Walking and wealth at Woburn

Walking and wealth at Woburn A rare escape from the keyboard yesterday for a 10-mile totter in Befordshire, much of it on public footpaths around and through the Woburn Abbey estate of the Dukes of Bedford. My leg muscles have awoken from their long slumber, and my vitamin D supply refreshed by the radiation it turns out we need after all. And I got a lesson in managing money.

This week will see the library of Nicholas Battye (now catalogued, labelled and packed, thanks mostly to the work of Nick Sowicz) depart to the care of the Marquess of Northampton pending its installation at Canonbury Tower. I had been impressed by the care taken with the move by the Northamptons, up to rejecting the professional remover’s quote and sending their own retainers in a hired van. Had I all that money, I thought, I shouldn’t spend my time on such savings. Wandering through the Bedfords’ estate brought a new perspective. Had I all that property (and the family imperative to pass it from generation to generation) I should spend a lot of time managing it. Happily, I do not, and I don’t.