie's thesis project: two eighteenth century mahogany chairs from Holyrood Palace, the royal residence in Edinburgh. (The name means "Holy Cross:" there's a whole story involving royal princes, enchanted stags, and ruined chapels, but I digress. . . )

Back to Goat Fell: we struck out from the Brodick Castle grounds, spending a half hour or more in farm fields and woodlands. Everyone says vacations in Scotland mean two things: rain and the fierce Highland Biting Midge, Culicoides impunctatus.We kept an eye out for both, but had good luck. We cleared the tree line, constantly removing layers when the sun shone, and re-bundling under the scudding clouds and wind gusts. The trail was periodically steep, and leveled out in an open vale as the vistas across the sea to east and south opened.

Once in the open, the trail was well-tended, with portions that had had great trail work: vitually paving with flat rocks the sections subject to water damage. The trail comes to the base of a ridge, thankfully sheltered partially from the wind, and then begins to climb. As the ground cover thins, you go for long sections hefting yourself from boulder to boulder, up giant steps.

At times it is quite steep and the ridge is narrow: it is easy to feel your fear of making a mis-step or catching a gust of wind that will carry you off your feet and down. Not dangerous or technical, though Goat Fell does carry away hikers every year: mostly in radical shifts of weather.

Still no rain or midges, and we made our way up the final ridge, stopping for breath until we finally saw the penultimate ledge. A couple of young lads bouncing up the trail heedlessly gave Ellie the needed final jolt of certitude to make it.

Everyone had said that the 360 degree view of island, mountains and ocean made the effort worthwhile: they were right. I looked wistfully at the trail leading across to a neighboring peak and down to the shore, but knew that weather was headed our way.

So what about the trip down? Still no midges, and getting down the steep part seemed as easy as taking an elevator. Lower down, I was recounting a tale of having been hit by a cold front and sideways rain/hail in Dartmoor last spring, when what should happen: we were soaked by about ten minutes of hard slanting downpour!

But it was no big deal: the sun came back out before we hit the trees, and we were barely damp by the time we got back to the castle. All of this is quite easy to take when you know that a hot shower, good meal, and a dram of Laphroaig is in the near future.