Hampshire to Dartmoor: England II
Aug. 15th, 2006 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakCourtesy of current landlord's computer this time:
Sunday started out with my Aged Parent fulfilling himself a boyhood dream by going to Portsmouth and standing on board the HMS Victory. (He’s a big Hornblower fan – of the books, that is – and I had to break it to him gently that film versions exist which feature a creature named Archie Kennedy, about whom neither of us remembered anything from the novels for the simple reason that he does not exist there, safe for the name Kennedy mentioned in half a sentence somewhere. Dad, who likes his Horatio taciturn and tongue tied and decidedly not handsome and is an even greater Mr. Bush fan – William, that is, his favourite sidekick of them all – promptly declared his horror and returned to his beloved C.S. Forrester novels.) The Victory is well worth the visit, lovingly preserved, and every level open to the public. The displays pay attention to the smallest detail, such as the leather with which the gallons filled with pulver were wrapped so they didn’t knock against each other, or the instruments with which the wounded were treated. The Naval Museum with its Trafalgar show is similarly detailed, not just giving us the speeches (btw, was amused that Napoleon was shown speaking subtitled French whereas Villeneuve talked English) but also trying to recreate the chaos of the battle, the groans of the injured. The names of everyone who died on the Victory that day were recited, not simply Nelson’s, and I found it unexpectedly touching. (Unexpected because these were men dead centuries ago, that’s all.) The exhibition devoted the Nelson himself was so full of memorabilia that one felt reminded a) of Ludwig II or Sissi in terms of sheer cult and kitsch, and b) of the fact that the nation still couldn’t be bothered to honour his request regarding Emma. I mean, sure the woman was a spendthrift. But considering the useless royalty supplied simultanously... ah well. Incidentally, poor Fanny, Nelson’s wife, got her own display as well. Forrester, who very loosely modelled Hornblower’s career on Nelson’s, conveniently killed off Horatio’s wife Maria so he could marry Lady Barbara instead of being in the position of rejecting a devoted wife of many years in public. Such is the ease of fiction.
Sidnenote: perhaps the one Nelson item that struck me, or rather the three, were samples of his handwriting, first the original right-handed one, then left handed immediately after the loss of his right hand, then a sample from shortly before his death, when he had mastered the art of left handed writing as fluently as he had originally written with his right hand. The sight of the childish letters of the early attempt suddenly brought home what it must have meant for him to lose the use of hand and eye, and made Nelson human again.
Next we took off to Winchester, where Edgar and Primrose Feuchtwanger live. I had met Edgar Feuchtwanger (nephew of Lion the writer about whom I wrote my thesis) last year at a conference in Sanary-sur-Mer, and being a charming old gentleman, he had invited me to visit. Not that Winchester isn’t worth a visit in general – the cathedral alone is stunning, more about it in a second. Edgar & Primrose as well as the former canon who was supposed to give us the cathedral grand tour, Philip Morgan, were attending a 50th year of wedding anniversary in the refectory which took a bit longer than expected, as these events tend to, but then we started with the cathedral grounds, the old Restoration period houses where the canons, including Philip in his younger days, lived, the Deanery, the college with its beautiful garden from which one has a great view of the cathedral (and incidentally of the bishop’s palace.) Once a lot of lilac-clad teenagers emerged, thus revealing the current service was over, we ented the building, which originally had been romanesque but then had gotten a thorough Gothic overhaul and thus is mainly Gothic today. And a beautiful display of the style in question it was, too. As opposed to most of the churches I was used to, there weren’t any benches but chairs which could be removed and indeed were, so we could see the entire mid-naval section free of clutter. Which was great. There were banners hanging from the columms, hand-made by 11-years-old students, both embroidered and printed in a yellow and red colour scheme which fit with the soft light and the sand stone of the cathedral. Philip showed us Jane Austen’s memorial stone (where she is praised for her mild nature – not exactly what made her famous – 19th century praise of women, that says it all) and told us abouut the cathedral’s history. Which included the wedding of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain. Poor Mary. Also poor England, of course. Even in a sense poor Philip who hated being there, except for the part where he might or might have not flirted extensively with his sister-in-law.
Anyway, what really got Philip the canon going were the tombs behind the apsis, or to be more specific, one of them. Until then, he had during his exlanations regretted whenever the abolishment of monastaries under Henry VIII or later the Cromwell era (Oliver, not Thomas) had wrought damage on the cathedral, but, he said, the one person whose tomb would have deserved to have been desecrated, Cardinal Beaufort, had the tomb in question intact. (As it was. The effigy of the man in question even was still painted.
“A thoroughly rotten man,” Philip said, eyes blazing. I tried to remember what on Earth this particular member of the Beaufort family had done.
“He’s in Shakespeare, isn’t he?” I tried, thinking of the Henry VI plays.
“I think so. Henry V,” Philip said. “Of course, he was related to the royal family via Margaret Beaufort.”
Wrong Henry, then, though considering Five didn’t live long, that didn’t mean the Cardinal couldn’t have been in Six’ time as well. Beaufort, Beaufort...
“Wasn’t he somehow involved in St. Joan’s burning?”
Though I actually might have been misled by Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick there, who was definitely the supervisor on the English part of things, Philip nodded and pointed out a small statue a bit away to me. And there she was, in arms, Jeanne d’Arc. Considering she didn’t get canonized until 1921, well after the English Reformation, I thought this was a charming bit of religious border crossing as well. (Shakespeare and his contemporaries, of course, would have been thunderstruck to find a statue representing a French national saint, and especially this one, in an English church.)
Considering that the B&B’s still kept being sans online access, I was really relieved when Edgar offered the use of his computer before we parted in order to get ready for dinner, so I could at least mail my travel report via the helpful means of a burned cd. Though Edgar’s computer regarded my webmail as a pop up to be blocked, which meant I had to use my alternate email address and couldn’t access my regular mail at all. Grr, argh.
Dinner was lovely, and rescued the reputation of the British (not English, as the restaurant in question was part of a new Scottish chain, Loch Fyne or something like that) cuisine somewhat. All five of us ordered something different, and everyone was happy – the fish truly was fresh, not frozen, and delicious.
Philip had pointed out to me that Winchester was the model for Anthony Trollope’s Barchester, and considering Salisbury was the model for Susan Howard’s Starbridge, you could say we were on a bit of a church novel tour, as our first Monday destination was Salisbury. Which had a relaxed charm I had not expected, with its flowers handing from every lantern post and a dragon made out of 4.600,- individual plants standing in one of the pedestrian zones, on wheels, with a plate pronouncing its name was Gilbert and that it was elsewhere each day. The cathedral was a delight to our Gothic-loving eyes, though alas my father stumbled at the entrance, which meant his camera fell down, which meant for a time he was worried that it might be broken, but it seems to have survived, more or less.
One of the people buried in the cathedral of Salisbury is William Longspee, aka the illegitimate half brother of Richard Coeur de Lion and John who often was in the unenviable position of trying to make peace between the legitimate Plantagenets. But the undisputed historical highlight of the building is one of four surviving copies of the Magna Charta. I hadn’t realized it was really inscribed on a single bit of vellum. Thankfully, there was a translation on a plate, and I found it strange to read the passages serving as a basis for the English constitution next to passages which struck a more personal note, such as John pledging the release of Lywelyn’s son Gruffyd. Having read Sharon Penman’s and Elis Peter’s novel on the subject alike, my eyes were glued on the passage in question.
After Salisbury came, of course, Stonehenge. Which was every bit as awesome as I had hoped it would be. These days you’re kept away from the stones themselves, circling around them at a distance, and honestly, I can understand that, and I think it heightens the impact anyway – to see these giants without everybody and their dog strolling between them. Gazing at them, I felt a bit like I had in the temple of Karnak in Egypt – the wonder of knowing people could create this, millennia ago.
By the time we left Stonehenge behind, reports about the road Dad had originally meant to take were horrible, traffic wise, so we made a detour to Bath and admired the remains of Roman Aqua Sulis, while, having grown wise, making arrangements to find a B&B in Dartmoor ahead of time. Having rolled my eyes at certain movies which, when showing Romans in their baths, had them wrapped up in togas or towels, I’m happy to report that the displays in Bath show them as they would have been – in the nude. Also, the various basins and remains of the Roman heating system made it very easy to imagine what it must have been like.
Traffic reports were still awful, so my AP, who is great in these matters, had a look at the map and took a lot of small English country roads to reach the M5. Regarding English country roads: they’re sometimes like green tunnels, what with the trees and the hedges growing into each other, and sometimes they allow beautiful views of the countryside, but they usually make you hope that nothing will come from the other direction. They’re that tiny.
Anyway, circumventing the traffic jams worked, we reached the motorway, and made it to Dartmoor in time to spend a couple of hours crissscrossing the area. At first, there were more fields than signs of a moor, but then we got the entire enchilada – heather, green, sheep, and the occasional very small horse. We started with the last castle to be build in England, in 1911, by an excentric millionaire.
“Castle Draco,” said the AP.
“No,” quoth I. “Not Harry’s school enemy, Frodo’s Dad. Castle Drogo.”
And so it was. It was made of the local grey granite but still looked wrong in its smoothness and newness. But interesting. The millionaire in question can’t have been much of a reader, though. As opposed to those at Sissinghurst, the books on his shelves had the same sizes, looked untouched, and at one point had five identical copies of the bible, which are clearly four too many.
On the other hand, the “clappers” – bridges made of granite plates across the small rivers – look very fitting and impressive indeed, and though the first one we spotted was overrun by tourists, the second one was practically deserted, to our delight. If there is one thing a tourist does not wish to see, it is other tourists. Not even in the moor.
At last, we arrived at our destination for the night, a former 14th century wool mill near Ashburton, at the edge of the moor, called Gages Mill, where the landlady was very nice. I must say, English landladies are far more friendly and helpful than their avarage German counterparts. Cheers to English hospitality!
Sunday started out with my Aged Parent fulfilling himself a boyhood dream by going to Portsmouth and standing on board the HMS Victory. (He’s a big Hornblower fan – of the books, that is – and I had to break it to him gently that film versions exist which feature a creature named Archie Kennedy, about whom neither of us remembered anything from the novels for the simple reason that he does not exist there, safe for the name Kennedy mentioned in half a sentence somewhere. Dad, who likes his Horatio taciturn and tongue tied and decidedly not handsome and is an even greater Mr. Bush fan – William, that is, his favourite sidekick of them all – promptly declared his horror and returned to his beloved C.S. Forrester novels.) The Victory is well worth the visit, lovingly preserved, and every level open to the public. The displays pay attention to the smallest detail, such as the leather with which the gallons filled with pulver were wrapped so they didn’t knock against each other, or the instruments with which the wounded were treated. The Naval Museum with its Trafalgar show is similarly detailed, not just giving us the speeches (btw, was amused that Napoleon was shown speaking subtitled French whereas Villeneuve talked English) but also trying to recreate the chaos of the battle, the groans of the injured. The names of everyone who died on the Victory that day were recited, not simply Nelson’s, and I found it unexpectedly touching. (Unexpected because these were men dead centuries ago, that’s all.) The exhibition devoted the Nelson himself was so full of memorabilia that one felt reminded a) of Ludwig II or Sissi in terms of sheer cult and kitsch, and b) of the fact that the nation still couldn’t be bothered to honour his request regarding Emma. I mean, sure the woman was a spendthrift. But considering the useless royalty supplied simultanously... ah well. Incidentally, poor Fanny, Nelson’s wife, got her own display as well. Forrester, who very loosely modelled Hornblower’s career on Nelson’s, conveniently killed off Horatio’s wife Maria so he could marry Lady Barbara instead of being in the position of rejecting a devoted wife of many years in public. Such is the ease of fiction.
Sidnenote: perhaps the one Nelson item that struck me, or rather the three, were samples of his handwriting, first the original right-handed one, then left handed immediately after the loss of his right hand, then a sample from shortly before his death, when he had mastered the art of left handed writing as fluently as he had originally written with his right hand. The sight of the childish letters of the early attempt suddenly brought home what it must have meant for him to lose the use of hand and eye, and made Nelson human again.
Next we took off to Winchester, where Edgar and Primrose Feuchtwanger live. I had met Edgar Feuchtwanger (nephew of Lion the writer about whom I wrote my thesis) last year at a conference in Sanary-sur-Mer, and being a charming old gentleman, he had invited me to visit. Not that Winchester isn’t worth a visit in general – the cathedral alone is stunning, more about it in a second. Edgar & Primrose as well as the former canon who was supposed to give us the cathedral grand tour, Philip Morgan, were attending a 50th year of wedding anniversary in the refectory which took a bit longer than expected, as these events tend to, but then we started with the cathedral grounds, the old Restoration period houses where the canons, including Philip in his younger days, lived, the Deanery, the college with its beautiful garden from which one has a great view of the cathedral (and incidentally of the bishop’s palace.) Once a lot of lilac-clad teenagers emerged, thus revealing the current service was over, we ented the building, which originally had been romanesque but then had gotten a thorough Gothic overhaul and thus is mainly Gothic today. And a beautiful display of the style in question it was, too. As opposed to most of the churches I was used to, there weren’t any benches but chairs which could be removed and indeed were, so we could see the entire mid-naval section free of clutter. Which was great. There were banners hanging from the columms, hand-made by 11-years-old students, both embroidered and printed in a yellow and red colour scheme which fit with the soft light and the sand stone of the cathedral. Philip showed us Jane Austen’s memorial stone (where she is praised for her mild nature – not exactly what made her famous – 19th century praise of women, that says it all) and told us abouut the cathedral’s history. Which included the wedding of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain. Poor Mary. Also poor England, of course. Even in a sense poor Philip who hated being there, except for the part where he might or might have not flirted extensively with his sister-in-law.
Anyway, what really got Philip the canon going were the tombs behind the apsis, or to be more specific, one of them. Until then, he had during his exlanations regretted whenever the abolishment of monastaries under Henry VIII or later the Cromwell era (Oliver, not Thomas) had wrought damage on the cathedral, but, he said, the one person whose tomb would have deserved to have been desecrated, Cardinal Beaufort, had the tomb in question intact. (As it was. The effigy of the man in question even was still painted.
“A thoroughly rotten man,” Philip said, eyes blazing. I tried to remember what on Earth this particular member of the Beaufort family had done.
“He’s in Shakespeare, isn’t he?” I tried, thinking of the Henry VI plays.
“I think so. Henry V,” Philip said. “Of course, he was related to the royal family via Margaret Beaufort.”
Wrong Henry, then, though considering Five didn’t live long, that didn’t mean the Cardinal couldn’t have been in Six’ time as well. Beaufort, Beaufort...
“Wasn’t he somehow involved in St. Joan’s burning?”
Though I actually might have been misled by Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick there, who was definitely the supervisor on the English part of things, Philip nodded and pointed out a small statue a bit away to me. And there she was, in arms, Jeanne d’Arc. Considering she didn’t get canonized until 1921, well after the English Reformation, I thought this was a charming bit of religious border crossing as well. (Shakespeare and his contemporaries, of course, would have been thunderstruck to find a statue representing a French national saint, and especially this one, in an English church.)
Considering that the B&B’s still kept being sans online access, I was really relieved when Edgar offered the use of his computer before we parted in order to get ready for dinner, so I could at least mail my travel report via the helpful means of a burned cd. Though Edgar’s computer regarded my webmail as a pop up to be blocked, which meant I had to use my alternate email address and couldn’t access my regular mail at all. Grr, argh.
Dinner was lovely, and rescued the reputation of the British (not English, as the restaurant in question was part of a new Scottish chain, Loch Fyne or something like that) cuisine somewhat. All five of us ordered something different, and everyone was happy – the fish truly was fresh, not frozen, and delicious.
Philip had pointed out to me that Winchester was the model for Anthony Trollope’s Barchester, and considering Salisbury was the model for Susan Howard’s Starbridge, you could say we were on a bit of a church novel tour, as our first Monday destination was Salisbury. Which had a relaxed charm I had not expected, with its flowers handing from every lantern post and a dragon made out of 4.600,- individual plants standing in one of the pedestrian zones, on wheels, with a plate pronouncing its name was Gilbert and that it was elsewhere each day. The cathedral was a delight to our Gothic-loving eyes, though alas my father stumbled at the entrance, which meant his camera fell down, which meant for a time he was worried that it might be broken, but it seems to have survived, more or less.
One of the people buried in the cathedral of Salisbury is William Longspee, aka the illegitimate half brother of Richard Coeur de Lion and John who often was in the unenviable position of trying to make peace between the legitimate Plantagenets. But the undisputed historical highlight of the building is one of four surviving copies of the Magna Charta. I hadn’t realized it was really inscribed on a single bit of vellum. Thankfully, there was a translation on a plate, and I found it strange to read the passages serving as a basis for the English constitution next to passages which struck a more personal note, such as John pledging the release of Lywelyn’s son Gruffyd. Having read Sharon Penman’s and Elis Peter’s novel on the subject alike, my eyes were glued on the passage in question.
After Salisbury came, of course, Stonehenge. Which was every bit as awesome as I had hoped it would be. These days you’re kept away from the stones themselves, circling around them at a distance, and honestly, I can understand that, and I think it heightens the impact anyway – to see these giants without everybody and their dog strolling between them. Gazing at them, I felt a bit like I had in the temple of Karnak in Egypt – the wonder of knowing people could create this, millennia ago.
By the time we left Stonehenge behind, reports about the road Dad had originally meant to take were horrible, traffic wise, so we made a detour to Bath and admired the remains of Roman Aqua Sulis, while, having grown wise, making arrangements to find a B&B in Dartmoor ahead of time. Having rolled my eyes at certain movies which, when showing Romans in their baths, had them wrapped up in togas or towels, I’m happy to report that the displays in Bath show them as they would have been – in the nude. Also, the various basins and remains of the Roman heating system made it very easy to imagine what it must have been like.
Traffic reports were still awful, so my AP, who is great in these matters, had a look at the map and took a lot of small English country roads to reach the M5. Regarding English country roads: they’re sometimes like green tunnels, what with the trees and the hedges growing into each other, and sometimes they allow beautiful views of the countryside, but they usually make you hope that nothing will come from the other direction. They’re that tiny.
Anyway, circumventing the traffic jams worked, we reached the motorway, and made it to Dartmoor in time to spend a couple of hours crissscrossing the area. At first, there were more fields than signs of a moor, but then we got the entire enchilada – heather, green, sheep, and the occasional very small horse. We started with the last castle to be build in England, in 1911, by an excentric millionaire.
“Castle Draco,” said the AP.
“No,” quoth I. “Not Harry’s school enemy, Frodo’s Dad. Castle Drogo.”
And so it was. It was made of the local grey granite but still looked wrong in its smoothness and newness. But interesting. The millionaire in question can’t have been much of a reader, though. As opposed to those at Sissinghurst, the books on his shelves had the same sizes, looked untouched, and at one point had five identical copies of the bible, which are clearly four too many.
On the other hand, the “clappers” – bridges made of granite plates across the small rivers – look very fitting and impressive indeed, and though the first one we spotted was overrun by tourists, the second one was practically deserted, to our delight. If there is one thing a tourist does not wish to see, it is other tourists. Not even in the moor.
At last, we arrived at our destination for the night, a former 14th century wool mill near Ashburton, at the edge of the moor, called Gages Mill, where the landlady was very nice. I must say, English landladies are far more friendly and helpful than their avarage German counterparts. Cheers to English hospitality!
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 05:00 pm (UTC)Edgar & Primrose really sound like the names of a couple in an English comedy of manners.
I'm glad you're having fun and getting to see all these things -- thanks so much for taking the time to share.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 05:15 pm (UTC)Thinking of you, muchly!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 05:27 pm (UTC)It's fantastic isn't it. You used not to be able to tour all the decks, but being able to see it all now gives a much better impression of the sheer size of the ship. What amazed me was the number of different nationalities there were in the Victory's crew and I also found the fact they recited the names of everyone that died on the Victory very touching.
to see these giants without everybody and their dog strolling between them.
Yes, but I still miss being able to walk amongst the stones. Having said that the most fantastic view I ever had of Stonehenge was when we were driving past it on a misty, wet, revolting January day. All the trappings of the modern world were lost in the mist and all that was left was the road (fortunately) and Stonehenge looming out of the mist. I'm pretty sure it was an optical illusion, but the mist made it look enormous.
reports about the road Dad had originally meant to take were horrible, traffic wise
Roads into the West Country are never good at this time of year. Glad you managed to avoid the traffic by taking quiet country roads and it sounds like a wonderful trip.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 06:00 pm (UTC)Aqua Sulis is one place I haven't been that I really want to go -- once again wishing I were along like a handbag or other piece of luggage!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 07:21 pm (UTC)