It was a three-day weekend, what they call a bank holiday weekend, and we were off to the ferry to Wales after work on Friday. This was when I learned about Fidelma’s talent for seasickness.
I’d planned this trip to include some Arthurian stuff as well as megaliths and other cool stuff, so this is a hodge podge.
We arrived in Fishguard at 1am and hastened to our B&B. Next day, we zoomed east across South Wales and crossed the River Severn into England. I memorialized the occasion with an action photo.
There will be more about this later.
Thanks to Mary Stewart’s books, The Mists of Avalon, and various others, I was very excited to see Glastonbury Tor. As we swung south, I knew it would be visible on the horizon, and sure enough there it was.
I yelled at them to pull over the car and jumped out and ran around raving about it — they were killing themselves laughing at how excited I was.
Glastonbury Abbey
We had to see Glastonbury Abbey first. Well worth it, huge skeletal remains of what was once a magnificent monastery.
In the days before Photoshop, we used to take pictures end-to-end and then tape them together to make one extra-long photo. So please forgive the low-tech editing here.
This is a side view of the church ruins. I have added a red line above to show you just how enormous it was. At the very left of the red line is the entrance. I swear it would have taken you a half hour to walk up to the other end. No, those tiny figures are in the foreground. You have to really look to see the ant-like figures actually inside the building.
Again, destruction care of Henry VIII by way of Thomas Cromwell.
There is supposedly the grave of Arthur and Guenevere there, as well as a tree that was supposedly grown from a cutting from a tree that was planted there by Joseph of Arimathea, when he brought the Holy Grail to England. Supposedly.
Come to think of it, the grail is supposed to be buried there somewhere. Supposedly.
Glastonbury Tor
Then to the tor. The Celtic name was Ynys Witrin (the Isle of Glass). It was an island for most of the year, poking up out of the marshy fens that soak that part of Somerset, or it was a peninsula surrounded on three sides by a river. Long ago the area was drained for agriculture and so we could drive right up to it. Naturally there was a church (or churches) built on top; the roofless tower still survives.
The terraces that ring the hill are a mystery. A natural occurrence or manmade, fortification, agricultural modification, ancient aliens: who knows?
Caer Camel
Also known as Cadbury Castle or South Cadbury. It was ringed by three sets of defensive banks and ditches, surrounding an open 44-acre plateau. It has been repeatedly occupied and fortified over an enormous period of time, from the Neolithic to the Normans. It sits above the River Cam, and the little town where we stayed is called Queen Camel.
Arthurian scholars feel certain there are two strong candidates for the location of his headquarters, and this is one. I buy it. See Blather for more of my opinions about this.
It’s flanked by trees all around the base now, but at that time they would have been removed. There would have been buildings clustered around the bottom of the hill where residents spilled out onto the land. They could all retreat up into the caer when under attack. If England was plunged into a zombie apocolypse, this is where I’d go.
It was nearly dusk when we arrived. You walk along a quiet lane, which becomes a track, narrowing and fringed with trees and undergrowth. Romans roads were built to last, so this 2000-yr-old track is still in great shape. It’s a steep climb. But I was so excited, I was practically running up that hill.
There would have been deep ditches and steep banks topped by wooden palisades, probably with towers every so often where lookouts could patrol. The main entrance would have had a giant gate they could close when the alarm sounded.
The sightlines are incredible. People used to use beacon fires atop the highest places to communicate. That was the case here; the entire countryside is visible on all sides.
We tended to split up at places like this, and so I did a circuit of the outer bank and never did see the others again for a long time. There is absolutely nothing to see there except the view and the cows. When we finally met up again back at the entrance, they said they’d been hollering for me for ages and couldn’t find me anywhere. I’d heard nothing. Both of them felt the place was spooky, but I was elated. Thrilled and happy.
Whether a Celtic war leader lived here in the 5th century or not, I absolutely loved being able to visit an enormous hillfort like this. It was a safe place for countless generations.
Old Sarum
The next day we visited the ruins of this Roman military settlement. I’d read Edward Rutherfurd’s book Sarum years before and wanted to see it.
It was in use for centuries before and after the Romans, but again almost nothing is left except this inner mound.
Stonehenge
Then we headed to Stonehenge, which I had seen in 1979 but was thrilled to see again.
In 1979, they had just recently fenced it off from visitors but it had not yet been fully tourist-ified. There was a road and a parking lot and someone charging an entrance fee. Now in 1990 it was transformed into a bustling tourist destination, able to move people in and out efficiently. In spite of that, it’s a breathtaking place.
I’d spent a good 20 minutes chatting with one of the security guards in 1979. He told me about a music festival nearby and how those crazy kids kept trying to vandalize the stones. That music festival has become a giant, huge annual mega-event.
He told me it was constructed in stages over many centuries. The first work was started around 3000 BC.
He told me about how the outer ring was sandstone (“sarcens”) and the inner stones were bluestone from the Preseli Mountains in South Wales. How did they get those enormous stones from Wales to this place? By boat maybe, up the nearby River Avon, then dragged across country, they think.
He told me about the Beaker people, our name for the people who buried their dead in the many mounds that circle the monument, so called because of the bronze beakers (pitchers) in amongst the grave goods. (This information is now outdated. The first work on the site was from our 3100 BCE, long before the Bronze Age Beaker people.)
Thanks to science, we know a heck of a lot more about it now. But to this day we are still figuring out the hows and whys of these stones. Amazingly sophisticated engineering.
The sun rises directly over the heel stone on the morning of the summer solstice, with the light penetrating directly into the center of the ring. Modern-day “druids” have had permission to enter the circle for this ritual each year. I’m good with that.
Click here if you’d like to see my Stonehenge pix from 2005.
Woodhenge
They keep finding stuff all around this area. Nearby is Woodhenge, possibly a wooden prototype for Stonehenge. The position of the wooden posts is now marked with cement blocks.
Silbury Hill
Yes, it’s manmade and no, nobody really knows why or how.
Yes it was fenced off and signposted do not enter and yes we did ignore that and yes we did climb it.
Avebury
While Stonehenge is certainly striking, the little village of Avebury is a close second. It is comprised of one enormous stone circle surrounded by huge ditches with two smaller circles inside it. Then paired stones mark an avenue which extends out of the circle toward some other nearby Neolitic monuments.
It’s always entertaining to see how regular people went on with their lives, ignoring or incorporating these ancient monuments into daily life. The village goes right through the middle of this complex.
Click here to see more photos of Avebury from 2005.
Here is a White Horse. Wiltshire is full of them. These hill figures are carved into the chalk that lies just under the topsoil in this area. Some are ancient, but most are 18th or 19th century. I don’t know which one this was. (Mark and I saw another one in 2005 but I didn’t get a picture of it.)
This whole area is so full of important megalithic monuments and sites, you could easily spend a whole week here and not see it all. My planning (an Excel spreadsheet) included a bunch of other sites we just didn’t have time for.
We drove to Chepstow and spent the night there. My objective was Tintern Abbey, which my mom had seen and said was so beautiful. It was also very near a surviving portion of Offa’s Dyke, but as usual we ran out of time.
It was very late when we arrived and I opted for a warm bed while F&C snuck in and had a look around in the rain. Next day we saw it properly. There is a lovely Wordsworth poem about it:
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence—wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
Click here for more 1990 pix.