Hughenden Manor

Straight after breakfast I sauntered across the road to take a look inside St Paul’s church on the edge of Chipperfield Common, which had some lovely stained glass windows.

Next, armed with my not-so-trusty SatNav, I set off for the National Trust run Hughenden Manor, country home of the Victorian statesman Benjamin Disraeli. After extricating myself from a couple of single-track roads with grass growing down the middle and no passing places, I arrived at a very beautiful spot nestling in the Chilterns - the Manor is surrounded by over 600 acres of parkland, woodland and farmland. We had a twenty-minute talk on the general history of Hughenden, and then I wandered round the ground floor of the house and the Italianate Victorian parterre gardens (main blip and in Extras). The sun was gorgeous - what a glorious day to enjoy it all. One of the volunteer guides asked me if I used to fly gliders at Booker Airfield (which I did, back in the early 90’s). It was Symeon, one of my fellow club members! He’s had to give up gliding recently for medical reasons, and decided to volunteer at Hughenden. It’s right up his street because, during World War II, the entire place was requisitioned by the Air Ministry for a top secret operation (code named Hillside) researching and creating accurate air maps for the RAF bombers to use in their raids over Europe. Symeon gave a large group of us an excellent talk on this fascinating part of Hughenden’s story, which has only really come to light in the past twenty years when the NT have been allowed access to top secret documents and photographs. Afterwards, Symeon and I had a good catch-up on old times and friends each of us were still in touch with. I explored the rest of the house (Disraeli’s cosy office is in Extras), then returned to the hotel for a rest.

To cap off a really lovely day, I went over to Chesham and met up with my book club friends in the Queen’s Head for some delicious Thai food and a great evening together. All-round thumbs-up for the book, which was “You Are Here” by David Nicholls.

This is a back-blip, and I’m all behind with everything due to being a wee bit too booked-up at the moment!