Our Blog - August 2025 - England trip - Week1

We got to the Le Shuttle pet check-in and, this year, everything went perfect (last year we had a little problem that got worked out with some additional paperwork). From there we did the automated check-in gate and it asked if we wanted to take the earlier train for free (answer: Yes, of COURSE!). So we didn't even stop at the terminal, headed straight to border controls (France and UK) and into the line to get on the train.

Since we got to England a little earlier than planned, we could do a tour of the downtown area of Folkestone with lunch at the oldest pub in Folkestone (c. 1460). Then a tour of the village of Hythe before checking into our holiday home for the week that you saw in the main blog page.

The town is called St Leonards-on-Sea (or just St Leonards) and it is a borough (I take that to mean suburb) of Hastings. Our first full day, we headed to the seaside resort of Hastings (one of the medieval Cinque Ports).

While England pubs and cafes are very puppy-friendly, most of the castles and historical sites tend to not be. We planned carefully to get in a set of castles in the afternoons while Lucy took her afternoon nap. Our first one was Herstmonceux Castle where we took a guided tour. Mind you ... I wasn't all that impressed and wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

A Sunday break for our first Sunday Carvery or Sunday Roast. You'll see one of these (or more) in each week since we had 4 Sundays in England and I booked 4 different Sunday Roasts. These are somewhat like I remember on Sundays ... a pot roast with potatoes and veggies. It originated (according to Wikipedia) in Yorkshire as a meal to be eaten after Sunday church services. Families would place a cut of meat into the oven as they got ready for church. They would then add in vegetables such as potatoes, turnips, and parsnips before going to church on a Sunday morning. When they returned from the church, everything was cooked and the juices could be used to make a gravy. The "Carvery" part comes from literally a set of restaurants that developed in the 1950's and now it seems that almost every pub has a lunchtime Sunday Roast meal. We had looked at doing one last year but we waited too long to try for a reservation, so this year I booked well in advance! You'll be able to compare all of our Sunday Roasts ... this week, we had turkey and lamb ... you can see the tall Yorkshire pudding (not really pudding, more like bread).

This year, we also decided to buy both the National Trust Explorer Pass and an English Heritage Overseas Visitors Pass, so we did a LOT of historical sites. Some of them were walks for Lucy while others were houses or castles. The first 2 National Trust properties were Bodiam Castle, a 14th-century moated castle and Bateman's, the former home of Rudyard Kipling, author of the Jungle Book. For both of these properties, dogs were welcome in the gardens but not inside the building itself. So we took turns with 1 person checking out the building and the other keeping Lucy in the park.

One of the more impressive views during this first week were the chalk cliffs near Eastbourne. I did a single blog for Birling Gap, the Seven Sisters, and the town of Eastbourne since there weren't that many pictures altogether.

In 2023, we went to Bayeux, France and visited the Bayeux Tapestry Museum. The 11th-century tapestry was embroidered with scenes depicting the the end of the reign of King Edward the Confessor of England in 1064, through the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the crowning of William, Duke of Normandy, as King of England. This year, we went to the town of Battle, which is actually where the Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066. We spent the morning going through the English Heritage site with the Gatehouse, a walk through the battlefield, and the ruins of the Abbey.

I mentioned that we had planned a Sunday Roast each of the 4 Sundays in England. We also sampled LOTS of cider and local beer. In most cases, we would pick something that was on-tap at one of our local pubs, specifically focusing on local breweries when possible. Orchard Thieves cider is not very local, but it was on tap. I really like how each beer or cider comes in its own distinctive glass.

The ruins of the Bayham Old Abbey are sitting out in the countryside next to a large manor house. Interesting story here ... the Abbey was in ruins when the land was sold and someone decided that they would build the mansion overlooking the ruins, since that was an interesting view to look at in the morning.

An interesting statue in the town of St Leonards is a Bronze standing figure of Queen Victoria that was unveiled in 1903. There is a bullet hole caused by a stray bullet from an enemy aircraft in 1942. I've circled it in one of the pictures and then a close-up of the bullet hole.

Another castle to visit, this one called Scotney Castle. There are actually 2 castles here: the "Old" medieval castle (you can see from the outside only) and the "New" Castle, which is a manor house built between 1835 and 1843 (we could go inside here).

Portrait Benches are life-sized steel sculptures celebrating local heroes across the UK. There were 2 sculptures at our beach, celebrating Ann Novotny and Jimi Riddle. Ann Novotny seems to be a local person who volunteers doing a lot of different things in the local community. James Robert Read, known as Jimi Riddle, was lead singer and frontman of a local metal band called The Riddles.

I mentioned the visit to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the visit to the battlefield. When William, Duke of Normandy, landed in England and made his way to the battle, he landed 10 miles away at Pevensey Bay. They camped inside an old Roman site, which is now called Pevensey Castle.

The beach at St. Leonards was a fairly short walk and so we tried to take Lucy there are few times. We really had to pay close attention to the tide tables, since when it was high tide, there was almost literally no beach. We almost had to be there right at low tide or there wasn't very much sand for Lucy. She was happy going into the water chasing her pink water ring. She would carry it back in 3 different positions ... low, middle, and stuck over her nose.

While most of our beach-times were in the morning, as the morning low-tide got too late, we ended up spending an evening there, with a nice sunset behind her.