It is April next week, and it is snowing in London. No, not just a little bit of sleet, actually settled snow. I'm not impressed. Anyway, yesterday, no little bit of snow and minus degrees were going to stop me from driving off into the Kent countryside for a bit of fresh air and, most importantly, a pub lunch.
We went off to see Ightham Mote, a manor house built nearly seven hundred years ago. Over the years it has seen a few changes but retains its original beauty and charm. Wonky beams, dark wooden staircases, Tudor decoration, a beautiful courtyard and huge fire places to welcome you in mean it wasn't exactly a surprise for me to find that the house had inspired a few novels in its time. A Rose for the Crown, an historical novel set in the late 15th century heavily features this stunning moated manor and Anya Seton's Green Darkness centres around the legend of a walled-up female skeleton at Ightham Mote, a rumour that lingers in the Ightham air today.
The Mote part of the house's name doesn't actually refer to the moat, which I think I can be forgived for assuming. It actually just identifies the house as a meeting place, perhaps a welcome retreat from the busy city.
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