Buckfast

Buckfast Abbey was a good place to stop on our way from Poundbury to Holne. Maybe not National Trust, but with all the usual facilities one expects of the National Trust.

Mill wheel

This large mill wheel was attached to a building somewhere on the north western side of the Buckfast Abbey site, a building which looked to be more to do with some kind of educational activity - either accommodation or teaching space - than with spinning or weaving, but it was still slowly turning, driven by water which had probably been diverted from one of the streams running down from below the Hembury and North Woods above into the Dart below. Hopefully not faked up with ordinary tap water. At a guess, the mainly steel mill wheel was late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Pot plant

A number of pots of handsome pink flowers around the outdoor part of the canteen. Pink flowers which remain, to date, unidentified.

Fake?

Hard to know to what extent the handsome wooden beams holding up the canopy over of the outdoor part of the canteen were fake. The small beams, to judge by the way they attached to their terminal fittings, might be real. There might not be a bit of structural steel running down the middle.  The large beam, a composite affair, might not be.

We actually took our lunch inside. A respectable cottage pie, probably actually made on the premises. Good vegetables with it, including some greens. Experience only slightly marred by the sticky table disease. That is to say varnished wooden tables with the varnish no longer fresh and shiny, having taken on a rather matt feel and appearance, which did not feel very clean although it probably was.

Nave

Sat in the nave of the Abbey for a bit, which felt a bit more solemn and holy than it sometimes does, despite the presence of a coach load or so of the faithful, mostly pensioners like ourselves, some of them rather casually dressed and behaved. The shape of the ceiling of the nave still grates with me: the arches are slightly too flat for my eye, looking as if they fall short of being fully semi-circular. There ought to be some architect induced trickery of the eyes involved here, as the diagonal arches are clearly spanning a much greater distance than the transverse arches and so they can't all be semi-circular. Perhaps the architect in question was qualified in heaven rather than down here on earth.

Note the handsome reproduction of the Barbarossaleuchter at the end of the nave, last noticed at reference 1.

Tiles

My interest in tiles was scratched by the tiles below the crossing. Note the interesting way in which the circles are joined together. With tiling last noticed in this way in one of the rather smaller churches of reference 2.

We declined the opportunity to hear the fine new organ the same evening, involving as it did a choir doing a medley of popular sacred and semi-sacred choral music. Not keen on medleys. Not to mention the five mile drive down country lanes to get there.

Show garden

The usually sober and sedate Buckfast gardeners had been slightly touched by the show garden disease in evidence at places like the Chelsea Flower Show. With a touch of whimsy perhaps lifted from their co-religionist at Arundel. See the Earl's Garden at reference 3. But redeemed by the perfume of some pink roses elsewhere.

Pink rose

Snoozing bench

A general view from a snoozing bench. Canteen canopy more or less centre. Handsome open-plan pine to its left looking a bit healthier than it had on our last visit. Abbey off-picture to the left.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/canopy.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/09/surrey-open-day.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/08/bognor-three.html.