We decided to celebrate the Wellingtonia centenary noticed at reference 1 with an overnight stay at the Huntsman of Brockenhurst, to be found in the snap above and reference 2 below. Bad start in that on coming out onto the A337 we turned left rather than right. As it turned out, right would have been right, but it took a mile or two of wrong before we worked that out.
Given a rather splendid room, actually three or four connecting rooms over the front door. Quite narrow rooms but plenty of space. All rather good for the money. One of the rooms contained both a shower and a bath and I had a go with the latter. A large, freestanding fibre glass affair, such as can be bought in the better B&Q outlets.
Perhaps the idea was that it was for two. We did not do that, BH leaving me to work out the taps for myself. Water, which I managed, was hot and plentiful. While I could not work the contraption to the left at all, possibly intended for washing one's hair. Luckily washing my hair was not on the agenda.
Another catch was that it would be quite easy to scald oneself with these centre fill taps. Another was that there were no handles to help one out. But a plus point was that one could work the taps by hand, rather than by foot.
Plug in the middle of the bath, rather than at one end. Took me a little while to work it out. Maybe there should have been some laminated instructions pasted to the wall? A3 should have been big enough.
And so down to the large dining room, quite busy for a Monday evening. Started with garlic bread, the sort that comes as a thin disc of pizza bread, on this occasion heavily oiled. But there was a lot of it and it ate well enough. Followed up in my case by a chicken, ham and pea pie: not bad, but the internal white sauce had curdled a bit. Maybe I should have applied some of the deep brown gravy supplied in a jug on the side. Vegetables good if a bit thin on quantity. Looks well enough in the snap above, but not as good as the chicken pie supplied by the Five Bells to the west - as noticed in passing at reference 3 - maybe it was a mistake to take chicken pie two days running. Pills to be popped visible top left.
Wine from the Clair stable of New Zealand. Taken in at least two places before, ASK in Epsom and the old fire station at Waterloo, as can be seen from reference 4. Probably something that warms from Scotland. All in all, a good restaurant which suited us well. The only oddity on exit being that it was charged on the spot, rather than settle up on exit in the morning.
Breakfast in the morning turned out to be in a pay by the item format. Full English was an item, so it seemed simplest to do that. And it was rather good. Breakfast was also charged on the spot, making one think that room, dinner and breakfast were all free-standing operations with their own accounts. Nothing wrong with that, but unusual.
We could have had something called Shakshuka, something we have learned since has spread almost as far as sour dough bread. From north Africa and clearly the latest thing in the world of hospitality. Bing turns up lots of it, including the snap above. I wondered what they would make of it in the sea ports with a significant population of people from that part of the world. The sort of port that figures in at least one episode of the north eastern Gently saga.
We may well be back, when we return to do the two ornamental drives properly.
On the way out we noticed that some of the windows were in bad need of repair. Maybe the window money had been spent on refurbishment of the dining room.
Which prompted a wonder about the age of the place, our first guess being the beginning of the 20th century. With the courtyard accommodation out back dating from roughly the same time: proper brick built, not the sheds you get in most places.
Next stop the Scottish National Library which shows the site being occupied by a rather different house called the 'Crown Inn'. Was the inn knocked down to make way for the present building?
PS 1: while I was up in Scotland, I thought I would take a look at the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive.
But in 1871 it does not seem to be visible at all. By my reckoning, running north, passing just to the east of Stage Park and Stag Hill nursery. With the car park not far from the river of the same name. All very puzzling. And I still haven't looked up what an 'inclosure' is, presumably some relic of Norman forest law. Rather savage in Norman times, as I recall.
PS 2: when we got home, I took a peek at the confirmatory email to find that breakfast was included in our room rate. The refund was quick and efficient.
PS 3: loading up the image of the Huntsman above, I wondered what sort of a fist the Google AI machine - the one that plays chess, go (a Japanese board game) and does protein folding - would make of taking out the clutter. The people, the blue van and so on.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/wellingtonia-100.html.
Reference 2: https://thehuntsmanofbrockenhurst.com/.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/sub-tropical-gardens.html. Chicken pie No.1.
Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=clair+wine.
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