We elect
to go by the train and bus route. One books both at the same time and it’s
a around trip ticket . There is just over three hours at Althorp before your
return bus takes off. I felt that would not be enough, but it would have to
do.The train leaves from London , Euston station. Tickets sold over the phone will be waiting for you at windows one though four. Once your train is announced, go to the platform and ask a trainmen where you are to sit. UK trains are in a period of adjustment from public to private and it is confusing even for the natives.
Soon after leaving the station, one swiftly moves though the English country side. We get off at Milton Keyes and look for a bus. There’s one. We approach the driver and say “is this......??” “Yes” he says with a little smile. He has seen this breathless excitement all summer.
He now asks to see our silver Althorp tickets and once these are flashed, we step in and relax. Finding Althorp isn’t a snap. There appears to be no signs until we are quite close. I could easily see spending one’s time slot getting lost in the suburbs of Northampton . We are glad to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Everyone seems in the same state as ourselves, taunt with excitement and slight disbelief. We are finally getting to Althorp. Everyone with tickets had to run a phone gauntlet months ago in order to be here . Now it is happening.
There is some chatting as we go along.The driver must have done this countless times. Yet with a gentleness that fitted our mood exactly , he points out Althorp’s stone border wall. All talking ceases. Then he tells us we will be entering Althorp by the gate used on September 6th by the funeral cortege.
I can’t speak for the others , but I gulp as we go though. I ‘m aware we are seeing the same sights Diana saw whenever she visited Althorp and the same sights that greeted her cortege’s driver on the day of the funeral. Rolling landscape and grazing sheep. Althorp.
Today there isn’t a cloud in the sky. This intense brightness adds a dream like quality. The house isn’t seen right away and the anticipation is palpable. The drive is climbing because Althorp sits at the bottom of large basin of land. So the first moment you see it, it appears below you, framed like an exquisite 18th century landscape painting.
Your sense of size goes though an instant revision. Hundreds of people mill about , but there is so much space to Althorp, I almost never feel crowed.
But I do feel pressed for time, so I go immediately to the gift shop to get my gift buying out of the way. Like just about everyone, I am buying for a long list of friends who couldn’t come themselves. Naturally this creates a sense of urgency, as does the line for the cafeteria. They are busy places
But the 9th Earl Spencer and his planners were clever . All the gift buying and eating is enclosed within the stable block walls. This leaves the house and particularly the Round Oval, very peaceful, given the number of people about.
One can readily reflect . And after all , that is what we have come to do.
The importance of the horse to English country life is clearly demonstrated by the size of the stable block and how close it is to the Main House. We have to smile. It’s mustard colored walls seem as big as the house itself and many have stated it is indeed the finest building on the estate.
At the gift shop, one is handed a catalog. Each item is pictured and with a number. You tell the clerk a number and they give you your purchase. A sensible system. Each item is in a beautiful aqua box and expertly wrapped in purple tissue . Believe me you could not do a better job .If the item is indeed a gift, don’t open it up to look. You’ll never duplicate the exquisite folds and you won’t want the recipient to miss the pleasure they give.
I have to say here that the staff at Althorp generally impress me very much. They are plentiful, kind and effective. They gear themselves to the visitors remarkably well.
When one chats , they chat , when a visitor is somber, they are gentle. They answer questions they must have heard a hundred times without hinting this is the case.
The stable block also houses the exhibits devoted to the various aspects of Diana’s life. Here one would feel penned in by the crush, if one wasn’t so absorbed. Actually I feel the childhood films alone is worth the trip. Here are the same gestures and expressions in the one year old that were found in the world figure .
It’s astonishing to view images of this prancing, merry little soul and think of her future destiny.We hear so much of Diana’s sadness . But I wonder if this merry stance, also basic to her personality, was what helped her to pick herself up and go on ,over and over. Diana couldn’t keep from giggling for long , as long as she lived. Even here while visiting her memorial, when she smiles and laughs, you can’t help but smile
back.
I have choices to make at Althorp.The crush around the wedding dress is such, that I soon give up any hope of getting near it. Unlike many, perhaps most drawn to Diana, the wedding doesn’t interest me over much. And there is much else to see.
The next room illustrates Diana’s charity work. Here among like minded people, there is an unmistakable feeling of reverence. We see Diana hugging, touching, reaching out to the sick, the unloved and the unlovely. We are hungry for theses images and reminded why we came. We love her and that inexplicable something that happened when Diana , Princess of Wales walked into a sick ward, a crowd or a mine field.
A few moments of video and Diana’s magic is brought to the fore. Most of my fellow visitors are lost in thought at this point. I ‘m also shocked to realize again that this incredible woman is gone.
The last room is a large hall of Diana’s dresses. So many of the recent garments are here from the very busy last year of Diana’s life. There are photos of her wearing the out fits. Still without her, you wonder, “Can it be the same dress?”
Whenever I see a dress of Diana’s, I ‘m reminded of what Bill Blass said to her when she asked him his opinion of the dresses at the Christie’s auction. Blass paused and said, “It’s amazing what you brought to them” .
Her presence still lingers among the garments. It’s odd to be in such close proximity to something Diana wore and one has seen often in photographs. They are here and she is not.
These dresses will never move again. Yet Diana, always moving, was never still while wearing them. The clash of these contrasts plays havoc with already worked up emotions.
But the kicker is a large screen displaying footage of Diana. The longest shot is of her and her boys on the water ride at a amusement park. Diana is shaking with laughter, howling with laughter. Mercifully however, the tape is mute. The contrast of actually hearing her roar while viewing the lifeless mannequins would be hard to bear.
It was time to go to the Round Oval.
However to get to the Oval, one must go though the house.This was the only time I feel cramped by so many of my fellow pilgrims . A generous amount of the house is open to the public. However the roped off aisle though the rooms is slim.
Also the crowd consists of two groups. Some wish to see the house and the Oval , others want to go directly to the Oval. I belong to the later. It ‘s an uncomfortable mix. Indeed, the couple ahead of me want so much information about some furniture, I wonder if they are looking to buy it !
With all the fabulous pictures at Althorp, and many are spectacular, what my husband enjoys the most in the house is the pile of well used board games in a corner of the main drawing room. It reminds one Althorp is foremost a home.
I press ahead and when I come out of the house, I look back to see how far behind my husband is. In doing so , I see the walls Diana once danced and pirouetted upon. Anyone who has gone to the trouble of coming to Althorp will have seen the photos of Diana in a large hat and ballet shoes dancing on the walls of Althorp. Here are those walls and they seem to be waiting for her return.
From the house one walks along a gravel path. The Oval is closer to the house than you may imagine. Suddenly, the island’s urn appears in a straight line in front of you. You are there.
The peace of the Round Oval is extraordinary. There are a good number of people
around one. But it is as if everyone’s emotions is actually adding to the spot’s peace and tranquilly. The site’s simple beauty, particularly on this fine day , quiets one’s heart as perhaps nothing else could.
The classical urn is a needed focal point for what is simply a mass of trees . I find I can’t take my eyes off it as I circle the lake. Breezes ripple the water and it is so shallow, one could wade across to the island. I am constantly confounded by the realization, here is Diana’s final resting place, her grave. Even at this moment, it doesn’t seem possible.
As for sound, there is the wind though the large trees and birds singing with an occasional British voice murmuring and some quite tears. For all the talk of Althorp being just a draw for tourists, I have been continually surrounded and comforted by an undercurrent of English voices. Diana is a figure of world status, but her early death was a tragedy within the British family.
Of course there is a place to leave flowers. It’s a temple, the kind called a garden folly. Really just a portico, it has a silhouette of Diana and quotes from her and Earl Spencer’s funeral oration. Underneath these plaques , the Althorp staff places todays flowers. The seasons worth stretch out from either side of the temple in a long
line.
Facing the island , we sit on squared off logs made into benches, drinking in the site. Then, much too soon, it is time for our bus.
Anne Lloyd copyright 1998