Despite having visited these places only a month ago, I still feel as if I must dig under the garden of my mind to find details of this long past date.
I remember being tired, partially by jet lag, overwhelmed by new faces, and happy to be in such a beautiful country where everything is indeed green instead of grey.
The bus ride was honestly breathtaking.
And I remember thinking that they sprinkled sheep on the land like the Gods must have sprinkled the stars in the sky.
Stonehenge itself was magical. I know many are disappointed by it because it really is just a bunch of rocks. But they are important mysterious rocks and that’s why I like them.
Not knowing what they are- so that there are thousands of possibilities behind the rocks. They have the potential to be any type of big rocks.
Astronomical, Religious, Festival, Sacrificial.
It was nice to sit and look at them and wonder the hows and whys and wherefores.
Perhaps more fun was taking tons of jumping pictures in front of the rocks and frolicking around in the grass surrounding Stonehenge. I engineered a picture where we spelled STONE with our bodies in front of Stonehenge. Slightly ironic, but mainly just because we didn’t have enough people to also spell Henge.
Our bus ride continued to bring us to Salisbury, where our main destination was the old cathedral. Andrew Butterworth, a charming old man who is honestly one of the best storytellers I’ve ever met. He gave us details about the tombs inside.
There was also a didactic exhibit inside that had lots of tiny sculptures of men in business suits. The pamphlet literally old you the meaning of every statue- which to me totally defeats the purpose of making the statue in the first place. They’re supposed to speak for themselves. It was silly.
I also wandered into the smaller church with the giant Doomsday painting. It’s actually hysterical with lots of rainbows and all the sinners dying on one side and the dead being assumed to heaven. For once the church just made me laugh instead of uncomfortable. Maybe this was due to my 4 compadres who were discussing religion and the ridiculousness of the painting, but who knows?
Back in the bus we made our way to Lacock, which was undoubtedly my favorite spot of the day. It is this little 18th Century village that is owned by the National Trust and is used in lots of historic movies because it is nearly untarnished by modern architecture. It’s definitely picturesque. We went into Lacock Abbey, which was founded by Ela, the Countess of Salisbury. After the Dissolution, Henry VIII gave the abbey to Sir William Sharington, who transformed it into a house. Eventually the Talbot family inherited the house and William Henry Fox Talbot created one of the earliest examples of the photograph negative in 1835. It’s on display in a photography exhibit. There were also lots of pictures taken by George Bernard Shaw. I loved his portraits, they seemed to capture something truly natural and wonderful.
The abbey itself was gorgeous and the caretakers created perfect exhibits. All the rooms had cards on the side that encouraged the viewer to imagine the room in different stages of its life, depending on who lived in the building at the time.
Though I think my favorite part of the main building was reading about all the children who lived there during World Wars I and II, having been sent away from London during the air raids. It describes personal accounts of their time there and it sounded like so much fun. It was easier for some reason to imagine lots of children running through the halls as opposed to nuns or servants.
Oh yeah, and Harry Potter was filmed in the Abbey and Slughorn’s house is in Lacock. It was nice to see as a person who likes ot know how movies are made….but in general, I like the building itself more than the fact that Harry Potter was filmed there.
We had a lovely quiz dinner at a pub, whose claim to fame was their dog spit. Yes, dog spit. It was what they used to roast pigs on, but there’s a little wheel on the side in which you can stick a small dog to turn the spit. I almost wish I was joking.
After dinner, I poked around the cemetery, played on the playground, and bought some hazelnuts from some children who were collecting them. They were too precious not to.
English charm settles into the body quite quickly and I definitely felt at home here by the end of this day.
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