It is very sad to be packing up and leaving Lavenham. It was a quirky little hotel in a quirky little town but I will miss it. I will miss the crooked path to my room, I’ve included a video so everyone can see how much fun it was. I can boast that I never hit my head, Val not so lucky. She knocked herself pretty good at least a couple of times.

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The bus ride on moving day is always a little longer than other mornings. So there was time for a short nap. They set up talks by the historians but also give us a little time to sleep. This morning Nicola finally got to give her talk on Queen Jane. Nicola fully believes that Lady Jane should be recognized as the first queen of England. Her debut work is on Queen Jane and she is quite passionate on the topic. I can’t decide if I agree or not. I agree that she is a tragic figure and more than likely would have made a good queen but just claiming your queen or in her case your father in law claiming you queen might not be enough. Of course the previous king did select her as his heir but again that was more her father in law than King Edward. The discussion was lively and led to great conversations throughout the day.

Our tour stop for the day was Eltham Palace. It was kind of hodgepodge of medieval castle, Tudor ruins and 1930’s party house. The Palace is not far from London. In fact you can see some of the London. Skyline from the house. Henry VII added on to a prior castle built by Edward to be a nursery castle. All but Arthur, Henry’s heir were raised at Eltham. We met up with a guest historian, Elizabeth Norton, to take us through the grounds. She explained the use of a nursery castle which was basically to keep the children out of the city and away from all the courtiers in hopes of preventing illnesses. Arthur had his own estate up in another castle and was always separated from his siblings.

There were great stories of the future Henry VIII ruling the roost at the nursery. It seems he was destined to rule from an early age.

There wasn’t much left from the castle other than the great hall and the footings showing the outline of the King and Queen apartments. The only other structure to survive was the sewer system. It seems that they had dug tunnels to take the sewage out to the moat. The tunnels are still there and we were able to walk through them. Good thing the moat is long gone or that little adventure could have gone horribly wrong. Anyway the thought of it is still kind of foul.

In the 1930s a socialite couple bought the Palace and added on a modern mansion. It was quite crazy. It had a big circular room when you first walked in with a sitting and dining room off of it. There was a hallway with two large bedrooms with quite bizarre bathrooms. It was a his and her set up where it was clear she was the more eccentric. Her bathroom had a gold dome with an Italian goddess statute in the niche. His was just blue tile.

However, it was the rest of the house that was really odd. If you went behind the fancy main floor rooms you were in halls that reminded you of a hospital. They were painted a cheerful yellow but very institutional looking. The extra bedrooms upstairs were the size of postage stamps. It was clear that guests were invited to lavish parties then they needed to leave I can’t imagine they ever saw the back of the house.

We walked through the gardens and I was excited to see this tree with red berries. I had seen one at Layer Marney but my pictures were all blurry. So I was happy to get another chance. I have no idea what type of berries but they were the prettiest raspberry color with a shiny gleam. The tree was just covered in them at looked beautiful with the sunlight streaming through the leaves.

From the Palace we went into town for lunch at a restaurant inside an old Tudor barn. It was a buffet nothing special but definitely suitable.

The drive to the hotel was still quite a ways and I tried to listen to the talks but I think I napped quite a bit instead.
I did hear a little about the Tudor year and what holidays they celebrated.

The new hotel is the most modern that we have stayed in. It is a Georgian mansion that has been turned into a hotel. The main entrance still has the look of the original mansion but the rest of it appears to have been gutted and added to turn it into a hotel. It is a nice place with beautiful grounds but it is not as unique as the prior two hotels.

We got in early enough for a walk around the grounds. Val and I wandered through the kitchen garden and along the wooded paths. The garden had several apple trees with a lot of varieties that I have never heard of. However, basically the apples were just rotting in the ground. It didn’t really look like they were trying to use the garden.

Dinner was at the hotel and it was quite nice. We had Julien at our table and this time they didn’t switch. It was a fun less historical conversation.

After dinner Robert Hutchinson talked about the last few days of Henry VIII’s life and his medical issues. Kind of a gruesome talk for right after lunch but not too bad. The guest was very fun and the talk went quickly. He believed that Henry suffered from Cushing’s disease. He is going to be with is all day tomorrow so I will have an opportunity to talk to him more if I want to hear the more gruesome parts about Tudor diseases. They didn’t seem to be a healthy lot. Really only Elizabeth lived very long at all.

I can’t believe we are now at our last hotel and on our last three nights. All the sudden time is flying.