Stonehenge 2013

Our return to the north took us right by Stonehenge, so we had to stop. I have seen it perhaps half a dozen times, Vicki more, but still, always, get that visceral feeling. It never fails to impress.

It was a Saturday afternoon in late June, and of course we
had the place pretty much to ourselves

One of the caretakers was kind enough to snap this photo
of us at the great monument

OK, I lied; there were a couple dozen tour buses and 100s of
cars and thousands of people there; as always; two nights
before was the solstice and 20,000 people were on the grounds
(which English Heritage opens on such special occasions);
some of the, um, pilgrims and worshippers were still there;
here, a group calling itself "The Spirits of the Oak"

Their Green Man; hey, I am into the spirits of
the oak (fine wines, cognac, whiskies aging in oak
barrels) as much as the next guy, so in an amazing
video coming soon, as soon as I upload it to
YouTube, you'll see me falling in with them

Our journey continued north, past this pretty White Horse,
to a lay by near Avebury and Silbury Hill where we spent the
next couple of days

St. Thomas Becket Church In Salisbury

Vicki had read that the St. Thomas church in Salisbury had an interesting Judgment fresco, indeed England's largest, and so we had to go there. It contains quite a number of other marvels as well.

St. Thomas in Salisbury; not much younger than the cathedral, I'd guess

Interior

The Judgment

Relevant detail

An early Elizabeth I coat of arms; note the Welsh dragon

In the little Lady Hall, three Mary frescoes, here the Visitation

Now things get really interesting; I roll up the rug in the pew
to reveal: the tomb of Jane Eyre! Well, a Jane Eyre...

Hand-me-down organ

Thus; some very famous benefactors...

And finally, this tomb, right  up front in the church, a man
getting his last shillings' worth...

Salisbury Cathedral

I have never liked Salisbury Cathedral. I don't know why. We returned to it in part because I wanted see whether my improved knowledge and experience of cathedrals might improve its rating. It didn't. Part of the cathedral experience is simply visceral. I simply don't get that experience at Salisbury. Perhaps it's too much light, uninteresting light. Perhaps the odd colors. Perhaps harmony and perfection are just not all that interesting. Perhaps it's being charged an $8 "donation" to get through the door. (What would Jesus think?) Perhaps it's all the hype that surrounds Salisbury.

View from the northwest on a cloudy, rainy, cold, blustery
day

Knave view

Elevation: the usual for an English Gothic

The Salisbury "clock"--no face, does not do minutes, causes a
noise to be made somewhere else every hour; a clock precursor,
not a clock

One of the few things I do like about Salisbury is the very large and very detailed
model of the cathedral under construction

Salisbury Cathedral was built in a very short time--short relative to other cathedrals--
more or less within one generation

The cathedral originally was at Old Sarum, 3 miles up the road, but the bishops and
the city fathers didn't get along and the bishop moved out; interestingly, everything
else followed, and Old Sarum is now an English Heritage Site and the title of a novel

Most graffiti I've ever seen on a tomb 

Let's see, henchman and bodyguard to Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII;
must have been quite a stud; but then unhorsed (but unhurt..."only a flesh wound")
by rascally Richard III; maybe it's in the name 

North transept

Chancel view; the other thing (and there are only two) that I like about this cathedral
is strictly contemporary, namely the blue windows there dedicated to "prisoners of
conscience everywhere"

View abaft from the bridge

The Quire; quire is to choir as lorry is to truck, we think; anyhow, nothing remarkable
here

Other transept

Vicki ponders the Grey tomb, which includes Lady Catherine
Grey, who testified against her sister, Lady Jane Grey, at her trial;
Lady Jane was Queen for nine days, you'll recall; this according
to the historical novels Vicki reads (as reported to me)

Salisbury

We spent the night at Stourhead. They have a small Caravan Club site and provisions for transients like us. Next morning we drove down the road the few miles to Salisbury, mostly to see the Cathedral, but for other things as well. We parked at the Britford P&R and took the bus into town.

The Saturday market was in progress so we
spent some time exploring it

At the sausage stand

Not a flasher, really

Subsidence is a problem here too

Then we were off to see the Mompesson House, a smaller
National Trust property in town

My set is complete

How to make the room feel larger: put in a
fake door...

In Mompesson's backyard garden

Back in the old market part of town

To wit: "home killed only"

Stourhead Gardens

The great lawn behind the house leads to the valley below, in which are several ponds and a lake, around which the lake walk goes, passing by half a dozen temples, cottages, grottoes, and the like, all of it beautifully landscaped with exotics and other plants. We spent nearly the whole afternoon on the walk.

In addition to his other pursuits, Colt Hoare was a skilled gardener and especially
collected pelargonia; not only collected them but created new varieties through
cross-pollination, some 600; his collection dissipated after his death, but the Trust
is attempting to restore the collection to at least a fraction of its former extent;
pelargonia are of the same genus as geraniums; about 230 varieties exist in the
world today, mostly in South Africa

Out on the lake walk now, looking across the lake's outlet to the Temple of Apollo 

A fairy ring of trees (all in a circle); that's what we'd call them in California

Exotic species department

The floor of a rhododendron wood

In the Grotto

Looking back across the lake to the Temple of Flora

The Gothic Cottage

In another rhododendron wood--reminded me of Nepal, where it's the national tree

The Pantheon

Mama Swan and babies

Another handkerchief tree

A Medieval Gothic cross Henry the Magnificent bought
from the City of Bristol in the 1760s

The beautiful little parish church on the estate; the only bummer of the day was
learning that thieves had stolen the lead roofing off this building...