John Wofgang Goethe

Herman Melville

The original Short S27 was equipped with a Gnome rotary engine. This replica in the Fleet Air Arm Museum is fitted with a similar Gnome Le Rhone engine and representative propeller to illustrate the appearance of the aircraft in service.*

Early aircraft wings were usually covered with a fabric such as linen. This fabric was painted with a special paint called dope to seal the fabric. If you added too many layers of dope the aircraft would be to heavy to take off!

Both sides in WW1 developed incendiary bullets that would set fire to fabric covered wings. As engines tended to leak oil and fuel and the wings are very flammable this could leave you in the hot seat if you were hit. *

Dashboard & Wicker Seat, Westgate Seaplane Station

These items came from unknown World War 1 aircraft based at the Seaplane Station in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent.

The dials have been removed, but the engravings can still be seen on the dashboard. Once removed from the aircraft the dashboard appears to have been converted for domestic use. The added sections look to have been made to hold stationery!

Seats in WW1 aircraft were made from light and weatherproof material, It is likely the pilot would have had a cushion to sit on. This would have been made of leather and padded with light material, such as horsehair and fabric.*

*information provided next to the exhibit

• More information on the Short S27 can be found here.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul is situated next to Muchelney Abbey so we took the opportunity to visit after exploring the Abbey. As we entered we were surprised to see a groom with his best man and ushers and noticed that the church was all decked out ready for a wedding. They were just about to leave so were able to spend a few minutes to enjoying the features of the church without disrupting their preparations.

The Church of St Peter and St Paul in Muchelney, Somerset, England has Saxon origins, however the current building largely dates from the 15th century. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.^[1]

The church, which is adjacent to the site of Muchelney Abbey and close to the River Parrett, has a ceiling enlivened with Jacobean paintings of bare-breasted angels, their nudity thought to symbolize innocent purity.^[1] They were painted in the early 17th century.^[2]

The church also contains a barrel organ built by Gray and Davison and installed around 1835 to 1840. It is the last one known to be still in the church where it was first installed and still in working order.^[3]

There is a three-bay aisled nave and a chancel with a short chapel on either side.^[4]

It has a three-stage Somerset tower, dating from around 1468,^[5] supported by pairs of full-height corner buttresses. The south-east octagonal stair turret leads to an outer door.^[1]

Muchelney Abbey is an English Heritage property in the village of Muchelney in the Somerset Levels, England. The site consists of ruined walls showing the layout of the abbey buildings constructed from the 7th to 16th and the remaining intact Abbott’s House. It is next to the parish church in which some of the fabric of the abbey has been reused.

It comprises the remains and foundations of a medieval Benedictine abbey, the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon abbey, and an early Tudor house dating from the 16th century, formerly the lodgings of the resident Abbot, which is now a Grade I listed building.^[1] The ruins of the abbey have been scheduled as an ancient monument.^[2][3]

The abbey was founded in the 7th or 8th century, damaged by Viking raids and rebuilt and refounded in the 10th century. It owned and managed local land. The buildings were expanded from the 12th to 16th centuries until its dissolution in 1538. Most of the buildings were demolished and the stone used in local buildings, although the Abbot’s House and reredorter survive. Some of the tiles and other decorative features from the monastic church were reused in the adjacent parish Church of St Peter and St Paul. Since 1927 the ruins have been in public ownership.

Charles Darwin

The chapel of St Leonard stands in the outer court. It was built as the parish church by Sir Thomas Hungerford between about 1370 and 1383. The small north chapel (dedicated to St Anne) was added in about 1400 to house his tomb.

It became the castle chapel in the 1440s and was further altered in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 19th century it was used to display the collection of armour and ‘curiosities’ of Colonel John Houlton, then the castle’s owner.

The interior is notable for its many Hungerford family monuments and its wall-paintings. The principal monuments are those of Sir Thomas and his second wife, Lady Joan, with their effigies, which still retain traces of original paintwork and are surrounded by fine later medieval wrought-iron railings; and the lavish 17th-century marble monument to Sir Edward Hungerford III and his wife, Lady Margaret.

Probably between 1658 and 1665, Lady Margaret transformed the north chapel into a shrine for this monument. She added new windows, chequered marble paving, elaborate wrought-iron gates, and an extraordinary scheme of wall- and ceiling paintings, representing a paradise copiously bedecked with Hungerford family heraldry.

The east end of the main chapel displays the remains of earlier wall-paintings, including a nearly life-sized depiction of St George, probably commissioned in the 1440s by Walter, 1st Lord Hungerford.

Begun in the late 14th century, Farleigh Hungerford Castle was for 300 years the home of the Hungerfords, a family that after distinguished beginnings suffered a series of disasters and scandals – some of which took place within the castle walls. A ‘romantic ruin’ since the 1730s, it retains two of its corner towers, parts of its outer courtyard defences and a well-preserved chapel with outstanding 13th-century wall-paintings, family monuments and collection of unusual anthropoid (human-shaped) lead coffins.