Hinton Ampner

Having expected heavy rain, but having got autumn sunshine, we headed out to the National Trust property at Hinton Ampner on Sunday afternoon. It's a 40 minute drive from Southampton through some glorious rolling downland, and the house is set in some fine terraced gardens and parkland, so it's ideal for a not-too-strenuous Sunday walkabout.

It is a damned strange place, however. Serially destroyed and rebuilt, from a notoriously haunted Tudor mansion through various Georgian and Victorian versions, it finally had a major fire in 1960, and was restored in a faux-Georgian style by its last owner, who died unmarried without an heir, and left the property to the National Trust.

We'd never actually been inside before and, unlike the grounds and gardens, it turned out to be a fairly unrewarding experience. That terminal owner, Ralph Dutton, 8th and last Baron Sherborne, was a keen gardener and did a great job on the terraced garden and landscaping, but filled the house with a collection of that awful, gilded bric-a-brac so beloved of the landed gentry. Some of the worst paintings I've ever seen hang on the walls, and it has the drab atmosphere that reminds you of English cooking before the momentous discovery that vegetables are not inherently poisonous.

As always, however, there is enough entertainment value in the random grotesquerie to keep me occupied, and I came away with some useful potential material for photo-collage purposes. I particularly liked this Britannia, with one hand on the globe and the other grappling a sturdy book away from a cherub; even when you have a global Empire, childcare is a problem. But, wait, look at the one on the left: is he scalping some woman? Never mind the book, Britannia, really bad stuff is happening behind your back! I imagine the thing is probably some kind of parable about distracting Parliamentary oversight of the excesses of MI6 and the military. Perfect for any aristocratic mantelpiece.

Caged and dangerous vegetables