Ok, so anyone familiar with Pride and Prejudice knows that Rosings is not a real place, it is the home and seat of the meddling aunt of Mr. Darcy, Lady Catherine De Bourgh.

In the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice there is an iconic scene where Darcy catches Elizabeth in a beautiful Greek gazebo in the rain and professes his ardent love for her.

Is everyone with me? If not, pause here and immediately watch the movie.

For those still with me, that gazebo is called the Temple of Apollo, and it’s in an absolutely stunning garden that is part of the estates at Stourhead.

Stourhead is in Wiltshire, and the grounds include a lovely man made lake with walking paths around it that are dotted with picturesque cottages and Greek style structures. It also includes a manor house with an incredible collection of Italian art, and a couple of lovely walled gardens.

But I was mainly there to see the temple of Apollo.

First things first, though, we got to Stourhead just in time for lunch, and as it was Sunday we noticed that the pub on site (unironically called The Spread Eagle Inn) served a traditional Sunday roast on Sundays.

We sat down and ordered drinks, then ordered our roast. A kerfuffle insured where the server didn’t realize it was Sunday and tried to tell us the roast wasn’t available, we briefly questioned our sanity, and thankfully we’re able to confirm with our phones that it was, in fact, Sunday.

The server then informed us that they shouldn’t have served my friend wine, as she was given her wine at 11:45am and they aren’t technically allowed to serve it until after 12pm on Sundays.

Because anytime is wine o’clock every other day of the week, but not on Sunday.

Anyway, in the end I got my roast.

Now that our bellies were full it was time to do some walking. The grounds are fairly extensive, with a few different paths you can take. The main one around the lake is a mile and a half and accessible for all mobility levels (this property is part of the national trust which means people can get yearly passes to enter it and other beautiful estates for free; it also means it is kept up and accessible). To get to the Temple of Apollo, you take a slightly longer path that is still easy and well worth it.

Here’s where you enter the grounds;

Isn’t it lovely? We noticed here, as in all of the other grounds and gardens we have visited on this trip that there were very few flowers. We were told that June was unseasonably hot this year, so everything was already past peak bloom, which is unusual. One gardener mentioned they are telling people to come earlier in the season to see the flowers the past few years, and that they suspect this is a new normal.

The grounds were still beautiful even just with the green foliage though.

And here is the temple of Apollo

In the scene in the movie it’s stormy and very moody, and while we got some light sprinkles, the weather was actually pretty beautiful while we were there.

Now, it’s important to note that while I was there, I did not see Mr. Darcy chasing independently minded young women around insulting them and asking them to marry him, and I didn’t even see my own Mr. Darcy (Jimmy) chasing me around trying to get me to stop waxing poetic about the temple and stop taking pictures.

Which meant that I took A LOT of pictures.

To be fair, even if that scene isn’t forever burned into your brain, Stourhead is beautiful and well worth a visit if you’re spending time in the English countryside.

Here are some more pictures of the grounds:

Graceful as a statue. Nailed it

Due to it being a national trust site, it was mainly parents with small children who enjoy running around the grounds and retirees with lots of time to spend enjoying the day. All of the manors and gardens we went to, my friend and I were a bit of an anomaly. I’ve been joking we are doing the old lady tour of England, and it’s been extremely accurate.

The gardens at Stourhead did have some flowers to enjoy:

The house was lovely with some very nice artwork, however it was noticeably less grand than either Blenheim or Chatsworth, and one of the room guides mentioned what we were seeing was the difference between old, titled estates, and newer estates created from money made in trade. Because there’s even a class system in the very rich vs the very wealthy.

That last cabinet was the centerpiece of the collection. It’s a rare cabinet owned by a pope with hidden compartments. It’s all a blur now, but the room guide was very excited about it.

At that point it was time for a 3hr drive to Eastbourne on the South coast.

But first one more flower pic. There were beautiful hydrangeas

Everything in England looks so close on a map, but it’s going to take you twice as long as you think to get anywhere because the roads are all tiny and windy.

When we pulled into Eastbourne we were a little… surprised? After London, Bath, and the grand estates we’d been visiting, Eastbourne appeared to be more of working town with run down buildings and not a lot of street charm.

We pulled into our Airbnb wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into. Our host recommended a Turkish place down the road, so we wandered down and grabbed a bite to eat. It was delicious, and we got the impression there is a large Turkish population as there was a lot of specialty shops and a really great Turkish grocery store.

Here’s our yummy dinner:

As we walked around a bit we noticed that our Airbnb is in the more local side of town, and a few blocks down you hit a very touristy area, which was more what I was expecting.

Overall by the end of the evening we were feeling like you can’t always judge a place on first site, and Eastbourne seems like quiet and friendly coastal town.

With that, it’s bedtime as we have a big day exploring some coastal sites tomorrow

Goodnight.