When we land, we have to wait for Wee Mo to stop trembling before we can drive along the Wall, towards its eastern end and Matfen Hall, a large hotel that's inexplicably revered by locals.
There are two ways to explain our being underwhelmed by the place. One is that we are a pair of ungrateful shits, who have lost all sense of wonder, and who deserve to be stoned and barred from ever travelling again. The other is that we’ve now done so much travelling that, as uncomfortable as I am with the term, we’ve become experts in knowing what to expect from luxury accommodation.
Whichever way you look at it, our opinion is that Matfen Hall just about deserves the four-star rating it has because of the stunning building and grounds on which its built, but that it will never be five star until they sort out their interiors, the hospital smell around the lobby and the restaurant – especially the restaurant.
On the plus side, there’s an enjoyable 27-hole golf course that stretches out from the manor house. Unluckily for Matfen, I play it shortly after being spoiled rotten on a golf trip (almost certainly won’t be covered by the blog, but may appear as an Actual Story sometime in the future) that took me to Turnberry, Loch Lomond, Gleneagles, St Andrews and Royal Troon. But taking it on its own merits, the place is challenging enough for a hacker like me.
Around 40 minutes’ drive away is the infinitely more impressive Feathers Inn, Britain’s Best Pub and Best Gastro Pub, according to someone or other. To be honest, I’m in no place to argue. The kind owners host us for a lunch that is the best meal we’ve had since we were in Paris six weeks earlier. In between times we stayed at a number of five-star hotels in Scotland and, I’m loathed to admit, none of them came up with a meal as good as this. For my heart’s sake, it’s just as well the chef’s speciality black pudding isn’t more widely available – never before has a mound of fried blood and saturated fat left me so full of vampiric lust.
For people who care about such things, they’ve also got their heads screwed on when it comes to responsible produce. The RSPCA endorse them, and the back of the menu has a map to show where all their ingredients come from. Like all the best restaurants, it’s an admirably small radius. Also, they have holistic approach to butchery, buying entire animals at a time. Want a fillet steak? Better get in there quick, or you’ll be left with hooves and arsehole*.
*Probably not the case
Annoyingly we have to excuse ourselves early and don’t n have time for dessert which would doubtless have been superlative too. We have to go because we have an appointment to see another behemoth on a scale not unlike Hadrian’s Wall.
On the outskirts of Cramlington, there lies Northumberlandia, a soon-to-be-finished mega sculpture of a prone woman. While a degree of fantasy is needed to imagine Hadrian’s Wall as something more than a partial collection of 2,000-year-old bricks, Northumberlandia is in the process of her titanic birth.
Built largely with shite hauled out of the bleak Shotton Surface Mine, it’s an admirable attempt by designer Charles Jencks to turn something ugly into something monumental. Its nearly finished but the opening date will depend on the thus-far calamitous weather improving, the ground settling and the flowers and grass that will cover her immense body coming into bloom. It’s hoped she will be open this year, but 2013 looks more likely, so says the comically joyless PR who shows us around.
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| Stolen from Ordnance Survey |
Because he’s a bawbag mysterious artist, Jencks hasn’t said what she’s pointing to but perhaps coincidentally it’s in the direction of Hadrian’s Wall. The end result is something that looks like the work of an ancient Incan tribe, rather than a contemporary piece – like something that’s been discovered rather than constructed. And, though no one seems as convinced by this line as I am, I can’t get away from the feeling that if somehow history were deleted, or if humanity again fell into an extended period of ignorance and apathy, like the Wall a few miles south Northumberlandia would remain. Then future generations would wonder: why? Why go to some much trouble to build something so huge?