A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not - 'V'

V - The Vyne

I first I heard about this 16th century country house at Sherborne St John, near Basingstoke was on a very recent 'Flog It' TV show on the BBC.

The Vyne
(30 June 2015 - By Martinv - CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Vyne was built originally for Henry VIII's Lord Chamberlain.The portico on the north front was added in 1854.

Sir Charles Chute bequeathed it to the National Trust in 1956 and each year it now hosts concerts, plays and family events.

It houses The Vyne Ring or Ring of Silvianus, a gold ring probably dating from the 4th century found in a ploughed field in 1785. The property of the Roman Silvianus, it was stolen by a person named Senicianus.

Decades later, and miles away at Lydney in Gloucestershire, a tablet was found at the Roman site known as Dwarf's Hill. This contains an inscribed curse. Silvianus tells the god Nodens that his ring has been stolen and he knows who by; he wants Nodens to sort him out, "Among those who bear the name of Senicianus to none grant health until he bring back the ring to the temple of Nodens."

In 1929, archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler called in J R R Tolkien to advise on the name of the God. Days later Tolkien apparently  began writing "Lord of the Rings".