Our pick-up points were outside the Temple Bar (at 8.40am), Mark's and the Memorial Hall (with its large car park). We left Ewyas Harold just before 9am. Our general rule is to have no more than about 2 hours between stops. On this holiday the evening traffic often slowed us down a bit but we had no major problems. We had 2 stops on the way from Ewyas Harold to Eastbourne: a comfort break at Membury Service Station and then a visit to Petworth House.

We stayed at The Hydro Hotel, Mount Road, Eastbourne BN20 7HZ, in the south-west corner of Eastbourne, a short walk up from the beach. [Web site here.] Our stay was half-board so breakfasts (with a significant range of choices covering continental and English styles) and 3-course dinners (with 4 quality choices for each course followed by tea/coffee) were included in the price. All meals were served by an excellent staff. Indeed, the general level of service supported the generally-held view that it was the best hotel we had stayed at for several years.

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Reference	Description
E18M1A	Our journey went from Ewyas Harold (A) via Membury Services on the M4 (B) and Petworth (D) to The Hydro Hotel in Eastbourne (E). The route for the last leg of the journey chosen by Roger, the coach driver, went via Bracknell (C). In total, the journey was about 230 miles and took something like 6 hours, the legs being roughly 2, 1¾ & 2¼ hours.
E18M1B	Some information on Petworth House is given on page 2.2 in the Information Pack.We had only about 3 hours there, to cover lunch as well as a look around the House and its gardens & parks. Particularly if you like to look at fine art, for the house contains one of the finest art collections in the country, that was barely enough time to get a taste of what it has to offer.
E18M1C	Still to come: more information on Petworth House with some further photos.
E18M1D	Petworth is justly famous for its collection of works by Turner, Gainsborough, Titian, Holbein, van Dyck, Reynolds and others. However, the writer was staggered to find himself passing 2 works by William Blake (1757-1827) that were so discreetly positioned as to be virtually hidden away: 'Satan calling up his legions' and 'A Vision of the Last Judgement'. They had been the stars of an exhibition at Petworth earlier in the year, and there are apparently plans for that to be repeated in 2019, but it was amazing how 2 paintings that would be given pride of place in many galleries around the world were so casually placed in Petworth.
E18M1E	The Blake works were at Petworth because one of the artist's patrons had been the famous Elizabeth Ilive (1769-1822), for many years the mistress and eventually the wife of the 3rd Earl of Egremont, a notorious philanderer and art collector. She was Petworth's representative for the series of exhibitions being run by the National Trust in 2018 on women who had played a part in or otherwise inspired the struggle for women’s suffrage. It was not her role as the mistress of Petworth that had won her that honour but her actions as a scientist, inventor & innovator.

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