TELGEN VACATION REPORT

Around England, Summer 2000

Christ Church College memorial Garden, Oxford So after jetting around to places from Lapland to Tunisia, we thought it might be a good idea to stay a little closer to home this summer. (Besides which, Bill had virtually no vacation left to play with—yeah, I can hear you all sighing in sympathy....) Anyway, we decided the best strategy to deal with the lack of vacation and a desire to see more of England was to take little weekend trips here and there. The first and easiest of these excursions was a visit to Oxford, which is only about an hour's drive away from us. Of course, the city is dominated by the various colleges of Oxford University, each with their own mini-campuses of impressive spires and squares. We spent time in the "Oxford Story," an interesting re-creation of university life over the past 900 years, and also had a good look at some of the Ashmolean Museum's wonderful collection. But the highlight of our day there was a literary walking tour around the city. We saw the inn where Shakespeare spent some of his time while in Oxford; the second-floor room, interestingly enough, is now the office for a home services agency, with the 16th-century wall paintings hidden behind curtains during working hours. Then we walked by and sometimes through several of the colleges of Oxford. My favorite was that of Christ Church, founded in 1525 and thus one of the "younger" colleges. The picture above is of the college's memorial garden, set up in 1926 to honor members of the college who died in the First World War. The building in the background is not a church, however—it's the great dining hall, the first part of the college to be built. Christ Church was the college of King Henry VIII, as well as that of 16 British prime ministers. My favorite figure associated with Christ Church is the mathematics tutor Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. Dodgson wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, and around the back of the campus you can see the tree where the original cheshire cat used to nap.

Wroxeter Roman ruins, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire We went a little further afield for our next trip, to the West Midlands county of Shropshire, which borders Wales (although we didn't go that far). Again, we were more than a little inspired by literary sources; we had been reading the "Brother Cadfael" mysteries by Ellis Peters, which are all set in Shrewsbury, in the center of Shropshire. We stayed just north of the city in a wonderful hotel, a converted 16th-century manor house, and used that as our base for the weekend. Close by were the ruins of what was Britain's fourth-largest Roman city, Wroxeter. Most of the ruins are buried, but here you can see the remains of the colonnade wall, as well as the hypocaust (the underground heating space) that was underneath the public baths. The site is right next to Watling Street, a road built by the Romans that runs from Shropshire all the way through London and down into Kent in the southeast.

Ironbridge, Shropshire Being in the heartland of Britain, Shropshire is also home to quite a bit of industrial history as well. Here David and I are standing in front of the Iron Bridge over the Severn Gorge. The town of Ironbridge (formerly Coalbrookdale) is named after this landmark, which was built in 1779, making it the first iron bridge in the world. Some might call Ironbridge the birthplace of the industrial revolution, as it was here that Abraham Darby used coke instead of charcoal to smelt iron, thus making mass production possible. At one point, this area was the largest iron-making area in the world, producing rails, boats, wheels, and trains. There are many museums that cover the area's interesting industrial history, although we were too late to visit any of them, unfortunately. But we thought the bridge itself was worth the trip there; it still looks impressive, even after 220-plus years.

Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire While driving about Shropshire, we saw several lovely ruins of abbeys and priories. This one is of Haughmond Abbey, which is very near Shrewsbury and was built in the 12th century by the Augustinian order. This particular site was impressive because there is so much of it—you can see where the kitchens, chapter house, and lodgings were located. This particular photo shows the abbot's quarters to the right and the great hall (for receiving important guests) on the left. In case you're wondering why all the pictures I've taken of various clerical buildings show them in ruins, you can blame Henry VIII. It wasn't enough that he established his own church, with himself as the head of it, so that he could divorce and marry whomever he pleased. After a while he decided that the religious orders had too much power, so he managed to disband them and take their lands. He ordered various abbeys and priories torn down, so the ruins you see are the result of active destruction, not just scavenging and time. You realize why Henry felt this was necessary when you drive around the small area surrounding Shrewsbury and see exactly how many of these buildings there were. Back in the 16th century, they must have had quite an influence, based on the amount of land they owned.

Deal Castle, Kent Having crossed the Severn something like two dozen times, we felt we'd seen enough of Shropshire and could come home. But we still had the itch to take another weekend trip, and so in August we went in the opposite direction and ended up in Kent, the very southeastern part of England. We first spent some time in Canterbury, exploring the Cathedral and some of the very lovely buildings in the town, and then continued on toward the coast. Along here you see more evidence of Henry VIII's activities, mainly in the line of castles he had built or fortified during his reign. This one by the beach is Deal Castle, and you may be able to tell from the photo that it has an unusual shape. There is a central round portion surrounded by six semi-circular outer walls, with floors pitched to deflect shots. When viewed from above, the castle has the shape of a rose, the emblem of the Tudor line. As a result, the inside of the castle, particularly under the level of the ground, is a mazelike series of tunnels that snake their way around the circumference of the castle.

The White Cliffs of Dover, Kent We couldn't leave Kent without visiting its most famous natural feature, and luckily we had a beautiful August day to enjoy the White Cliffs near Dover. You can see that the paths are the same chalky white as the cliff edges themselves, reflecting the warmth of the day back up to us. You may be wondering why grass grows on the tops of the cliffs but not all along the sides—or maybe not, but we think the explanation is cool, so I'm going to share it anyway. Evidently, portions of the cliff shear off and fall into the sea each year, somewhat like chunks of ice fall off glaciers and turn into icebergs. We thought we saw one such spot as we walked along the cliff, but since we would have had to lean far over to make sure, we thought we'd just accept the explanation as given.

These are just a few of the sights we saw during our English summer, over just three weekends. We hope we can get out a little farther afield next year, and hope to hit Wales and the Lake Country sometime during our stay. We'll be sure to keep you posted when we do!

Previous / Next

Home