SDC SW Tour - Sunday 6th June

Three counties in three hours!

After a glorious sunny week it was mildy irritating that heavy rain bearing clouds hung over the entrance to Sherborne Castle for the 10.15am start of the SDC South West tour. However it didnt prevent the 11 entrants and their 6 cars all arriving in excellent time for us to set off through mellow yellow stoned walls of Sherborne’s streets and out onto swooping B roads through Dorset’s superb countryside and on up to Somerset’s historic small towns of Castle Cary and Bruton( now the trendiest place in the county!). Onwards towards Frome( birthplace  of Jenson Button)our perfectly sized convoy progressed with Nigel Edwards(the organiser with his navigator Shine) leading in his leaf green Austin Healey Frogeye followed by the superb red Jaguar XK150 drophead of David and Penny Kempton,the gorgeous British Racing Green Healey 3000 of Bill and Sue Dornan, the rare BMW 635 CSi manual of Doug Thring, the substitute Saab( for their 1934 Alvis Speed 20 )of Jonty and Rose Hollinshead and the regal and stunning 1933 Rolls Royce 20/25 Sedanca of Miles and Jane Preston bringing up the rear!
We then headed south through Maiden Bradley and Kingston Deverill and up across spectacular Mere Down, Wiltshire scenery at its best, and to our lunch stop in Mere. Fully replete we headed to one of The National Trust’s greatest gardens at Stourhead where we walked off the lunch amongst the stunning rhododendrons and magnificent trees.
And to cap it all Miles had arranged for his friends whose family had owned Stourhead to give us a splendid tea and tour of their garden, outdoor small scale steam train and storage facility for their quality classic cars and clients’ cars. What an ending! What a happy way to meet up and at the same time exercise our classics! And the rain kept away!