Strains of “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” from “Pirates of Penzance” wafting through my brain, Mom and I started out on a multi-day, small group trip out of London to Devon and Cornwall. Our first stop was the village of Avebury in Wiltshire. While Stonehenge is separated from the public (you can walk around it but not in it), the Avebury henge consists of three Neolithic stone circles in and around the village. You can go up to the stones and touch, pat, caress and fondle them, if you so desire. Watch where you are walking, however, as there are loads of sheep in most of the areas where the largest stones that are still upright are found.
There is also a pub in the midst of these circles, so you can have a spot of lunch, a pint, or a dram all while surrounded by what has been referred to as the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. The Red Lion Pub was converted from a 16th century farmhouse. It is built around an 86 foot deep well (now covered with glass and used as a dining table). Quaint indeed.
Next was Wells Cathedral, which was built from 1175 to 1490, replacing a church that had been built in 705. A unique feature of this cathedral is the St Andrews Cross Arches. They look really modern, but were created in 1338. A story about this cathedral took place during the English Civil War. Sir Walter Raleigh’s nephew, also called Walter Raleigh, was the Dean of the Cathedral at the time. He was under house arrest in the deanery when he refused to surrender to his jailer a letter he was writing to his wife. Really ticked off, the jailer ran him through with a sword. He died six weeks later and was buried in an unmarked grave in front of the Dean’s stall. So all subsequent Deans have trod over his grave when going to their seat in the quire.
As we continued on to Plymouth, we went by Glastonbury Abbey and Glastonbury Tor (which were part of the King Arthur legends and which I later visited), plus made a short stop at Buckfast Abbey. The abbey was built over 30 years by six monks who began in 1907. The abbey that had been there before had been destroyed by Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. The new abbey was quite an accomplishment for just six monks in any age.
When we got to Plymouth, we found that our hotel was on the edge of the Hoe. This suspiciously named location is simply a public park that overlooks the sea. Back in 1588, when Sir Francis Drake was mayor of Plymouth (he had been so since 1581, though I have to admit that I find it difficult to believe that he would settle in one place for that long), the legend is that he and his men were playing a game of bowls on the Hoe when he was informed of the arrival of the Spanish Armada. He reportedly said something to the effect of, “there is plenty of time to finish our game and still defeat the Spaniards”. This delay allowed the wind and tide to change in his favor. Sounds like he was being smart instead of being a braggart.
Plymouth also saw the arrival of Pocahontas in 1616 and the departure of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620. The steps they now show to tourists as the Mayflower Steps weren’t in existence at the time. The edge of the port was further into the town. One of the most likely candidates for the actual steps lies between a couple of buildings and ascends from a street. Not the most glamorous of locations. The official steps still descend to the water and have a little monument above with Doric columns and such. I took a photo of the steps that were thought to be the real ones.
We stayed in Plymouth for a few nights and used it as our base to explore the area. We visited Mevagissey and Fowey in Cornwall. Fowey was where Daphne du Maurier lived. She was the novelist who wrote Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn (among many others) and the short story “The Birds”.
We also went to Marazion, from which we could see St Michael’s Mount (a miniature version of Mont St Michel in France). I was very disappointed that we couldn’t visit St Michael’s Mount. At that point I had not yet been to Mont St Michel either. Both places fascinated me — remote fortresses out on the pinnacle of an island which could be reached on foot only during low tide. Both were originally abbeys that were dedicated to the archangel Michael. St Michael’s Mount became property of the king of England during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1500s. It was granted to the Earl of Salisbury and then sold to the St Aubyn family in the 1600s. So the building now is a private home. The island (pre-abbey/castle) is the legendary home of the giant in “Jack the Giant Killer”.
Penzence was another trip out from Plymouth. When Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzence” was written, placing pirates in Penzence was considered to be a joke as Penzence was a very peaceful resort town that had never had any pirates. It was a lovely setting, as much as I could see of it. Cornwall had very heavy fog that day, which made it impossible to see much beyond the shore. Land’s End, our lunch stop that day, was completely engulfed in fog. Land’s End is the southern-most tip of Great Britain and normally has great views of the surrounding sea.
The following day we set off for Dartmoor, where we were still plagued by heavy fog. It did bring the right atmosphere for imagining The Hound of the Baskervilles. Arthur Conan Doyle’s inspiration for the novel was a story about a man in the 17th century who was supposed to have been a “monstrously evil man” and sold his soul to the devil. When he died, a pack of phantom dogs came and howled at his tomb. Subsequent nights he often was seen leading the baying pack across the moors.
We didn’t see Baskerville Hall (or any of the supposed candidates for the setting), but in that fog, we couldn’t see much of anything. I’d like to return to Dartmoor sometime on a clearer day. I would have to say it was quite atmospheric, however. This time I am using “atmospheric” to mean “spooky”. Dartmoor is full of tors (hills topped with outcrops of bedrock, which in this case was granite), rivers, and bogs. So, in places where the fog was a somewhat wispy, the place still appeared very foreboding. Then there was the prison. Dartmoor Prison was built in 1809 to hold French and American prisoners of war. It became a criminal prison in 1850 and still is. As we went by the prison, all we could see was the main gate. I had to leave it to my imagination as to what the actual prison looked like.
Enroute to London, we made a lunch stop at Exeter Cathedral. It had been founded in 1050 and the present building was completed around 1400. Since it doesn’t have a tower in the middle like a lot of cathedrals, it has the longest uninterrupted medieval vaulted ceiling in the world. This is the point in a tour when you sometimes hit what the British tour directors call the ABCs — “not Another Bloody Cathedral (or castle)” when the tour group has become complacent regarding all of the cathedrals and/or castles they have visited and don’t even care about viewing another. I will admit to having that happen to me with cathedrals, especially if they have all been pretty similar. But I’ve never met a castle I didn’t like, plus they have pretty much all been different. I even took one tour (which I will write about in the future) that was almost entirely of castles — multiple castles in a day.
Our last stop before London was Shaftesbury. This was the site of the former Shaftesbury Abbey, which was founded in 888 by King Alfred the Great and destroyed in 1539 by King Henry VIII. The old center of town is situated on a high promontory overlooking the Blackmore Vale.
This was Hardy country. The novelist Thomas Hardy set several of his novels in the area. There was a jumble sale (similar to a garage sale or flea market) going on in the City Hall. I ended up getting a couple of old figurines that were small enough to pack in my carryon.
The main thing that I did was to have a chat with a woman who had a couple of Miniature Schnauzers there with her and I had been away from mine for about three weeks at that point. One of her dogs had a lot to say (not barking, but other sounds that Schnauzers sometimes make as their form of talking). Mine was also a pretty talkative dog, so I was entertained by watching dog and human converse. Before leaving town, we had a cream tea at King Alfred’s Kitchen, which was in a 13th century building with very low ceilings (a tall man in our group came close to beaning himself) just a short walk down the street from City Hall. When we got back to London, we headed for home the next day.
Next time we begin an 18-day trip to Italy.
