A Study in Contrasts

A proper good morning to you
I took another excursion out of town. This time I went by normal rail rather than “tube,” and I have to confess to feeling absurdly powerful touching my Oyster Card in and out rather than bothering with Retro--that’s so Twentieth Century--tickets.
I walked out to the Tottenham Court Road Station to pick up the Northern Line to Waterloo. It was blustery cold and a bit drippy. Never mind that. Waterloo Station used to be the terminus for Eurostar. It is not as interesting as St. Pancras International any more, but if you are in the neighborhood and need a book or a drug store they are open on Sundays.
Syon House, yet another aristocratic mansion, was my destination, but to get there we need to get out of London by train. Now if you have ever left London or Paris by overground transportation you will know of what I speak. The trains run through the most awful areas imaginable, the people having money, status, or power not having to live where trains run right by their windows and people like me can and do peer in.
Unbelievably hideous industrial buildings that would blight the landscape of Mordor squat menacingly beside the tracks. Council tower flats that look like Orc barracks are so depressing even to look at I can’t imagine the misery of actually living in one.
Turned social revolutionary, have we, Pil?
Nuh, uh. I’m getting away from the squalor as soon as I can to wallow in peace and luxury.
I popped out of the train at Syon Lane and had a walk—taking the long way around as usual to Syon Park and House, still home to the Percy Dukes, of Northumberland, and no I can’t claim them as relations due to that pesky extra vowel in my surname. While I doubt his grace and the family are hurting for money, the only way these stately homes can be kept up is by opening them to the public and charging admission. I visited their palace at Alnwick, which is up north in Northumbria, too.
Syon House is so called as an English corruption of Zion because it used to be a convent that was shut down and made royal property when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. James I gave the property to the Percies in the seventeenth century, but the present house is a Robert Adam remodel in a sort of Palladian Style. The exterior gives no hint of this, however.
Inside is all exotic colored marble, inlaid floors, columns, painted and gilt ceilings, and the whole bit. The state rooms are extra ordinarily beautiful, but while they are pleasing and tasteful, they are also so very grand than I can’t imagine anyone actually living in them. In fact since the family was away at one of their numerous other homes, we got to peek into a few of the private rooms and the grandeur was considerably toned down although the rooms featured priceless antiques.
The audio guide is first rate—much better than Osterley’s, and the room guides are friendly and enthusiastic. When I’m abroad I feel like I am representing the United States as a guest in these countries, so I submit to being told some things I already know and sometimes have to bear historical inaccuracies. They aren’t lying but reciting traditions associated with the places. These guides were eager for me to experience all the things they loved about their rooms, and in fact pointed out some things to me that I would have overlooked.
And then the gardens and grounds are green and lush. No fear of getting lost here, so I took every branching path and had splendid and refreshing strolls in woodland and beside the lake. The gardens were full of color and fragrance. Even the woodlands had a sort of minty, liquorish smell, but I could not figure out what plant was emitting it. I walked, and looked, and absorbed the loveliness of the place. You can keep the interiors of these stately homes. It’s the parks I covet.
But then it was time to return to reality and go back through the nasty ugliness of London’s periphery.
Cherrio.