Sometime in 2023 Jen and I decided that we should have an excursion to some place or other each Wednesday when we are not on our journeys (When every day is an excursion!) Sometimes it might be a trip to Sheerness and a walk along the sea wall but usually it will be to Canterbury, Maidstone, Chatham or Rochester. Often times it will involve a visit to some store or other for some little item and almost always a coffee and sandwich.

Occasionally we will do one of our photo trips to a country house, cathedral or castle. Today (2^nd October 2024) we went to Chartwell, the home of Winston Churchill for over 40 years. It’s about an hour’s drive from home. It would be quicker if wasn’t for all of the displays of men in orange suits and white helmets standing around inactive machinery with multi-colour flashing lights pretending to be improving our road system and imposing their speed limits with, of course, the average speed cameras. They need the fines to pay the wages.

We had been to Chartwell before and my most popular YouTube video to date is of the exterior and grounds. The link is in the buttonabove.

On that visit I didn’t have the prime lenses that I have now nor the polarising filters necessary to neutralise the reflections on glass display cabinets and varnished paintings.

 

I was particularly keen to photograph the silver trophies that had been awarded to Sir Winston as my previous attempts had been useless due to the reflections. Happily, today’s efforts are up to scratch so I am a happy boy.

We were also lucky with the room guides. Just in case you don’t know, the National Trust have volunteers in most rooms who are there to give you information about the room, the house and the people who lived there. They are usually retired people who come in all shapes and sizes and with varying attitudes as to the application of THE RULES. Most are lovely but you do come across the occasional apprentice gestapo agent. We didn’t get one of those today.

I am often amazed at how much knowledge the volunteers have and find that they are well worth talking to, even though Jen gets a bit frustrated at how much time I take to do a tour of a property in comparison to most people.

There is an interesting Wiki article about Chartwell which you can find here The Wiki about Sir Winstone is here 

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