The Plan
A Kingston
Lacy walk
Who Turned Up
Beatrice,
Trisha, Wendy, Trudy B, Jackie, David
The Walk
The air
was chilly (well, what can you expect in November?) but the sky was blessed
with wall-to-wall sunshine. We met at the Kingston Lacy car park and spent the
morning on a pleasant ramble around the estate. The autumn colours made the scene quite spectacular. Our walk took us past the
Japanese garden and the Philae obelisk. This is one of two obelisks discovered
in Egypt in 1815. William John Bankes had one of them transported to Kingston
Lacy in the 1820s. It took nine years to get the 6.5 tonne monument from Egypt
to England, with the help of the Duke of Wellington. Bankes noted two
inscriptions on his obelisk, one in hieroglyphs and the other in ancient Greek.
By comparing the texts, Bankes thought he recognised the names Ptolemy and
Cleopatra. As a consequence, the obelisk was valuable in the eventual deciphering
of hieroglyphs. The inscriptions record a petition by Egyptian priests at
Philea and the responses by Ptolemy and Cleopatra. The Kingston Lacy obelisk is
now a grade 2 listed building.
We had
our lunch in the Kingston Lacy café and then had a shorter afternoon walk. A
very pleasant day out. As usual, our thanks go to Trudy for the photographs.
Next Week
Meet at
David’s at 10am for a Blashford Lakes walk.
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