Stonehenge and Salisbury

We left Plymouth early to avoid, Steve told us, the "hordes of tourists from London" (and Plymouth, I thought) descending upon the ancient site on Salisbury Plain, one of the handful of places we had visited on our trip here 15 years ago.  Schoolboys and schoolgirls in neat uniforms were walking to school as we drove through the city, and then out into wide open country where hay had already been harvested.

South central England is indeed beautiful, with its rolling hills, woods, and fields separated by hedgerows.  Black-faced sheep grazed contentedly.

Stonehenge is still a mystery, after all this time, dating back to sometime between 3000 BC and 2000 BC.  A "henge," or circular monument, is not a fortification; it was probably either a calendar to mark the planting season - it was paramount in an agricultural community to know exactly when to plant - or a religious site, probably both.  It could also have been a burial site, as there are hundreds of other burial mounds nearby.  It was not constructed by the Druids, who came much later.

Gone are the days when, as we were told by a young woman in St. Ives yesterday, one could simply drive out onto the plain, park, and picnic on the site.  It has even changed from 15 years ago, as far as we could remember, with a visitor center located a mile and a half away and shuttle buses taking visitors to the stones.  We opted instead to walk across the windy open fields, approaching the site gradually.

It is generally believed that the stones were transported here from Wales where they were likely quarried, a distance of 150 miles.  How they were transported - barges? rolling on wheels? - is a subject of much speculation.  The standing stones weigh 25 tons each, a difficult feat even with today's technology.  To say that they are awe-inspiring is an understatement.

My question has always been the same:  granted that they were probably a calendar and/or place of worship, but why are they so huge?  Surely smaller stones would have sufficed, could have been transported more easily, and would likely have survived four or five millennia.  What was the point in their immense size?

We drove from Stonehenge to nearby Salisbury and toured the elegant Salisbury Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We entered the churchyard through St. Anne's Gate, which had a history of its own.

In the rooms above the gate, George Frideric Handel, composer of the oratorio Messiah among other great works, held some of his first concerts.

There was also a plaque on the wall commemorating William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, who was a schoolmaster here.

Less well-known by some, William Golding also wrote a book called The Spire, which I dimly recall reading under the pressure of an exam very rapidly in my college years and which I now intend to re-read.  The cathedral itself was completed in an incredible 38 years (I would have guessed a hundred or more), from 1220 to 1258, but without a spire.  The spire was added in 1320 and (Steve said), "as every schoolboy in England knows" is 404 feet in height, the tallest in the country.  The tower began to lean after construction, and is 2'-5" out of line; Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, was enlisted to assist, and he successfully devised a method of preventing it from leaning farther.  Golding's book is loosely based on the spire at Salisbury Cathedral.

The cathedral is extraordinarily beautiful, built in a single architectural style - Early English Gothic - because it was completed relatively quickly.  It is said to have more windows than days in the year, and more columns that hours in the year.

On display in the Cathedral was one of only four copies of the Magna Carta, the famous charter of rights agreed to by King John at Runnymede on 15 June 1215.  Written in remarkably tiny script on sheepskin, it is based on (as Wikipedia puts it) "the principle that no one was above the law, including the king."  With an impeachment inquiry underway as I am writing this blog several days afterward, it is important to remember that our own Constitution is based on the same principle.

There is a magnificent organ in the cathedral, called the "Father Willis Organ," which is one of the finest in the world, but it was being restored, its great pipes removed, awaiting re-installation.

 

We had lunch in the cathedral's cafe - surprisingly, most of these cathedrals have a cafe, and a gift shop as well - and then we paused for a moment of peaceful reflection in the beautiful Chapel of St. Michael the Archangel. 

Back on the coach, we realized we were on the final leg of this long journey, with Karl heading calmly into London rush-hour traffic and Steve continuing to describe the history and architecture that we were passing along the way - they were the best!  Steve said we had completed a total of 5840 kilometer, or 3615 miles, an average of 182.5 miles per day.  We crossed the Thames once again, three weeks after we had crossed it the first time.

Along the way we passed protesters outside Parliament, calling for an end to Brexit, the madness that nobody in Britain seems to want.

We passed the high walls of Buckingham Palace, topped with barbed wire as we had noted before.  "It serves its purpose," Steve said.  "It keeps them in!"

It felt strange to be returning to the Hard Rock Hotel again after all this time!  We had stayed in every imaginable kind of hotel and lodge in Britain and Ireland, and here we were back where it had all begun for us.  As Martha said on Facebook, "after 23 days of exploring virtually every corner of the British Isles, from London to Scotland, and Ireland, we covered over 3600 miles by ferry, steam train, coach, and cruise boats through five countries.  It has been an incredible way to celebrate our 40th Anniversary, and we have enjoyed sharing our photos with our Facebook friends."  It has truly been The Trip of a Lifetime.

But where to eat for dinner?  Shall we hit a pub for some fish and chips?  Or shepherd's pie?  Or perhaps some bangers and mash, or toad in the hole?  (I am not making these dishes up!)  No, we crossed the street and slid into the same table at Prezzo Italian Restaurant, where we had dined on August 14, and enjoyed some good old Italian penne and risotto.