The shape of things to come

My weekend exploring a part of the world which I hope I will eventually call home. It was perhaps not the best weekend to have gone exploring, but there haven't been too many good weekends this summer.

I tried to take a few pictures between showers, or between downpours in some cases. I'm not delighted with them but they're all I have for now.

The Barbican gate in Sandwich, the entrance to the medieval Cinque Port.  It continued charging tolls until 1977.

Sandwich quay.  Before the river silted up it was deep and wide enough to take large sailing ships.  If you enlarge the picture you may be able to see that even the ducks were sheltering from the rain.

On the Canterbury, passing the old tower of St. Mary Magdalene Burgate.  The original church was 13th century, demolished in the 19th century.  This tower dating from 1502 remains.

Christ Church Gate, the entrance to Canterbury Cathedral.  It was raining.  Again.

A walk along the prom prom prom tiddly om pom pom.  That phrase will be understood, I imagine, only by UK readers.

The harbour at Dover, part of the reason we are looking at this part of the world.  Easier and much faster links to France by ferry, by tunnel and by high-speed train.

Medieval sisters

My "medieval sisters" are sister churches in Winchester, in the south of England. They are both very old, very small and quite unusual. I've known about them for a long time but until just before Christmas, never really explored. They aren't so very easy to find.

If you're walking along the High Street in Winchester you can't miss the Butter Cross (also known as the High Cross or the City Cross). It is an octagonal stepped structure once used to sell goods at market. It still serves as a great meeting place today.

If you step back and look behind it you can see the black and white building which is one of the oldest buildings in Winchester. Looking up there is a tower. If you then walk behind the Butter Cross you can go through a narrow passageway into Great Minster Street and Market Square. Once again, if you look back, you can again see the tower but most people won't be aware of having passed anything other than small shops.

But you will have passed the entrance to the church of St Lawrence in the Square.

From the outside, all you can see is this doorway and the window above.

St Lawrence is the only surviving Norman church in Winchester. It is thought to be the chapel of William the conqueror's Royal Palace, built 1069. There may have been a Saxon chapel on the site before that.

The Black Death came to Winchester in 1348 and the church fell into ruin. It was rebuilt eventually, but during the English Civil War 1645, it was again effectively destroyed when the stones were used to pave the streets and the building turned into a school. In 1672 it was again a church.

The roof dates from the time of Charles II. The church's very simple interior is the result of yet another disaster. In 1978, a fire cased £90,000 worth of damage.

This drawing, from a leaflet produced by the church, gives an idea of what it was like before the fire. The organ is to the side of the altar.

Nowadays the organ is above the entrance to the church. The font, bottom right, is made from Caen stone, from Normandy, dating from 1860.

When a new bishop is to be enthroned in the nearby cathedral, he comes to St Lawrence to be vested in his robes. The single bell (dated 1621) in the tower is rung and the new bishop is led to the cathedral. This has happened ever since 1660.

It is possible that there was once a chancel beyond the large east window because that wasn't installed until the 15th century. The church owns no land apart from the land on which it is built. It has no grounds. At one time there may have been a door through to what was once the rectory but is now the Eclipse Inn.

The sister church to St Lawrence in the Square is St Swithun upon Kingsgate, in some ways very similar, in other ways very different, but it merits a post of its own.

Colours

There are still so many colours around and it's nearly mid-November.

Happy Hay

Researchers from the universities of Sheffield and Manchester have drawn up a map of the happiest places in the UK, using the sense of well-being described by people surveyed. They found that the county of Powys in Wales was top of the list. By happy coincidence, I have recently visited Hay on Wye which is in that county.

It is certainly a very pleasant and attractive town, and luckily it wasn't raining the weekend I was there. It was possibly the single warm and dry weekend of the year.

Cheerful displays of flowers everywhere.

Hay has the benefit of two castles, this, and another which closely resembles a mound of earth covered in grass. Even the one pictured is not what it seems.

Hay's great good fortune continues, because it is close to the lovely countryside of the Wye Valley.

And the ultimate blessing as far as I'm concerned, the river Wye.

Beautiful views all along it as it more or less follows the Wales-England border.

There is quite a network of paths alongside the river and that would keep me very happy.

Both the Wye Valley Walk and Offa's Dyke Way pass by, so providing some great long distance walking.

Another plus point for Hay is provided by the 30 to 40 bookshops in the town, one of which is in the castle pictured above. I could happily browse for days on end.

I dare say there must be other reasons why the area is considered the happiest in Britain but the article I read didn't say specifically. What do you think makes for a great place to live?

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Every cloud

Every cloud has a silver lining they say. Just a few days ago I missed the bus I was planning to take, which meant I had either a 20 minute wait plus a 20 bus ride, or alternatively I could walk for 35-40 minutes, I decided to walk. I am so pleased that I did because it led to a little voyage of discovery.

I've noticed an attractive church while whizzing past by car or bus, so I went off to Hyde, an area of Winchester to have a look, and take a few photographs while I was there.

I think the stonework is particularly attractive, stone mixed with flints.

When I emerged I noticed a plaque on what I had thought was an old barn on the opposite side of the road, but the plaque said it was Hyde Gate and the site of Hyde Abbey, 1110, the burial place of Alfred the Great, his queen, Ealswith, and their son, Edward the Elder.

The surviving gateway is mainly 15th century but there is evidence of an earlier gate.

The gateway as seen from what would have been the outer court, where only monks and important visitors would have access.

The stone, brick and flint floor. How many feet have walked over this?

One of the windows.

Outside there are traces of the old buildings and the perimeter wall. This fragment is part of the old guesthouse, spanning the mill stream.

Monk's Walk along the stream, viewed towards the south, with the remains of a medieval bridge beyond the guesthouse remains.

The stream, Hyde stream, dates from the mid 13th century when the flow of a natural spring in a nearby village was canalised to power the Abbey mill and to lead into the monastic fish ponds.

As I was investigating the stream, there was a great commotion when I almost stumbled over this duck and her babies.

Of course this diversion meant I had to go and find out more about the place, so the 40 minute walk lengthened to 90 minutes. My ultimate aim was to visit the Great Hall, the Round Table and Queen Eleanor's Garden. As I approached the Great Hall, I discovered that this particular silver lining had a cloud. My camera battery ran out.

Gloucester Cathedral

Last weekend during my visit to the land of Solomon's Tump and Symonds Yat, I went to see Gloucester Cathedral, which ought to be of interest to my American friends.

The building is undergoing renovations but I managed to avoid most of the scaffolding in the shot of the tower. As with many cathedrals, it can be seen for miles around.

It contains some lovely stained glass windows, especially beautiful in the bright sunlight that day.

This one commemorates the coronation of Henry III in 1216 who was 9 years old at the time, and the only monarch not to have been crowned in Westminster Abbey since William I. He was born in Winchester.

Flying arches between Norman pillars.

The quire and the Great East Window, dating from 1350, the largest in Europe when created and along with York still the largest in England.

There weren't too many people but there was constant movement and subdued chatter. It wasn't too intrusive. While I was there, there an announcement was made by the Dean to ask for a moment's silence to remember that it was a place of worship. It didn't seem too much to ask but sadly very few people bothered to comply with his wish. Disappointing, because I don't feel you need to have any religious conviction to show some respect to the beliefs of the people who built it, those who now maintain it and those who worship there.

The cloisters with the oldest fan vaulting in the world.

A view of the cathedral from the cloister garden.

It's a much smaller cathedral than Winchester, less "grand", but a lovely place with plenty of very friendly guides to help you on your way.

It has a modern claim to fame from starring in two Harry Potter films which doesn't seem to have caused as much discussion as Winchester's part in the Da Vinci Code.

But there is also an older connection to the United States. How many people, American or otherwise, actually know what it is without looking it up? I certainly didn't. No cheating now!

St Catherine's Hill

I first walked to, but not up, St Catherine's Hill almost 5 months ago. Yesterday I finished the "up" part of the journey, though the further I went the more I realised there were still more places to explore.

St Catherine's Hill was a settlement over 3,000 years ago, long before Winchester was in existence. In 3 BC it was ringed by the ramparts of an iron age hill fort. In the 12th century, a chapel was built at the top. Nowadays it is a nature reserve, with butterflies and birds everywhere.

The picture of St Catherine's Hill which I took last February. The greens looked rather dull at that time.

If you click on the picture to open up a larger size you can just about see the stairway up the hill. This is what I am heading for, so that I can get to the top.

A little brighter this time as I make my way up the pathway.

Until I get to the fork in the path. Two apparently equally used paths and not a signpost in sight. Which one to take? I choose the right hand one.

And I rapidly realise it isn't the right one. I am faced with what seemed like a vertical wall of grass. But I am intrepid. Up I go, attempting to appear dignified at all times, even while sliding back down.

A view of the Hospital of St Cross, but not really in the direction I am expecting. Taking photos gives me a chance to regain my breath.

A view of Winchester, the more modern part. On the skyline from the left: the hospital, the prison, and Hampshire constabulary. The prison is called Winchester Community Prison. I'm still unsure what the "Community" part is supposed to mean. We can all go in for a look?

The copse at the top of the hill. A mystical, magical atmosphere, perhaps because it is the site of St Catherine's chapel (12th century), though there is no longer any sign that it was there.

People often meet at the summit to celebrate the solstices, or for no particular reason. There are quite a few places where fires have obviously been lit.

The path along the upper rampart, with the underlying chalk showing through.

Looking down at the lower rampart with a ditch in between. Rabbits all over the place.

Eventually I reach the stairs I thought I would be coming up, but I am by now clearly on the other side of the hill from where I started. There must be two sets of stairs.

I eventually make my way right around the hill, back to where my starting point, but still no sign of the correct route. I end up having to scramble back down the bank, through some more trees and clamber under a rail that goes along the correct path.

This was the way I should have gone. Pretty looking steps with a convenient bench half way up. If this stairway seems shorter than the other, it's only because the path itself climbs before reaching the stairs, and the route is more direct and quite a bit steeper here.

The pathway continues along the ditch between the rampart earthworks. But I stop here and turn back, because I'm running out of time (and breath). I'll save the rest for another day.

On the way back, I notice another path, this one running along the Itchen Navigation Canal. I believe it's part of the Itchen Way, and looks like a good route for a future walk.