River of Light

This year's Christmas display in the old barn at Buckland Abbey is entitled River of Light. Still photograpghy can not really capture this spectacle. Here fish swim silently across the ancient stone walls. 
Inside the abbey, I was interested to see the paintings again. These include a Rembrandt self-portrait in which a shadow falls falls across the eyes, that appear as little more than black dashes of paint, and yet it is still an amazingly, stunning portrait. 
Looking at some of the other paintings that depict England's seafaring heritage, and standing in a room that is little changed since Drake lived here, it felt as though I had stepped back into the Elizabethan period and the ghosts of the past were still present.