Buckland Abbey

We had planned a trip to Buckland Abbey with Kate and Marty but I had a locksmith coming to do a new key for my van. Not as an emergency but that's their model, they come to the house, clone the key and make sure it's OK. 

When that was done, we set off and I'd decided to go across the moor as I don't enjoy the route down to Plymouth and up to Yelverton. Of course, I'd forgotten about road closures on some of the roads across the moor and sure enough, we got to a closed road and were diverted off.  After an hour on the road I'd got back to Widecombe, which is only about twenty minutes form home and had seen another diversion sign since we left the main road. Gosh, we saw some places I'd never seen, went down some roads so narrow my wing mirrors were clipping the hedges on both sides which is fine until you meet traffic coming in the opposite direction and then it got more difficult. We eventually got to the Moretonhampstead - Princetown road and were able to make a bit more progress, eventually getting to Yelverton and Buckland by about ten past one.

Buckland Abbey was founded as a Cistercian monastery in 1278 but when  the monasteries were dissolved in the 16th century it was sold to Sir Roger Grenville, who began to modify the abbey into a house and home. Later it was sold again to privateer Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. It's a lovely place and it's run by the National Trust. My main blip is of the great barn and it is BIG. At the end you can see a large cider press and in the middle is a skittle alley (not quite sure what that's doing there). My extra is a side view of the Abbey with a huge Magnolia by the front wall.


You're wondering which way we went home? No not the Plymouth way but up to Moretonhampstead and down. Longer but not as long as the journey there..