Tag Archives: Woodstock Oxfordshire

The Harry Potter Tree

Early in the morning of September 22nd we walked along the main road on the edge of Woodstock to an entrance to the Blenheim Park grounds. I marked the route we wanted to take with orange highlighter. When we entered through the gate we immediately saw the path closure signs because of the on going dredging taking place in the Queen Pool. We diverted to take the green highlighted way around the pool across the bridge and down to the ‘Harry Potter’ Tree which is on the shore of the Great Lake.

Standing on the bank of The Lake in a historic landscape below Blenheim Palace is a Cedar of Lebanon known as The Harry Potter Tree for its role in the 2007 film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Perhaps the Harry Potter Tree should more accurately be called The Severus Snape Tree, for the scene filmed here was centred around Professor Snape’s memories of a time when, as a student at Hogwarts, he was bullied by Harry Potter’s father while sitting under the tree. The scene is important, for it gives us an understanding of why Snape is so hostile towards Harry.

To counter a common misunderstanding, the Harry Potter Tree at Blenheim is not the Whomping Willow! The tree used for the Whomping Willow in the films stood on the National Trust’s Ashridge Estate in Hertfordshire. And, just to confuse things further, it was not a willow at all, but a yew.

The Harry Potter Tree was probably planted during ‘Capability Brown’s’ landscape work on Blenheim Park. Over the years 1763-1774 Brown carried out extensive work at Blenheim, transforming the Palace grounds into a picturesque landscape garden on a vast scale, with sinuous waterways and viewpoints created by carefully planted clumps of trees.

The Column of Victory.

This column was built in 1727-30 by Lord Herbert, later ninth Earl of Pembroke. It is based on designs by Nicholas Hawksmoor. His designs were based on the pillar in the Piazza Navona, Rome. It was built to commemorate the Duke of Marlborough’s military successes.

We walked back to Woodstock and had some lunch at The King’s Arms before we ventured back to the Palace Grounds for our tour of the outer courts of Blenheim Palace and some of the grounds.

Later in the day while walking on the opposite shore of the Great Lake we saw the tree in the distance. Zooming in you can see others visiting the tree.

Back to the Present: This week ended with sorrow for us and our whole church family as our beloved church secretary died suddenly on Thursday evening. She was a dear friend to us here in Colville and she will leave a hole that will be hard to fill. She is with her Savior sooner than she expected but she was eagerly waiting for His return so she got an advanced calling Home. I rejoice for her but I will really miss her on this earth and I grieve, too.

Breakfast at the Feathers Hotel

Breakfast was included with our stay at the Feathers Hotel September 21st-23rd. We enjoyed some nice options they gave us.

‘Soft’ boiled eggs and Soldiers. A soldier is a thin strip of toasted bread, reminiscent of a soldier on parade. The shape lends itself to dipping into a soft-boiled egg that has had the top removed. Sadly my eggs were far from soft boiled.

On our second morning at breakfast I went for a Benedict. While on the subject of food we had another nice meal at The King’s Arms on Thursday of our stay in Woodstock.

Back to the Present: We are plugging away at February. Dear and I have a 30 minute walking routine through our home most mornings. I follow him with music on nice and loud to encourage us along our route. He commented one morning that we must look like the pirates on the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ride at Disneyland. That gave us a chuckle. If you’ve been on that ride you might get the correct picture idea in your head. We are looking forward to being able to walk the Rotary trail again as soon as the worst of winter is over.

Happy Presidents Day to those of you who live in the U.S. of A. and Happy Family Day for our Canadian friends!

Tea for Two at The Feathers

 

After some time walking about the town of Woodstock we were able to check into our room and get freshened up for our High Tea reservations in the hotel dining room.

Earl Grey was my choice for tea.

After our tea we took a leisurely stroll to get a glimpse of Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill.

We walked to the end of High Street where these gates to enter the Palace grounds were. Happy to see a side gate open for us to get onto the property.

The end of a long day of walking we headed back to the hotel for the evening.

On Thursday September 22nd we planned to visit Blenheim Palace outer grounds more thoroughly and pay to enter the Palace grounds, too.

The Kneelers ~ Woodstock

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to walk through the older churches and cathedrals. This is the easiest when traveling in England because there are so many and they seem to be more readily open to visitors. One of the things that has stood out when walking through are beautifully stitched kneelers. At St Mary Magdalene in Woodstock there are over 200 kneelers! That is the most I’ve seen anywhere in my travels and visits to churches.

The brochure I picked up in the church about the kneelers was photographed so I could share the information easier for my record here. I was going to make collages of the kneelers that caught my eye but after reading about all the work involved in creating one of them it seemed to me they were worthy of being presented singly.

Here is the church tower kneeler, the Winston Churchill and one I think might be part of the Blenheim Connection

The following give honor to the Lord, the Bible and Prayer.

Then we move on to more community minded themes…

 

And from the state where Dear and I were born and raised. We were surprised when we spotted the California Kneeler.

That’s just a small sampling of the kneelers during our visit on Wednesday September 21st, 2022.

Do you enjoy needlework?

Back to the Present: On Sunday we enjoyed our Sunday services and made a stop on the way home to buy some Deli Salads to go with the 2 racks of ribs we put in the oven. The ribs were pre-seasoned from Costco and turned out fall off the bone delicious. We watched the first half of the Super Bowl game and then hit the record button. Since 2 racks of ribs are more than we could eat, we dropped a rack off at our Colville kids for their dinner before we headed to our Evening service at church. Back at home after church we watched the last 10 seconds of the game and saw that the Kansas Chiefs won. Congratulations to them. I’ve got to say that I really didn’t understand half of the commercials and we didn’t watch the half time show. We got a text with photos of our Grands enjoyed the ribs!

Ribs enjoyed in two households for the win!

St. Mary Magdalene Church ~ Woodstock

Much history of the church and of the photos I’m sharing can be found here.

The church was built during the reign of Henry II (1154-1189) as a chapel of ease so that local people, including members of the royal court, did not have to travel to the parish church at nearby Bladon to worship.

Later in the 13th century the church was enlarged and a bell tower and burial ground were added.

The only parts of that original chapel of ease to survive are a section on the south nave wall and a beautifully carved round-headed 12th-century doorway set into the south wall. The doorway is carved with two orders of traditional Norman zig-zag pattern separated by moulding. Unusually, the zig-zag carving extends all the way to the ground.

The above photo is of that ancient door from the outside and below from the inside.

Separating the church porch from the nave is a wooden screen, carved in the early 16th century. The screen was originally installed in the traditional place between the nave and chancel, but was moved to the west end of the nave in 1999 to make the high altar more easily visible.

This flying eagle lectern is like several others I’ve seen in churches in Great Britain. I think they are so cool.

The superb column capitals on the south nave arcade are one of the church’s best features. There are 23 carved heads incorporated into the design of the capitals, interspersed with foliage.

Each capital is different and the heads are all unique.

All of the stained glass is Victorian.

The angels at the top have banners that read: Let us love one another ~ For love is of God.

Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.

Over 200 kneelers are in this church of which I photographed quite a few. That will be another post.

Inching along to complete posts about our last few days in Oxfordshire in September of 2022.

Back to the present here in the U. S. of A. Yesterday, Friday February 10th, we traveled to Spokane to do some shopping at places we do not have here in Colville. After our stops at Home Depot, T.J.Maxx, Costco, Hobby Lobby, and Trader Joe’s we tried a new to us Chinese Restaurant called the Red Dragon. We had the best Hot and Sour soup and some good potstickers. After we ate we made one more stop at Fred Meyer before we headed home.

Happy Saturday to you.

Woodstock

On Wednesday morning September 21st, 2022 we checked out of our apartment in Oxford.

We had a taxi booked to drive us to Woodstock which was under ten miles from our location. We decided on a taxi instead of the buses that run regularly from Oxford to Woodstock because we didn’t want to shlep our luggage to a bus stop and onto the bus.

Goodbye Oxford, hello Woodstock.

Since our checkout was at 10am we arrived in Woodstock before our check in time of 4pm.

We booked 2 nights at the Feathers Hotel. We left our luggage at the hotel and took a stroll around the small town.

Woodstock Town Hall, a beautiful Grade II listed building which was built in 1766 and is now a major landmark in the town.

We were looking for a good spot to have a lite lunch during our stroll around the town.

The War Memorial next to the church. “To The Memory of The Fallen 1914-1918 1939-1945”.  War Memorials are easy to find in most villages, towns, and cities. There are over 68,000 war memorials in the UK.

We would return to the church after lunch since it was occupied for a service when we walked by.

We found a cozy spot at the Back Lane for a refreshment but they weren’t serving lunch until noon. We would be seeing a lot of Winston Churchill in Woodstock.

THIS STONE WAS RAISED BY THE PEOPLE OF WOODSTOCK TO CELEBRATE THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM.

There were many tributes to the late Queen around town. (Remember we were in England during the mourning period for the Queen)

The Kings Arms looked welcoming for our lunch spot.

We enjoyed their lunch special beef sandwich and chips.

After our nice lunch we walked back to St. Mary Magdalene Church to see if it was possible to get a look inside. It was open and we were welcomed in.  We were still early for our hotel check-in time.

It’s a challenge to get the old brain back to Oxfordshire to remember some details of our last few days there. As challenging as it is the posts will be good to look back on.

Back to the present: We have a relatively quiet week and our temps have been above freezing so there is a lot of melting happening. Plants are emerging that have been covered in snow since November.

Quotes of the weekend:

“Sin is always a big deal.” ~ Dennis Wilkening

“If you want to be a wise person, you need a Bible.” ~ Alistair Begg

Have a good week everyone! If you need a Bible, I could send you one. 🙂

My Pumpkin Brain Hodgepodge

Since Joyce brought up pumpkin in her Wednesday Hodgepodge questions for today, I borrowed this photo from our daughter-in-law at the first pumpkin patch visit of this Autumn.

1. Thursday (Oct 13) is National Train Your Brain Day. What do you do to keep your brain in tip top shape? Is it helping?

Bible study keeps your brain sharp. When my Mother-in-law was living with us and signs of dementia started showing she was the sharpest when she was studying her Bible everyday and attending a Bible Study weekly. The Holy Spirit in followers of Jesus Christ illuminates the Word of God for us and helps us to discern and gives us understanding. The Word of God is living and enduring and it keeps my brain in tip top shape while teaching me how to live on this earth.

2. You can sit with anyone in the world and ‘pick their brain’…whom do you choose? Tell us why? 

If we are talking about a living person…

Patricia MacArthur, wife of John MacArthur one of my favorite living pastors who is 83 and still preaching at the same church he started at 53 years ago. She has lived through ministry and suffering and I know there is a lot of wisdom to glean from her.

If I could choose someone who has died…

I’d choose my maternal grandfather who I never got to meet because he was killed in Persia after my parents immigrated here and before the rest of my mother’s family immigrated.

3. What’s something happening in the world (or your corner of it) right now that you have trouble ‘wrapping your brain around’? 

Well you have opened up a can of worms here for sure. There is so much happening in this world that is unbelievable to me.

Calling good evil and evil good.

The whole gender identity stupidity.

The Border Crisis

The escalation of crime with no punishment for wrongdoing.

I can go on and on…

4. On a scale of 1-10 where do you fall in the pumpkin fanclub? (1=blech, 10=make it all pumpkin all the time) Tell us something delicious you’ve tasted recently that had some pumpkin in it somewhere. 

I’m pretty much in the middle. I enjoy some things pumpkin but mostly baked items like cookies and bars or a good spicy soup. I’m not a fan of drinking pumpkin flavored coffee or any kind of flavored coffee, etc.

5. Share a favorite song, book, or movie with an autumn title, setting, or vibe. 

I drew a blank on this one. I know I’ve read books or book series that included fall but nothing with that theme in the title. I did find this song by Nat King Cole…

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of Autumn…

I took this photo in Woodstock, U.K. on the grounds of Blenheim Palace on September 22nd of this year, the first day of Autumn. Winston Churchill was born at the Palace in the Autumn, on November 30th, 1874. He didn’t live at Blenheim but his parents were visiting Blenheim and the Mrs. went into labor and he ended up being born there. There are many tributes to him at the Palace and on the grounds and in the village of Woodstock, too.

Thank you Joyce for the Hodgepodge.

 

Sneak Peek to Blenheim

Today Thursday the 22nd of September and the first day of Autumn we walked our feet off. After our hotel breakfast at 7am we walked to a free entrance to Blenheim Palace grounds only to find out the paths we wanted to take were closed and restricted because of work being done with dredging in the lake. We walked around the restricted paths and found our way to the Harry Potter Tree which I will post about later. Back to town and showers and lunch and then back to Blenheim grounds for a ticket to tour the grounds. On Friday we are heading back to Oxford for our last night in the United Kingdom.

Tea for Two

On Wednesday we checked out of our apartment in Oxford and took a taxi to Woodstock to check into our hotel for  Wednesday and Thursday night. For curious minds the taxi was about 30 bucks. We could have taken a bus except with our luggage that would have been too taxing on us. We checked our luggage at the hotel and took a walk about the town. We had a nice lunch with a very jovial host at The King’s Arms where we met another U.S. family enjoying Woodstock. Later in the afternoon after getting the key to our room we had our first Afternoon Tea on at The Feathers Hotel in Woodstock. It’s interesting when our lodgings want you to check out by 10am and then your next lodging won’t want you to check in till 4PM. The hotel did let us check into our room at 2 instead of 4 since our room was ready. Our tea reservation was at 4:30. Afterwards we had a nice walk to the outskirts of town to catch a glimpse of Blenheim Palace.

Goodnight from Woodstock!