![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This is where we've been over the past couple of days.
The Hayes Christian Conference Centre, near Alfreton, Derbyshire.
Looks like a Victorian asylum....
But actually it's a Victorian country house- built by and for the man responsibe for London's St Pancras Station. Inside whatever character it may once have had has been exorcised by the application of gallons and gallons of magnolia paint. The Christians bought it in 1910 and visitors down the years have included T.S. Eliot, John Betjeman, C.S. Lewis and numerous German POWs. One of the POWs was Franz von Werra, the great escaper- the only Axis prisoner to get away from his captors and make it back to Germany. Von Werra was persistent in his escape attempts- the one from the Hayes involving him tunneling out below the wire, impersonating a Dutch bomber pilot, getting himself taken to a airfield by his dupes and very nearly managing to steal a Hurricane. When he finally got away it was friom Canada where he'd been dispatched to make escape so very much more difficult. There's a movie about him starring Hardy Kruger called The One That Got Away.
Our room wasn't in the main house but in the labyrinth of characterless mid 20th century buildings round the back. The place can house some 400 people- and we Quakers were doing our thing alongside a community choir from Birmingham, a gathering of Albinos and a noisy bunch of Catholic menfolk. The food was good, the staff were friendly, the service was efficient, but we agreed that the venue wasn't really our style. Still Ailz and jacky thought their course was excellent and I got to wander about, visit an historic village, complete a couple more screens of the game I play on my phone and read most of a chapter of Alan Watts' The Way of Zen.....
The Hayes Christian Conference Centre, near Alfreton, Derbyshire.
Looks like a Victorian asylum....
But actually it's a Victorian country house- built by and for the man responsibe for London's St Pancras Station. Inside whatever character it may once have had has been exorcised by the application of gallons and gallons of magnolia paint. The Christians bought it in 1910 and visitors down the years have included T.S. Eliot, John Betjeman, C.S. Lewis and numerous German POWs. One of the POWs was Franz von Werra, the great escaper- the only Axis prisoner to get away from his captors and make it back to Germany. Von Werra was persistent in his escape attempts- the one from the Hayes involving him tunneling out below the wire, impersonating a Dutch bomber pilot, getting himself taken to a airfield by his dupes and very nearly managing to steal a Hurricane. When he finally got away it was friom Canada where he'd been dispatched to make escape so very much more difficult. There's a movie about him starring Hardy Kruger called The One That Got Away.
Our room wasn't in the main house but in the labyrinth of characterless mid 20th century buildings round the back. The place can house some 400 people- and we Quakers were doing our thing alongside a community choir from Birmingham, a gathering of Albinos and a noisy bunch of Catholic menfolk. The food was good, the staff were friendly, the service was efficient, but we agreed that the venue wasn't really our style. Still Ailz and jacky thought their course was excellent and I got to wander about, visit an historic village, complete a couple more screens of the game I play on my phone and read most of a chapter of Alan Watts' The Way of Zen.....
