| "There
is no doubt about it. Constable country has the most
arresting views in the land. The epitome of
Englishness. Everything we hold dear - oak trees and
rippling rivers, mills and water meadows - and
everything as it was when painted by that most
English of artists....
The road
slides down between steep banks until it nears the
River Stour. One quick turn and Flatford Mill comes
into view, a scene where time stands still. The
mill's pond waters gently splash over the weir in a
wide basin where swans float amid partying ducks and
coots. There's the cottage of Willy Lott, as it was
in 1817 when it was immortalised by Constable in The
Haywain, one of the most famed of all English
landscape paintings.
Mill and
cottage are both owned by the National Trust but
neither is open to the trampling feet of the public.
What you can do to soak up the atmosphere is have a
cuppa at the tearoom, then join a guided walk of the
sites of the great paintings. Or, in summer, hire a
rowing boat and go messing about on the river. The
sound of gently splashing oars is part of an ageless
scene.
On one side is
a little wooden footbridge leading to a riverside
path draped with willows that runs down to Dedham
Mill (once owned, along with Flatford Mill, by
Constable's father) and its own charming millpond.
Nearby Dedham
has the mighty tower of St Mary's Church that rises
imperiously in many of Constable's paintings. Then
there's Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, whose St James's
Church features in the artist's altarpiece of Christ
blessing the bread and wine."
Sunday
Telegraph
Deborah Stone and Nick Dalton
(Filed: 24/04/2004)
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