Visit to Coombe Abbey Country Park and a quick writing update

Posted in Travel and days out, Writing by

Coombe Abbey hotel and Coombe Abbey Country Park near Coventry 3

If you follow my ramblings, you’ll know I recently sent the first 3 chapters of my book, Art and Soul, to an editor. His feedback lead to me deciding to cut chapters 1 and 2 and do a whole other bunch of edits (more about all this here).

I retreated to the writing cave and the edits are done! I sent the “new” first three chapters to the literary agent who had asked to see them (*biting nails until I hear back*). I also sent the whole manuscript to the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer’s Scheme (*biting stubs of nails until I hear back*).

Hopefully the agent will want to see the rest of the MS and I’ll get positive feedback from my RNA reader.

In the meantime, after stepping out from the writing cave and blinking in the sunlight… We went to visit Coombe Abbey and Coombe Country Park, which are near Coventry and a short drive from us.

Coombe Abbey hotel and Coombe Country Park near Coventry 1

The first abbey buildings on the site date back to the twelfth century. The buildings today are a mis-mash of various additions and renovations from the last four centuries. I particularly like the Gothic additions of the mid-nineteenth century… from certain angles the house made me think of Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre.

Coombe Abbey hotel and Coombe Country Park near Coventry 2

The “abbey” buildings are now a rather nice hotel. Their website has more information on the history of the building (as well as drool-inducing pictures of their gorgeous suites with 4-poster beds and the like *sigh*).

Thankfully, for those of us who don’t have the money to be staying in such luxurious accommodation, the 500 acres around the abbey – much of which were designed by “Capability” Brown – are owned and maintained by Coventry City Council and are open to the public.

It’s free to wander around, but you have to pay for the car park. Things to do include feeding the many ducks, geese and swans. The organised bring their own bread, but you can also buy feed in the Visitors’ Centre shop.

Coombe Abbey hotel and Coombe Country Park near Coventry feed the ducks, geese and swans

The Country Park Visitors’ Centre also has a nice café and a large children’s play area next to it. Unfortunately, my son fell asleep in the buggy on our way round the park so missed this part of the experience!

Coombe Abbey hotel and Coombe Country Park near Coventry 4

As you can see in the above picture, the snowdrops were coming out in the woodland. The three trails around the park are clearly marked so you can’t get lost! All the trails are easy to get round on foot with a buggy. Dogs are welcome and there were lots of people walking their pets when we were there.

Coombe Abbey hotel and Coombe Country Park near Coventry park land trees and wildlife

There is also a bird hide so you can appreciate the heronry (who knew that was even a thing?!) and conservation area without disturbing the wildlife. Here’s a view from the hide (bird watchers’ paradise!):

Coombe Abbey hotel and Coombe Country Park near Coventry bird watching bird hide heronry

More information on how to get to Coombe Abbey, car park prices and what else there is to see and do can be found on the Coombe Country Park website.

And now it’s back to the writing cave… More news when I have it!

Claire Huston / Art and Soul

25 thoughts on “Visit to Coombe Abbey Country Park and a quick writing update”

  3. Hi Claire, the photos are wonderful. I spent a few weeks in England years ago and it is such a wonderful place so full of history. Good luck with your manuscript and I have fingers crossed you’ll get a positive reply. :o0

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • It’s a lovely place. One day I hope to stay at the hotel as a treat 🙂
      Thank you! It is exciting but also slightly strange because now I’m in a weird limbo where I’m not sure what to do with myself! Normally I’d be sending out another raft of submissions to agents (6 or 7 at a time), but now the whole book is with the RNA Reader, I’m waiting to hear what they say first… and the other agent of course. Fingers crossed I don’t have to wait too long to hear something back.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  11. Good luck with your manuscript, Claire!!
    These photos are so lovely! Makes me very much wish I was in England right now taking a turn about the grounds of a grand house like this instead of in a chain coffee shop in suburbia U.S.A. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s