Ten Sixty Six

In Flanders, poppies grow every year over the fields where so many died almost a hundred years ago. In Battle, daffodils & jonquils cover the hillside where, almost thousand years ago, many lost their lives. A sombre thought really, for such a tranquil scene, but somehow the massive loss of life that comes with war & battles fades as time goes by and the participants are forgotten & faded historical figures.

Battle is a little town in the county of Kent. It’s about 1 & 1/2 hours on the train from London and well worth the trip if you’re interested in English history. Because this is The Date. 1066. The Battle of Hastings. A kingdom won & lost in a day and a way of life gone for the English people. It was also the last time England was conquered by a foreign ruler, which is an impressive feat, considering the massive power & land struggles of Europe in the Middle Ages.

A & I set off for Battle on Good Friday, a beautiful sunny day, just right for walking & exploring. After a short walk up from Battle railway station, we found the Abbey, an imposing gate towering over the town square where Good Friday fun was going on – in the form of marbles and people dressed up as weird things (like alcohol bottles!) We decided to do Elevensies after the Abbey & battlefield, keeping in mind the Pilgrim’s Rest pub that advertised ‘elevensies’ & other type things.

You go into the historic battlefield via a Gatehouse, where they also have a small museum & the obligatory gift shop. we picked up the audiotour and set off down the path to history… except for the brief stop in the interactive museum that gave a brief run down of the events leading up to the battle. This included some remnants of songs from the time period and a 5 minute film narrated by David Starky, in his best ‘posh English professor-presenter’ voice – ‘It was the yearh ten sixty six and the English King Harold is about to be challenged for his kingdom twice in one day, leading to his body viciously hacked to pieces’ sort of thing. A & I have had lots of fun imitating him!

Once you out into the open air, the audio guide starts to get serious. You walk around, listening to sound effects of battle, of Norman knights & clinking armour. It’s quite effective, but you do get the weird feeling that you’re engrossed in a one-sided phone conversation. Of course, the landscape has changed a bit in 1000 years, but glimpses of the hillside where most of the battle was pitched and the ruins of the Abbey give a pretty good atmosphere and grace. You walk in a big circle around the field and the audio guide informs you of the events in a fairly chronological order. He also seemed to get outraged at certain actions of Duke William of Normandy (hereafter William the Conqueror), like the part when the Norman soldiers pretended to run away, but my favourite bit was the random quip “And someone had killed his horse”. Hilarious. And it happened twice “Someone has killed his horse again”. Zombie horses for the invading Norman army?

The battle fought & eventually won by the Normans, you wander up to the ruins of the Abbey, built on command of the Pope. It seems that many people were horrified at the bloodshed of this battle, and the Pope ordered William I to build an abbey on the site. And, for the sceptical, the monks insisted that it be built in this spot, instead of a few miles away in a more agreeable location. The place is marked where Harold Godwinson supposedly died, although according to that tapestry, he could have died two ways… But his body was viciously hacked to pieces after his death, this fact we were repeatedly told – as I said, the audio guide dude got a bit stroppy at those Normans.

Very little remains of the actual abbey, it suffered from Henry the VIII’s dissolution of the monastries and was pulled down to make room for a country house for one of his courtiers, who is buried in the nearby church. Walking around here, I kept wondering at the wealth of stuff hidden under the green grass & pretty flowering trees. The small round building was small chapel and the hobbit hole a medieval refrigerator. In the ruins of the Abbey, the latrines and the monks living  quarters remain. A lovely vaulted room was the novice hall, but the artist impression didn’t really give much of an indication that the space would have looked very different from what you see today, although a visit from a certain character from a movie tickled my fancy… see if you can guess who!

After a delicious lunch outside in the sunshine at the Pilgrim’s Rest, we decided to do a walk of the Great Wood, a route I found on my iphone. It wasn’t the prettiest or most inspiring walk, lots of dead wood & brush and some parts of the trail were hard to walk on due to the fact that it was a horse trail too and it had been wet recently – lots of mud. We did see a wreath hanging in a tree, which was pretty cool. No idea what it was for, but it was a reminder of how old the area is in terms of human settlement. After trailing around the Great Wood for a few kms, we met up with the 1066 walk, which starts down on the coast at Hastings and follows the path Duke William & his army took as they marauded through southern England to meet Harold. Then it was back to the station, where we both collapsed on an uncomfortable metal bench to wait for the next train back to London. 

If you want a cohesive, thought out version of the events of the Battle of Hastings, 1066, visit Battle & get the audio tour. If you can’t, I recommend looking up the book ’1066 And All That’ and reading that version. Much more enjoyable. After all, it’s what YOU remember that’s important to you, right?

Hunting in the Forest

March, and the weather is mild & dry, extending the drought and bringing in the hosepipe ban.  The weather seemed very springlike, so we went out & up into the north London area to ‘almost’ the country to go walking. A bit brown & sparse, was Epping Forest,  as spring doesn’t just ‘spring’ until later in spring it would seem. Of course, as I write this we’ve just had the wettest April on record and the trees at work just sprang out all the new green.

Epping Forest is right on the border of the London area, pretty much the countryside. We had to go to Walthemstow Central and catch a train on to Epping, and Walthemstow is right at the end of the Victoria line, so it could be said we escaped Londinius for a few hours! It boasts a Tudor Hunting Lodge built for Henry II and used by Elizabeth I. 

It doesn’t have the elegant features of some other Tudor buildings of the same era, but it was just built so a sick, corpulent and aging King could see the hunting going on in the forest. There was a pretty good view from the top floor, with wide, shallow stairs for the Royal legs to pull their way up. It’s possible Henry never used this lodge, but Elizabeth did, and the building itself has some features of Elizabethan life that were charming, like the flower shape scratched into the wood near the fireplace to ward off evil spirits.

We headed off into the forest. Which wasn’t at all like how you’re probably imagining… It wasn’t leafy, dark green & Sherwood foresty. It was more like this:

We were following a map in a book Adelle has and it was a bit sketchy on actual directions, so there was a fair amount of guesswork in the path we choose. We didn’t find the pub that was mentioned, but we did see a charming little church and a glade with soft springy grass where we ate some lunch & drank cider.

Taken earlier, for posterity. Except we neglected to show which way we went.. and other landmarks that might be useful!

The sun gone from the glade, we started on our way back, pretty confidently heading back to Epping Station. Except that when it came to an important fork… we took the wrong path. And ended up in some hills with a little pub (not the one we were trying to find) and some horse stables. Informed that we were going in completely the wrong direction by a jodphur clad woman, we turned back to the forest and legged it, trying to make it out before the light faded. We made it, but it was close. Another fine example of the long twilight hours in England! We finished off our walk with icecream. Good reward.

The Glorious Palace of Westminster

Every year at the beginning of September there is a weekend where a number of buildings in London are ‘Open’. Some require you to book (well in advance too!) and some are only open at certain times, it’s a great opportunity to see some interiors that are not normally open to the public – or that usually cost money. Adelle & I went along to the Sunday opening of the Palace of Westminster, something which I’d been wanting to do for ages. Of course, it’s not known as the Palace anymore – it’s the Houses of Parliament, with Big Ben towering over everything & booming out the hours. (And for a bonus point – Big Ben is the bell inside the tower)

The only remaining part of the Palace (besides the nearby Jewel Tower – we went to that last year) is the Great Hall. I think the Palace itself was burnt down in 1834 and recognisable building that stands today is a wonderful construction of Victorian Gothic, just like Tower Bridge a few miles up the river. The Great Hall is all that remains of the Palace, as well as a small tower across the road. Saw that in 2010!

The Great Hall is used for important & ceremonial occasions these days, people honoured with a state funeral lie in state here; the most recent being the Queen Mother, great speeches are made from the steps near the magnificent stained glass windows. And, predictably, the Dark Side resides here too – it was here that some people received their convictions of treason, William Wallace and Charles I among them.  I found it easy to imagine this hall, smoky & smelly with the medieval personages crammed in to wait on the King. There is even a small patch on the wall that displays the original stonework, rough & ancient.

We went had a good look around the part of the building where the old Houses of Parliament used to sit – where William Wilberforce spoke with great passion about abolishing the slave trade, where laws & edicts were debated about colonisation & convicts, a mad King, a war with America. Photography not allowed of course, but I can tell you it is grand & elegant. One of the guides showed us the statue that was used as a handy handcuffing device by some suffragettes.

We decided to wait for a special, once a year tour of the Undercroft of St Mary’s Chapel. When Westminster Palace was a royal residence, the Royal Family would worship here. However, by the time of the Great Fire of 1834, it was not used as a place of worship – it has been used as (rumored) a stable for Cromwell’s horses and a dining room for the Speaker of the House of Commons. I felt a little bit thrilled when the guide mentioned that William Wilberforce & contemporaries would have eaten here – including Pitt the Younger, but maybe not Pitt-the-gleam-in-his-father’s-eye.  The Crypt Chapel is lavishly decorated, although this is all post 1834 – the vaultings & furnishings were damaged in the fire. Care has been taken in painting & decorating the chapel, reds & greens, gold finishing & a sense of peace. Visitors are only allowed here once a year, so it was a unique experience, and worth the afternoon-tea of sub-par cake & strange coffee.

After the Hall we worked out we had very little time to get to the Guildhall, something I’ve been really wanting to see since I found out that not only is it an important part of London’s medieval history, it also has a Roman amphitheatre in the basement! So settled for the Banqueting Hall, splendiforous and grand, decorated with paintings by Rubens illustrating the divine right of the King to rule. Pity Charles I didn’t think very hard about how this would go down with his subjects, who chopped off his head. Charles must have contemplated where exactly he went wrong when he spent his last night in the Banqueting Hall. There is a sense of tragedy in the elegant air of this place, so beautiful & lovely but the shadow of an executed man hangs over it.

 

 

 

The Romans Started the Essex Thing…

Posting this several months after the event… 

We went to Colchester at the end of July – a Roman wall and a chance for some exploring enough to get us out of London for the day and into Essex. Colchester is the first recorded town in Britain, mentioned by Pliny the Elder. The Roman capital, Camulodunum, was the most Roman this island could get – complete with a temple to the divine Claudius. And then Boudicca sacked and burnt it down in AD61, giving the town a lovely touch of drama and passion.

We got off the train and walked around a little lost for a while, going up one street until I figured out we were in slightly the wrong direction. Back on track, we found some of the wall built by the Romans and then headed up to the Castle.

Green Men were supposed to be part of the pagan religion, a symbol of fertility, rebirth & Spring. However, research has found that there is no mention of Green Man before medieval times...

Colchester Castle is a medieval castle, built on the vaults of the ruined Temple of Claudius. What impressed me is that the interior of the castle has been hollowed out, using the space inside for a museum. It’s a decent museum, though it relies pretty heavily on the Roman artefacts and history, including a film about Boudicea’s rage against the machine. There was a pretty cool Green Man carving and lots of evidence of the resourcefulness of the castle builders, evidenced by the Roman tiles & bricks in the exposed walls. I ventured down to the dungeons, a place of dark deeds and misery. The Witchfinder General put his ‘skill’ to the test on some people here and they have a recording that plays as you stand in the room. It’s a bit creepy.

Wandering on from the castle, we decided to try and find the pretty houses I’d been told about. What we found, after following signs, was a CARPARK. Guess Joni Mitchell was right! We did find some pretty-ish houses, but they were not anything specially brilliant. After further sign following, we followed the Roman wall around the town and stopped for a pint at the Hole in the Wall, a quaint little pub that is – built through the wall. the floors were uneven, darkened with age and the ceilings very low, like a pub that has served people through time should do.

Our efforts to find old stuff took us through a pretty shopping street, with people out for a Saturday afternoon browse. (A fair few of them had orange skin and high-heels, it is Essex after all!) Eventually we found St Boltolph’s Priory, Britain’s first Augustinian monastery, founded in 1099. It was damaged in the Civil War (Siege of Colchester) and fell into dissuse. The builder’s, of course, reused Roman brick to build the place. Make do and Mend!

After a long and seemingly fruitless trudge down a less populated road, we finally found the Gatehouse of St John’s Abbey. I really love the way that the ancient & historic are so easily absorbed into the time steam, proving how a town/city/country is as alive & evolving as any living organism. 

And then, just before we started our way home, we came across some of the excavation of a Roman amphitheatre. It’s inside a locked building with handy windows for viewing. I think you apply to someone for the key, but it was after five, so we gave it a miss.

 

 

I ain’t dead

I promise I’ll try and post something significant soon – this blog has been sadly sadly neglected. Life! Don’t talk to me about life… grumble. 

However, spring is here and the days are lengthening and it’s not that cold anymore! Today I had a morning of tasks and an afternoon of discovery – found a lovely yarn shop in Crouch End, where I spent hours. Nest sells lovely yarns, the sweetest accessories and sells tea & cake for those who wish to sit in the little nook & knit – bliss. The cake was amazing too, especially for someone who is forgoing CHOCOLATE for Lent and can’t get it out of her head! 

Cheerio! 

Tale of Gloucester

Megan and I decided to get some fresh air and a different perspective and booked a night and a train journey to Gloucester, in the Cotswolds. It was not at all what we expected. M twisted her foot before we had even left Tooting and we ended up with her being on crutches and borrowed wheels for a time.

Advised by the B&B owner of a ‘Shop Mobility’ place near the shopping area of Gloucester, I hired a wheelchair and pushed M around for the afternoon. Main stop was Gloucester cathedral, an imposing medieval cathedral that shelters the tombs of Edward II (son of Longshanks) and Duke Robert, the bastard son of William the Conqueror (also a Bastard). Gloucester Cathedral also has some beautiful cloisters, masquerading sometimes as Hogwarts corridors. The amount of detail in these old buildings never fails to inspire, not that I’d want that everywhere, just a little maybe, around a light fitting or a doorframe…

The cathedral also has the biggest stained glass window in Europe. The Great East Window is impressive, with a  mix of medieval & modern glasswork. There is even supposed to be a little pane of glass picturing a golfer!

If you pay £2 you can reach another level of the cathedral (I have no idea what that is called) and can walk around so you get a good view of the window. I went up while M stayed on the ground, entertained by one of the volunteers who told her all about the history of the Cathedral and the actual burial place of Duke Robert. Robert was the eldest son of William the Conqueror and he inherited the duchy of Normandy on his father’s death. However, he stirred up so much trouble for his younger brother Henry I that he was forced into exile in Wales where he died. He asked to be buried in Gloucester. His tomb is meant to be somewhere underneath the cloisters, not the effigy near the altar. I know that the crossed legs mean something about battle or some such thing, but draw your own conclusions…

Edward II also lies here, his effigy scribbled all over in same style of the Coronation Chair – by naughty school children probably!

There were lots of things to explore about this beautifully detailed building, a sense of beauty & grandeur, of royal personages and the passage of time, but in a real sense, this cathedral belongs to the people of Gloucester, who were using it for a flower show.

 

Saxon Christos - A figure, most likely Jesus, from around 950A.D. The bird is possibly the representation of the Holy Spirit

The rest of our time in Gloucester was a bit of a wash, due to M’s foot pain and the helpful wheelchair place not being open on Sundays. The best way to kill time on a Sunday? Why, have breakfast, morning tea & a  light lunch sitting near the Cathedral!

And His Head Rolled Down the Hill…

Towards the end of Mum & Dad’s holiday in Britain, M & I met them in St Albans for a relaxed sightseeing Sunday. Initially I was a bit concerned, St Albans was the second stop from King’s Cross/St Pancras station and it just didn’t seem like we would even leave London! But we did, very quickly we were rattling past green fields and copulating sheep (true!) Mum & Dad picked us up at the station and we headed into the town to explore, starting with coffee and cake, naturally.

St Alban, England’s first saint and the namesake of this town, was a pagan who lived in Verulamium sometime in about 200AD. One night he sheltered a Christian priest from the Romans. Becoming a Christian himself, Alban was condemned by the Emperor, possible Septimus Severus, and he was executed – his head was chopped off on top of that hill where the Cathedral now stands and his head rolled down the hill, where a miraculous spring of fresh water sprang up.

The Cathedral is a magnificent building, but then again, most them are! This one has a wonderful painted wooden roof, decorated when the future leader of England was an undecided Rose.

 

 

 

The Cathedral shelters a shrine to St Alban, one of the last remaining shrines in England, thanks to the ravages of Henry VIII and his anger at the pilgrimages and money spent on the Catholic shrines and saints in England. But whether the people of long ago sought to gain power & influence by decorating a religious space, whether they hoped to buy their way into paradise or had put their praise and worship into creating magnificent buildings and spaces, their efforts remain as beautiful reminders of the medieval world.

Stone column placed for effect in later years...

Of course, St Albans was a Roman town before it was named for the beheaded saint, and they left remnants all over the place. The mosaic above is a good example of the quality of the remains, several more mosaics and a large amounts of bits & pieces are on display in the museum, located near the remains of the theatre district – an amphitheatre, some shops and a town house. We wandered around the amphitheatre before a lovely Sunday roast lunch in a nearby pub – one of the oldest public houses in England, although it may not always have had cheerful family friendly attitude & delicious roast dinners – it’s name was Ye Olde Fighting Cock. The beams were low & charmingly crooked and it was quite dark inside, the windows being small & medieval sized. Several groups of people were squashed into the interior, noisy, but friendly and a nice way to spend an hour on a Sunday afternoon.

Bronze statue of the goddess of Love holding the golden apple given to her by Paris (thus starting the Trojan War) Probably held pride of place in a Roman household shrine

After lunch it was back to the museum (which opened at 2pm on Sundays) to check out the relics of a Roman British civilisation. Statues, glass beads, burial jars and an interesting discussion between Mum, Dad, Megan & I about what will remain of our civilisation and what future people will make of the silicone implants left in coffins!

It is the remains of a powerful civilisation that I find fascinating, how important they saw their world and their way of life and how quickly it was covered in dirt and forgotten. On the hill up from the museum was the almost intact floor entirely covered by a mosaic, showing just how Roman this town in Britain had become.