Stourhead

The search for the perfect cream tea continues with a visit to Stourhead, the wonderful Italianate house and gardens built and laid out by the Hoare family, 18th Century Bankers, who at least had some good taste, unlike today's moneymen. I was travelling on a number 15 Bus the other month down the Strand when I saw the present day Hoares headquarters, so they still seem to be going strong. The gardens at Stourhead are a treasure, like walking around in a painting by Claude Lorrain. The restaurant at the top by the car park is always slightly disappointing. Lukewarm food, dry cakes, measly portions, offhand staff. But we keep going back there. Today I had a roast beef dinner with a couple of newspaper thin slices of roast beef in a tomatoey sauce (which didn't feel right) and a yorkshire pudding that felt as though it had been pumped up with a bicycle pump. My wife has a vegetable crumble, which she said was too acid, and consisted mainly of some chopped onion and a can of chopped tomatoes (probably Asda Smart Price). My daughter had a cream tea. This one failed on the scone. These had been baked and had collapsed in the baking so that the top had toppled over and it looked like a squashed butterfly. It was impossible to know how to slice it, and when we did, the thing crumbled to pieces anyway, and was also rather dry. And there was not quite enough cream to cover the two scones and their many fragments.