This morning we head out for Prior’s Dean Manor. A private home that was once owned by Catherine Howard and Anne of Cleves. No one is sure if either ever visited the manor but Anne owned it for a while so they think she might have visited.

It was the smallest house that we toured and by far the most updated or most livable. The owner was very welcoming. She showed us her home and the priory next door.

The house looked like we were in spread for Country Cottage. Everything was perfect in the house. It was definitely modern furnishings but they had the right look and feel for the 500 year old house. The upstairs had this great lean to it. I am sure she didn’t love it but it made for a fun feature. It was more slanted then any fun house I have ever been in. She let us wander all through the house but sadly no pictures. I feel certain it’s bound to be in a magazine I’ll have to look.

The church was also very small. It had a connection to a previous Saxon church and still had four pillars holding up the tower from the 10 century. However not the oldest thing in the area. Right outside the church doors was a 2000 year old yew tree. The trunk was huge almost bigger around than tall. Of course not really but it wasn’t really a tall tree.

The drive to the priory was one of our more eventful bus drives so I do need to mention it. Seems the bus driver missed the original turn to get us to our destination and all the other roads had weight limits. Deciding not to backtrack he attempted a weight posted rural road. I don’t think there was really in weight issues more of a width problem. For most of the road the bus was touching bushes on both side. We were passed just a few times and each time the car stopped and let us inch by. At one point we had to make a pretty sharp turn and it took us almost 30 minutes to make it. People had to get out and beat back the brush to make sure there was road underneath. The bus hit a tree trunk but finally made it through.

As I said this was one of the most exciting bus trips but not the most exciting one we had. The first I failed to mention. On our second night we were heading out to Penshurst and the bus was too tall to go under a bridge. Of course the driver didn’t realize that until there was nothing left to do but back up down the road. The road was a narrow twisty rural road but our driver just changed lanes and went about 3 or 4 miles driving backwards. So we were going the right direction for the lane we were in just the back of the bus was leading the way. While this was all going on Nicola never missed a beat in her discussion of Penshurst Castle.

Anyway back to Priors Dean. Alison rejoined the tour today. We hadn’t seen her since day two. I was disappointed that she wasn’t leading the whole tour but I really enjoyed the other historians she had set up. Sarah did a great job really leading the tour in Alison’s absence.

We were supposed to go into Midhurst for lunch and free time. However since we were so late to get to our first stop we were really short on time. The consensus from the bus was to skip Midhurst and just head back to the hotel to give time to pack before our big dinner that evening. I was disappointed that we were missing out on another stop. I of course was already pretty much packed up and didn’t need 2 extra hours hanging out at the hotel of course I should have used that time to catch up on my blog but instead I just lazed around.

This was our last night and what they referred to as our gala. We were driving a few hours to visit and have dinner at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth. The Mary Rose is a ship in the Henry VIII armada. It went down in a battle with France in 1545. It was close to the shore, Henry watched the battle and saw the Mary Rose sink. Luckily the ship settled in the silt and half of the ship was soon buried. It was the silt that preserved all the wood. Basically in 1982 they dug up half the ship and brought it up with over 90,000 artifacts. The only surviving Tudor long bows were found on the ship. Now there are hundreds of them. The cannons all survived and they were surprisingly heavily decorated. It was crazy what survived over 400 years in the ocean. They found clothes including shoes that had straw soles. There was even ointment still in the glass jar found in the surgeon’s chest.

The museum was set up to provide the most dramatic view of the ship. It was set on one side with 3 floors adjacent to it to show what was found on that level of the ship. So as you walked down the second floor you saw deck 2 and then the artifacts from the rooms on deck 2. The lights would dim and they would flash scenes from life on the ship.

Our dinner was on the third floor overlooking the ship. It made a dramatic backdrop for our final dinner. Sarah was the historian at our table. We had a great time at dinner. I am very sad to see our trip winding down. It has been a great adventure.