In 2005, my good friend Mark and I made a trip to England together. We have lots of common interests, both of us being Anglophiles, movie lovers, book lovers, Jane Austen fans, and Mary Stewart fans. But both of us had recently fallen in love with Virginia Woolf and her circle of friends, so the real focus of this trip was to see Woolf-related places. So you will have to wade through some of those pictures here. Sorry not sorry.
We squeezed in some other stuff too. For me this meant revisiting some places I’d seen before, which is always such a pleasure.
London
We began with the usual sightseeing in London. The best part was a trip to Sussex to visit Virginia Woolf’s home, called Monk’s House. It’s in Rodmell, which is near Lewes.
They don’t let you take pictures inside, but it’s a quite small, rather plain house, apart from the distinctive Omega Workshop decor.
Woolf was very close to her sister, the artist Vanessa Bell; we visited her home at Charleston nearby. And we also visited Ham Spray, the home of author Lytton Strachey and artist Dora Carrington, who were part of her circle.
Then we took the train to Bath to see Jane Austen territory.
Stonehenge
People started building here around 3100 BCE, which took place in several stages over 1000 years. Imagine the project management necessary for that!
I’d been to the Preseli Mountains in Wales where the bluestones (the older stones in the middle of the circle) came from. The outer ring of “sarcens” are made of sandstone. Those are the ones where the uprights (orthostats) have the lintels sitting on top linking them. They are carefully designed with mortise and tenon on top to anchor the lintel, which connect via tongue and groove joints.
The orthostats widen slightly toward the top to make them look of a uniform dimensions. So many things about this place are mind-boggling. And nobody knows why or even how — although we know more now than we did just a few years ago.
If you’d like to see my 1990 pix from Stonehenge, click here.
Silbury Hill
If you zoom, you can see the tiny little car on the road next to it.
If you’d like to see the pix from when we illegally climbed it in 1990, click here.
Wells Cathedral
The front of this place is so imposing.
That’s a better photo than the one from 1996. Click here to see.
St. Cuthbert’s Church, Wells
We wandered into this little church not far from the cathedral. It has a magnificent angel roof. Olwen and I had seen a bunch of these when we cruised around on a broad-beamed narrow boat in the rivers around Cambridge in 1998, inspired by Dorothy Sayers‘ novel The Nine Tailors.
Here’s a Green Man we found hidden on a ceiling boss. Always fun to find these pre-Christian symbols in old churches.
Glastonbury Tor
Also known as Ynys Witrin or the Isle of Glass. It was an island before the land around it was drained first by medieval monks and later by Dutch engineers. It is all reclaimed fenland.
You can take the short but steep route or you can take the long path, which follows a more gentle incline on the western arm of the tor. The short way was closed for repairs, so we took the long way. Mark sang Steeleye Span songs to keep me moving.
West Kennet long barrow
The area around Stonehenge is full of barrows, which is a grave mound. Some contain the remains of only one person (probably a high-ranking individual); most have multiple remains along with grave goods.
Work began on the West Kennet long barrow around 3650 BC. It was actively used for at least 1000 years. It’s over 300 feet long, and is long and narrow, an unusual configuration for a passage tomb.
At one time it was filled in and closed up, and a false entrance added. Can’t help wondering about the circumstances that made that necessary.
My journal tells me we saw a White Horse around here somewhere, but I have no idea which one. These White Horses were created by carving into the soil on hillsides, exposing the underlying chalk to create the image visible for long distances. There are a dozen or so in Wiltshire alone.
Avebury and Tintagel
Click on links below to see photos.
St. Ives, part 2
I’d visited St. Ives in 1996 and loved it. So it turns out Virginia Woolf’s family had a holiday home there! Throughout her childhood, they spent blissful summers at Talland House in St. Ives. She wrote so movingly about the place in her novel To The Lighthouse.
In planning the trip, I was delighted to discover that Talland House was a BNB and I was able to book rooms there! It’s been modified quite a bit since her day, but we figured we stayed in either her mother or her older sister’s bedroom.
There are lovely photos of herself and her siblings playing cricket on that lawn. (The addition to the right is not original.)
Our windows looked out toward the Godrevy lighthouse, which was the central symbol in her novel To The Lighthouse. It’s a shame somebody built that monstrosity in front of it, but so it goes.
We got some very nice weather while we were there, and I was able to see how beautiful St. Ives is when the sky is blue and it’s not raining.
Land’s End
We braved the tourist hordes at Land’s End. It’s a shock going from the circus atmosphere behind you, looking out at the vast emptiness before you.
St. Michael’s Mount
We took a few minutes to have some lunch — by which time the tide had turned and it was no longer possible to walk out to the Mount.
We took the train back to London and crammed as much as we could into our last days. It was a magical, memorable trip, made immeasurably more meaningful for me in sharing it with Mark.
I’ve intended to go back ever since then.