That was my birthday ,I had reached arghhhh the grand old age of 40 years old . That was before I had a grey hair ,wrinkles and didn't have to wear my glasses perched on my head, as if I dont I forget where they are. That was nearly 24 years ago
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I was having a party on the Sunday which was the actual day. Jack had asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I am not high maintenance but I am very much a sentimentalist , much to his relief.
We had ridden the horses many times up past the Observatory but he was always in too much of a rush or more to the point the horses were too fit to have dallied . My Dad and uncles had taken me up when I was small and we had picked primroses on the way back. But really as near as it was I hadn't gone up for ages. So yes that was what I wanted for my birthday to go up to the Observatory. It was a lovely balmy Summer's night.Even though it would have been around midnight it never gets really dark here at that time of year.
So Saturday night Jack took me up after we had been at the pub. His Landrover could go anywhere so he said so we would take a short cut.. I thought I wasn't going to reach my 40th but hey ho we and the vehicle all lived to see another day. I hadn't envisaged going backwards seeing trees flash past me through Landrover window . I thought hey ho we will have to walk down to the farm to get a tractor to pull us out but luckily we didn't have to .The Landrover made her way steady out with a few shunts and spins .
Here is a piece about the Observatory you may like to read and if you come in the future after the restrictions are lifted it makes for a nice walk from our house.. You never know we might get up there this year when it is my birthday and find the Champagne bottle we forgot to bring home.
The tower was built at Snever Point, the highest spot on the Oldstead estate. Work was underway in October 1837, and there was great excitement locally when a human skeleton was discovered as the foundations were being dug. The observatory was complete by the following summer when Wormald threw a party to celebrate the coronation of Queen Victoria on 28 June 1838. All of the village was invited; loyal toasts were drunk, a band played and a royal salute of 21 guns was fired from the terrace of the tower. ‘No one has shown more loyalty to their Queen and Sovereign, than Mr Wormald … and the inhabitants of the village’ wrote the local paper.
There’s a second inscribed stone on the south elevation which contains several lines of poetry adapted from ‘Windsor Forest’ by Alexander Pope:
Here hills and waving groves a scene display
And part admit and part exclude the day
See rich industry smiling on the plains
And peace and plenty tell VICTORIA reigns!
Happy the MAN who to these shades retires
Whom NATURE charms and whom the muse inspires
Who wandering thoughtful in this silent wood
Attends the duties of the wise and good
To observe a mean, be to himself a friend
To follow NATURE and regard his end.
And part admit and part exclude the day
See rich industry smiling on the plains
And peace and plenty tell VICTORIA reigns!
Happy the MAN who to these shades retires
Whom NATURE charms and whom the muse inspires
Who wandering thoughtful in this silent wood
Attends the duties of the wise and good
To observe a mean, be to himself a friend
To follow NATURE and regard his end.
