Alas, Poor York - Two Weeks Will Not Be Enough

York Minster

We arrived and immediately started fretting that we wouldn’t have anywhere near enough time to do any justice to York. The city is truly lovely – full of incredible architecture, Roman residue (wall sections, road bits, underpinnings of current structures, reused columns and the like everywhere), impressive medieval churches, gateways, and winding alleys, graceful 17^th and 18^th century buildings, and of course, its beautiful physical location – on the confluence of the Foss and the Ouse rivers. We hemmed and hawed a bit – what to do first? Before we headed for the Jorvik Viking Center. Hey, the only evidence you are going to get of Vikings is what they can dig out of the ground and this is principally about archeology, right?

A display at the Jorvik Viking Cener

examining a find

The Jorvik Viking Center is yet another example of exactly how to set up a museum to be engaging and accessible to all ages. The displays were informative and utilized a variety of media to appeal to every taste. It is actually built on the site of a dig undertaken by the York Archeological Trust. When you enter, you go downstairs where they have covered a section of the dig site that reveals the layout of a couple of Viking houses. The floor is glass so you can walk over the site and see everything. Scattered around are poles with question/ answer panels for families Additionally they had: displays of actual artifacts found on the site, interactive computer reference stations in each section, costumed interpreters demonstrating period skills (coining, spinning thread, etc.) eager to answer any questions, and touch tables with more durable artifacts. Three skeletons were on display with cards explaining how specialists use the physical evidence from burials to identify individual idiosyncrasies and develop theories about the wider society of these individuals. The most amazing of these was a life size video display that provides a capsule of the analysis of all the skeletal evidence and a reconstruction of the person (fully dressed based on material found on site) with analysis of all her accoutrements. They also have a reconstructed Viking village that is actually a ride – very Epcot. You are seated in car, the speakers are in your headrest and are given a guided tour through the daily life of the village – the creepily lifelike animatronics speak Old Norse (?) that is helpfully translated for you by your headset. The Jorvik site has a sister site, Dig that allows you to play archeologist.

After the museum, we only had the energy to get crepes and to try to locate the dig site for the morning (we kept thinking we’d found it, but there are staggering number of medieval churches in York!). After locating the correct medieval church – Parish Church of All Saints North Street – we headed for our lodging for the next week. Our walk back was enlivened/ complicated by a naked bike ride parade. They really were blocking all two of the streets we had managed to gain any familiarity with, but we could not help but be impressed with the hardiness of the Northerners – it was really no more than 52-53 degrees and drizzling on and off.

Day 1 – We met our fellow course attendees at the entrance to the Parish Church of All Saints promptly at 9:30 on Monday. After meeting our instructors, Toby, Arran, and Gary, we headed inside the medieval church for our safety briefing. The safety rule on an archaeological dig is, like in most other places, “Be Careful” because most accidents are caused by people not paying attention. We also got a short tour of the site and overview of what archaeology has gone on to this point.

The dig area has 2 halves, their names are “This End” which is supervised by Gary and “That End” which is led by Arran. We were assigned to This End. (This End and That End are fixed designations and not relative to the end of the dig you happen to be on at any given moment.) As this is the beginning of the summer digging season, and because the site has not been worked since April, the first order of business is a cleaning. Cleaning an archaeological dig site involves taking a 3 inch trowel and scraping the surface to remove the built-up vegetation & surface dust that has accumulated. These scraping must be collected in a bucket and run through a sieve to make sure nothing of interest is lost. “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, it is not.

Still, we did find several nice things. Zada found the base of a Samianware plate which is first century Roman. She also found some nice medieval green glazed pottery as well. The area we ended up working in is what is known as a “leveling deposit” which is what someone in the 18^th century who wanted to build something did to create a level surface on which to build. So what we had was a hodge podge of smashed bricks and tiles, mortar, pottery ranging from Roman to Victorian in age, rocks, clay, and whatever other fill was at hand when the deposit was made.

At lunch we took ourselves on a tour of the church which features some exceedingly old stained glass windows. There are five dating from the early 15^th century but one is from 1330 making it only 200 years younger than the windows we saw at Canterbury. Perhaps the most interesting feature of All Saints is that the bells in the tower are rung using ropes that are located inside the sanctuary. Eight long ropes loop down from the ceiling and hang about 10 feet above the floor. Arran showed us where the staircase up to the bell tower is located which is behind a very narrow door into what must be more like a spiral ladder than a stair. To look at the wall, you wouldn’t think that there was space there for a staircase. Arran said that when he went up once it was a very tight, dark squeeze and that he emerged at the top covered in spiders. At which point in the story Zada shuddered and walked away.

Day 2 – The first thing we did on our second morning was set up to photograph our feature, having assigned it context number 1358 the previous afternoon. A context number is a number used to catalogue each feature of the site. So our leveling deposit is a context and everything we excavated from it was put in a bucket with the context number identifying all of that material as being associated with that deposit. Every new feature gets a new context number. A burial provides a good example of context numbering. As one is digging, perhaps first one comes to the shadow of the coffin lid and that gets a context number. The human remains inside get another context number as does the grave. Photographing a context has to be done just so with the scale and the board with the context number and site ID being rather precisely placed so we needed a couple shots to get it just right. Our morning was rounded out with some digging and sieving.

Second session was an overview of pottery. We were introduced to examples of pottery produced and found in the York area for the last 2000+ years. This was an amazing amount of information to try to process in a short period of time, but it was very interesting, and we all enjoyed handling the beautiful pieces, comparing glazes, coloration, composition, texture, and style – just like we had any idea of what we were talking about.

After lunch, Gary showed us how to complete the data card that goes with each context. This card is a description of the soil being removed from each feature as well as what kinds of material are included. Again, the data needs to be fairly precise, so we hemmed and hawed a bit over whether the soil was grayish-brown or brownish-gray. However, we all agreed that it was friable and that its primary inclusions were hunks of brick and mortar. The inclusions need to be described in their relative order of frequency and their size range. This is important because if there is a sudden change in the soil texture or color or in the types of inclusions, it may indicate a new context.

Part of the afternoon was spent washing finds. This is exactly what it sounds like. Toby presented the group with a large bucket of finds, mostly caked in mud, from a particular context. Given toothbrushes, wooden skewers, and tubs of water, we set about washing objects and laying them out to dry. Armed with our newly acquired knowledge of ceramics, we all critiqued and argued the provenance and period of every sliver we scrubbed. This activity also provided us a chance to get to know some of the other trainees which was nice. Zada is, of course, the youngest, but there are a few university students, and some older participants like us. We are not the only Americans either as there is a Californian and a fellow Texan on site as well.

Day 3- The class convened Wednesday morning at the York Archaeological Trust conservation lab for a tour of the facility and an introduction into artifact preservation. First we were able to see several iron spear points in various stages of cleaning. When metal objects come out of the ground they are usually quite heavily corroded. They are x-rayed and this shows where the original surface of the object is. The conservator then uses a very fine sandblaster and a microscope to carefully remove the corrosion one layer at a time until the object resembles its original form. The x-ray can also reveal different types of metals showing where something might have an inlay or other decoration. It was fascinating to get an idea of what all of the shiny, beautiful objects we have been marveling at in the museums looked like when they were first excavated.

We were also treated to a talk about the preservation of organic archaeological finds – especially wood. What we learned is that nearly all excavated wood gets recorded (photos, measurements, etc.) and then discarded. The reason for this is the immense time and monetary investment required to preserve old wood. Excavated wood is usually only intact because it was in an anoxic environment like a bog or buried under think layers of silt and clay. Such wood, if left to dry under uncontrolled conditions warps almost immediately and essentially disintegrates. Preserving the wood requires careful washing and then months to years of soaking in a solution of polyethelene glycol (“PEG to its friends,” said our guide). The solution is constantly being strengthened so as to allow it to permeate the whole piece. Once the PEG bath is done, the wood goes into a freeze dryer for possibly up to a year for a large piece.

A piece of medieval pottery emerges from the soil

Back at All Saints, we spent some more time digging and sieving. We drew our feature so that it can be located with great precision within the plan of the overall site. Our drawing was at a scale of 1 to 20 meaning that on our picture 1 centimeter is equal to 20 centimeters in real life. We used a large metal rectangle that is one meter wide and two meters long. Within the rectangle are strings creating a grid of 20 centimeter square which are very easy to line up on our drawing. Of course, most of the points that we needed to plot were not neatly lined up along the grid lines so we employed measuring tapes to determine where to draw our lines. After lunch, we learned how to measure the elevation of our feature. The scope is fairly simple to use and we all got the hang of it, even the tallest of us who had to bend way down so as to see it through properly. It turns out that York is at about the same elevation above sea level as Houston. We finished out our workday with more digging and sieving and a turn at washing.

Adding a new number to the
context number record book

For lunch, we went to a little café called Circles which is located in one of the former medieval toll towers on Lendal Bridge. They serve rich, warm scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam and have excellent teas and coffee. These are the scones we’ve been looking for all over the UK! They also have an item called “caramel slice” that is a layer of thick caramel sandwiched between 

shortbread and chocolate. It is sure to be the place we eat lunch all week.

Following class, we headed to York Minster for evensong. The minster sits on the site of the principia that was the center of the old Roman fort. The first church on the site was built in 627 out of wood and rebuilt in stone starting around 633. In 741, that structure burned and was rebuilt again, larger this time. It was damaged during the Norman Conquest in 1066 and destroyed by, you guessed it, the Danes in 1075 and rebuilt once more in the Norman style. Over the centuries various enlargements, renovations, and tower collapses mean most of what we see today is from the 15^th century. However, in the lower parts of the Minster (which we will visit next week) contain some remnants of the original Norman building as well as a few pieces of Roman wall from the principia.

first century Roman potsherd
in our 19th century deposit

But back to the service. We were fortunate to get seats in the quire once again. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that their quire was wider than others we have seen. The organ is beautiful, both in sound and appearance.  The choir singing this service consisted mostly of girls with some adult men for the lower parts. One of the girls did a solo during the Magnificat which was amazing. We all enjoyed the service, but we did wish that the people at York Minster would put a note in the order of service notifying people that the organ music at the beginning and end of the service are part of the worship and therefore they should keep silent during those parts. Canterbury and Salisbury both had such notes in their orders of service and the congregations were much better behaved because of it.

Using the grid frames to
draw our deposit

Day 4 - Thursday started with more digging and sieving. We continued to find brick and mortar bits, some nice bits of green glazed medieval pottery (some with interesting designs), bits of metal slag, and of course blobs of clay. A little while after lunch, which we had at Circles, Brad uncovered a strange void. Also Zada & Kimberly uncovered a few pieces of metal which seemed to be coffin fittings and nails. A bit more concentrated scrapping revealed a slightly darker area in our deposit which was outlined by the bits of metal we were finding. Gary and Arran felt sure we had found the top of a coffin. The area in which the team is excavating is known to have been a graveyard between the years of 1826 and 1854. Little to none of the wood from the coffin will have survived but the metal parts of it will have and the bones of the person within will be there also. By this point it was nearly tea time after which we were scheduled to be washing finds, so we cleaned our up our area so it would be ready to photograph and document Friday morning.

Out deposit with context number and half meter scale

After class, Toby led us on a cannonballing tour of York’s history & archaeology. We zig zagged all over the old town trying to take in every detail of the fascinating history of the place. In a park near Lendal Bridge, some of the Roman fortress walls remain with medieval additions to the top. Flower beds in the park are lined with stone from a demolished abbey that was once just outside the city walls. We walked along the former Roman roads now criss-crossed by later medieval shortcuts. Toby's knowledge of the city is amazing and we will need to go on the walk again next week to have any hope of retaining even some of the information.

A medieval jug handle

Day 5 – The first thing on Friday’s agenda was to document our new feature, the coffin shadow. This meant assigning a new context number, taking a new photograph, and doing a new drawing. It also meant taking new levels which we were much better at doing this second time around. The drawing took some time because there was not a well-defined edge to work from. That took us to elevenses, so we put away the surveying equipment and had cookies.

one of the nails from the coffin
we uncovered

Our specialist session this morning was stratigraphy and how to organize the information gathered from different excavation levels into a matrix showing the order in which events occurred. Using a whiteboard, Toby drew a cross section of York history from the end of the ice age through the modern day. It was a somewhat absurd tale involving a Bronze Age garden of remembrance for soldiers killed in a battle and Olaf Gilesson Thorsinson, the son of a Viking cobbler who turned to cheese making. That work of art drawn, we then worked backwards through the sequence of events creating what resembles a flow chart for each of the excavated layers.

Following lunch (not at Circles because we went to collect our dig t-shirts), we moved on to excavating our burial. We suspected that our body was in an unusually shallow grave based on the depth of the graves nearby, and that turned out to be the case. We fairly quickly uncovered the skull which was badly damaged on its left side, probably due to the shallowness of the burial. Zada was at work on finding the legs. We do not remove human remains from their graves. Our task is to document where the head and shins are so that the burial’s location is known for any future developers of the site. That data gathered, the grave will be refilled so that its inhabitant may go on resting in peace. The location of the knees along with the fairly good condition of the teeth seem to indicate that our person was a young adult when they died. We carefully sieved the fill material from the grave and when that was done, it was teatime. The excavated parts of the burial were covered with boards and on Monday we will need to go through the process of documenting our new finds.

Toby draws the matrix for our imaginary excavation

Our last session was called “small finds” and was led by Toby. We got the chance to look at some interesting objects found at sites around York, as well as some things from our site on North Street. It was another interesting session which made it clear why every piece must be carefully looked at because many of the objects Toby showed us most definitely looked like muddy rocks until they were washed.

Z working on a context card

This first dig week turned out to be everything we were hoping it would be. The experience of participating in actual archaeology will be a great help to us as we plan the digs and associated lessons for our campuses. We are looking forward to getting back next week and getting more practice with the skills we learned. But for the weekend, it is off to Edinburgh.

We hit the wall

Hexham Abbey, since 674. Notice the different types of stone.

Alas, for the best laid plans of mice and men (or women), as we were unable to board the overnight train to Carlisle! We experimented with alternate routings that involved a terrible journey with an enormous party of fantastically drunken youth to and return from Peterborough. This didn’t help in any way, and we ended up on the first train out from King’s Cross to Hexham in the morning.

Hexham is a beautiful village dominated by its remarkable abbey. All the narrow twisting roads and alleyways lead you up to the medieval market square.A church was first built at Hexham Abbey in 674 and there has been one there ever since. The original structure was built from stones scavenged from Roman ruins like the nearby sites along Hadrian’s Wall. In the crypt, the only part of the original building left there are stones on which Roman inscriptions can be read. In 875 the church was destroyed by the Danes (sounds familiar I think). Most of the present building dates from early Norman times, but even from the outside it is possible to see evidence of later additions in different colored stone and building styles. We were unable to examine this church in detail because we arrived about 15 minutes ahead of a wedding service.

What brought us here is the easy access to Hadrian’s Wall. There is a marvelous bus service (AD122 is the bus, naturally) that stops at various key sites all along the wall – Chesters, Housesteads, Vindolanda, and the Roman Army Museum. The wall stretches 80+ miles long and is a popular hiking trail. Our original plans called for us to hike the length of it, but the desperate need to scrape out time to get to Skara Brae in the Orkneys precluded the extra time it would have taken. Nevertheless, we had splendid time poking around the ruins and excavation sites in our selected locations.

Our first stop was Vindolanda. It was a Roman castrum (auxiliary fort) set a short distance south of Hadrian's Wall.  Its primary function was to guard the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. What is visible today are the remnants of the last of at least 5 wooden and 2 stone forts on the site, the first of which was built around 85. A large amount of the stone from Vindolanda, and indeed, from all of the Roman sites in the area has been carted away over the centuries. Driving through the countryside there it is obvious that the stones one sees in the farm buildings and walls around are the latest use to which those Roman worked stones have been put. One of the interesting things at Vindolanda is that part of the site is still an active archaeological dig. You can walk around in the part that has been excavated, it is the low remnants of the Roman walls and the lush, green grass that grows in England. The active dig area is fenced off and resembles a muddy rock pile. One can make out the walls, drains, and streets, but you have to look carefully through the rubble that has not yet been moved. Vindolanda’s greatest gift to posterity are the wooden diptychs known as the Vindolanda Tablets, examples of which we saw housed in the British Museum. These contain the oldest examples of handwriting in Britain. These documents record military matters and other official business as well as personal matters. One is an invitation to a birthday party.

After excavation is complete

Before the excavations are complete

There is no surviving section of Hadrian’s Wall visible at Vindolanda (they do have a reconstruction), but there is at Housesteads, which was where we went next. The Roman name of the fort was Vercovicium, and like Vindolanda, it was built to secure the northern frontier of the empire. However, Housesteads (to use its modern name) was built later, around 124, shortly after the beginning of construction of Hadrian’s Wall in 122. Housesteads sits on high hill overlooking a pass between two ridges through which Hadrian’s Wall runs, and where there is a commanding view of the surrounding country. Though this probably wasn’t the case in the Romans’ day, today the approach to Housesteads is a tiring climb through a field full of sheep and their many leavings, so you really need to watch where you step. It is ideally placed to keep an eye on unfriendly natives. Today, the site offers a sweeping view of rolling green hills flecked with the fleecy white specks of sheep.

The granary at Housesteads. These posts elevated the floor
to keep food dry and away from vermin.

The view from Housesteads along Hadrian's Wall

London Bridge is not currently falling down

A Bronze Age Londoner

London Bridge was falling down, that’s why they sold it to a consortium of Americans (who may have thought they were purchasing iconic Tower Bridge), who transplanted it to Arizona. It isn’t anything special to look at. Neither is the new one. What is special about it is that was erected at the same location as the first bridge across the Thames built by the Romans. Over the years, there have been several bridges at that site, each was falling or fell down.

Roman artifacts from London

All this London history is part of the reason for our return. The current city sits atop the constructions and remains of at least 8000 years. The excellent City of London Museum covers this with marvelously informative displays – dioramas, models, interactive “touchable” artifacts, descriptive information panels, maps, display tables, sit-down computer research stations for each time period, videos, and self-guided tour activity books. We got millions of ideas for the museums and projects we want our students to create from our digs. The museum was itself built on the ruins of the Roman city wall – uncovered by bombs during WW I. There is a lovely memorial garden with a line of red poppies marking the places where civilians were killed by the bombing.

A good luck tablet from the front yard of a London resident
who lived 1900 years ago. Notice the name of the city.

We raced from the museum over to St. Paul’s Cathedral for Evensong. This cathedral is Christopher Wren’s magnum opus, officially completed in 1711. It was built as a replacement for the old St. Paul’s Cathedral which was destroyed in the Great Fire. Its coppery green dome dominates the central London skyline. It is in a style called English Baroque. On the outside it is not terribly baroque, far less ornamented than other cathedrals we have seen. On the inside however, the label baroque almost seems inadequate. Alas that no photos may be taken in the church. The nave is fairly understated. It is light, airy, and open; basically the exact opposite of Westminster Abbey. However, when one’s eyes reach the quire screen, and the ceiling beyond, there is a sudden brightness of gilding and sparkling mosaics. I think it is meant to look Byzantine.

Outside the British Museum

We sat in the quire for evensong and spent the whole time craning our necks this way and that to try to take in all the details. The ceiling is mosaics of scenes from the Bible in supersaturated colors. The canopy over the high alter is intricately carved and richly painted. When it debuted, the cathedral was criticized by some for being “un-English” and it is easy to see what they meant. It is most definitely unique among the cathedrals and abbey churches we have seen around the country. Which is not to say it is not beautiful, it is, but it is also not like anything else. The Choir was amazing as we have come to expect these Anglican choirs to be, and we left the service once more in awe of how 40 human voices could fill such and immense space so gloriously.

Winged bull from Nimrud

The next day we went to the British Museum. It is almost impossible to describe this museum – a mammoth edifice crammed full of humankind’s greatest achievements in stone, glass, clay, metal, wood, textiles, and any other base material I have neglected to mention. There has been considerable controversy around collections like this – that hold treasures from the entire globe. Without wishing to stir coals, I can only say that I wish they had even more. They have proved an outstanding conservator of the heritage of humanity. That is neither more nor less than what they have assembled here. They make safe and accessible (except for the halls with artifacts from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus – they were closed!) many of the greatest treasures of the past. I know that I am glad that the treasures from the Assyrian and Mesopotamian galleries are in the UK rather than in the land where they were made because they would for almost certain not exist today if they had been left there.

Royal Lion Hunt 

What's left of one of the Parthenon's pediments

If you have ever taken an introduction to art history class, then you know what we saw:  everything from the first half of the textbook. There were the winged bulls with human heads wearing long, ringleted beards from Nimrud. We saw exquisitely painted sarcophagi from Egypt. There was the elaborately inlayed Standard of Ur. The Rosetta Stone which was used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. The friezes and pediments from the Parthenon brought to England from Athens by Lord Elgin. There are rooms bursting with Greek red and black figure ware. There are Mesopotamian cylinder seals and tablets etched with the tiniest cuneiform writing.

I have personally had many “overwhelmed by history” moments on this trip (as in, “whoa, Richard II stood here in this spot”, or “whoa, I’m standing in a 5000 year old chamber”), but the British Museum took that feeling to a whole new level. It is truly awe inspiring to see what people long ago were capable of creating, and it is a little disheartening to think that all we have created in the last 50 years that will still be here in 4000 years is plastic bottles.

The Globe was again our destination in the evening. We attended the opening night of “As You Like It”, and we did like it – very much! It was a fantastic performance – the actors milked every line for maximum humor. We again, had queued early enough for stage-side seats? Foot-room? Positions? Whatever, we were once again practically onstage with the actors. Again, we stood for 3+ hours without the slightest awareness of it, so absorbed in the play as we were. It is wonderful to see these works performed as they would have been seen more than 400 years ago – to reach across time and space and live an experience the same way is indescribably awe-inspiring.

Caryatid from the Erechtheion at the
Acropolis in Athens

Mummy with funerary ornaments

The Standard of Ur

The Play's the Thing - Stratford-upon-Avon

The River Avon

We arrived in this absurdly charming town about 2:00, dropped off the bags and took off to see all the Shakespearean sights. The canal basin was loaded with swans, geese, marsh hens, and ducks – mainly swans, and fairly aggressive swans at that. They swagger down the river in packs, like an avian street gang, shaking down passersby for snacks. They look beautiful and add considerably to the charm of the waterway though.

We walked all through the RSC Park to Holy Trinity Church. This is the site of Shakespeare’s grave, and in compliance with EU standards on buildings of any historic or aesthetic interest it is bedecked in scaffolding and corrugated steel screens. The church has quite an impressive organ, lovely stained glass windows, and the font in use in the 16^th century at which young Shakespeare was baptized. They also have a facsimile of the parish register pages showing Shakespeare’s baptism and burial records. The tomb is a simple stone slab on the floor in front of the altar. The engraving is so eroded by hundreds of years’ worth of traffic that a sign now hangs above it with a copy of the legend.

The organ at Holy Trinity Church

We had dinner at the RSC waterside café and hit the shop before showtime. Somehow we did not buy everything – primarily because no one could face carrying it, but it was very hard. They have many delightful treasures – like a wooden Ophelia that collapses into a bank of cattails when you press the bottom, badges with all the Bard’s best insults, and many, many more. There are also wardrobes with retired costumes to play dress up.

The Bard's grace before the alter and the inscription

Our first performance was The Merchant of Venice. It was fantastic! We weren’t actually touching the performers this time, but it is quite an intimate space. While all the actors were excellent, I have to say it was definitely the most human and compelling Shylock I have ever seen.

Next day we went to see Shakespeare’s birthplace, Harvard House (birthplace & childhood home of John Harvard founder of the eponymous university!), and King Edward VI school – Shakespeare’s grammar school. Our afternoon was used up on the river and in reading Othello in preparation for the performance!

The stage is set for the second half of
 "Othello".  The water feature is under
the metal thing in the center of the
floor.

Othello was another excellent performance. However, the show was really stolen by the sets. There is no curtain at a Shakespearean theater so you can see everything as you enter. This night, there was a high stone arch flanked by grimy walls framing a dark dockside scene. The floor appeared paved with large stones and in the center sat a small wooden boat on a decorative metal grate that extended towards the back of the stage turning left and right to create a T shape. We took this to be a suggestion of water, figuring that light and steam would be used to create the illusion of floating. However, when the performance started, Iago and Rodrigo came onto the stage and stepped into the boat. And it rocked and wobbled and created ripple in the water. The grate was actually the bottom of a pool! After Iago poles himself away, the metal grate rises above the water and creates the floor of Othello’s house. The grates were also able to rise above the floor of the stage to act as a table and as a set of stairs. The high arch swung back, and pieces suspended from the ceiling effectively created the play’s other settings. These were some of the best sets we have ever seen.

London, too much wonderful

Ready to Stand for 3 hours!

We arrived into St. Pancras station and were immediately jolted into the 21^st century. Mammoth herds of people representing every nationality clacking away in every tongue on the planet surged and seethed around us. A minute to shake off the suburban sluggishness and we were ready to dive into the current. As we were at St. Pancras, it seemed absurd to skip a quick look at the Harry Potter Platform 9 ¾ exhibit across the road at King’s Cross. That pilgrimage performed, we took the underground to Bayswater, unloaded the luggage, and ran out to get started on our London Agenda.

Hyde Park

Our Hotel was very near the western end of Kensington Gardens and we walked through these twice a day. Kensington runs into Hyde Park which is catty corner to St. James Park. Each of these beautiful spaces is a masterpiece of urban planning. They feature paths for cyclists as well as pedestrians. The water courses are swarming with swans and ducks. Some of the flowerbeds are manicured, but many areas hold wildflowers; daisies, bright red poppies, and long stems of foxgloves. The Hyde Park Rose Garden was particularly marvelous. There is a rainbow of roses whose scent permeates the area. The beds are arranged around a central fountain, but then paths wind off in different directions. Some pass under long shady pergolas dripping with pink and purple climbing roses. Others snake along beside creamy pink and yellow roses interspersed with cornflower and delphinium.

If you traverse the parks along the Serpentine it leads you out to Buckingham Palace and the entrance to The Mall or St. James’ Park. We took the Mall route dodging the Great Migration of tourists en route from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace/ Trafalgar Square and marching squads of the Queen’s Guard on our way to the National Gallery.

This was our first port of call as we wanted to compile a photo archive of decorative elements that would have originally been in place in the various chapels, churches, and cathedrals we have visited. Also they have some period chests, murals, and decorative objects that would have furnished castles, palaces, and stately homes of the medieval and Renaissance periods. We systematically worked our way through several centuries before time constraints forced us to cherry pick personal favorites in the 19^th and 20^th century galleries.

The Houses of Parliament

We crossed the Thames via the Jubilee Bridge and headed off to Shakespeare’s Globe – it is really hard to even begin to describe this experience without immediately lapsing into incoherent gibbering. In many ways this is what our fellowship is all about – using oral tradition, archeological evidence, and the historical record to make the past come alive again. It is an incredible structure and a fantastic performance space. We arrived early so we could get right up front. We made sure to get the “groundling” tickets which allow you to actually stand next to the stage. “Allow” might be a stretch for some, and I won’t deny that standing up for 3 hours after walking at least 10 miles and very likely more earlier in the day was challenging. However, no one noticed until later, because the performance commanded all our attention! The play was King John, which none of us have ever seen performed before. Absolutely marvelous! The action took place all around us, we were at constant risk of being whacked by courtiers’ capes and showered with spittle. A magical experience! We cannot wait for our next performance!

Closed tube stations led us past St. Paul’s. It was truly a gorgeous sight outlined against the twilight sky. We eventually located a station not being worked on, boarded the car, and headed back to Prince’s Square to collapse.

We began our day with a trip down the River Thames. The water taxis and various cruise services offer a great way to escape the madness of London’s streets and excellent views of many of the best sights! We passed beneath London Bridge (drab beyond belief, but built on the same site as the original bridge installed by Romans), the infamous Wibbly Wobbly bridge, more accurately known as the Millennium Bridge, Waterloo Bridge – notable for being made of the same Portland stone as London’s most famous edifices and being constructed entirely by women during WWII, and London’s most iconic bridge –Tower Bridge. Also on the river, we saw the bronze lions that act as flood markers and were taught an amusing piece of doggerel:

            When the lions are drinking,

Then London is sinking

            When the lions are ducked,

            Then London is…flooded.

Tower of London, note the Traitor's Entrance

We had chosen the water approach to see the outside of Traitor’s Gate as well as to avoid crowds. It is a wonderful introduction to the Tower of London (Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London). In American imagination, the Tower is grim fortress of torture and execution. While that was true for a handful of people, it has very little to do with the actual purpose and functions of this 1000+ year old complex. The central construction, the White Tower, was built by William the Conqueror, since its inception, it has housed royalty in palatial comfort and splendor, royal treasure in abundance, menageries of exotic wild animals, and, of course, political prisoners. Its most famous residents today are (in no particular order) the Crown Jewels, the Ravens, and the Yeomen Warders.

Pooh and a one of the Yeoman Warders

We visited all the towers and rooms added during the 12^th and 13^th centuries. They have redone a couple of the rooms with period hangings, tilework, and furnishings. The Crown Jewels – we really didn’t expect to be that impressed after everything we saw in Russia. I don’t want to downplay the insane amount of gloriously wrought treasure we saw all over the place there, but apparently we had not used our allotment of awestruckness. You cannot imagine how big the Cullinan I diamond in the scepter is – 530 carats. The various and sundry crowns are bedecked with literally thousands of priceless gems, enormous rubies, sapphires, pearls, and, of course, diamonds – thousands upon thousands of diamonds. The communion vessels are all marvelously elaborate gold/ silver gilt, as is all the tableware. There is a punchbowl larger than a hipbath with a ladle with a 3-4’ golden handle and enormous polished shell bowl. The exhibit was lovely, but I really want them to redo it as a ride – seriously, like at Epcot. There is so much to see, and it is so atmospherically lit, it is quite difficult to take everything in while being jostled by everyone else trying to see everything as well. Everyone was running into everyone else, & we should just be in little slow moving cars.

The most amazing job in the whole place must be the Ravenmaster. The ravens have definitely been there since the reign of King Charles II as he had Royal Observatory moved to Greenwich when they complained that the ravens interfered with their observation work. This was due to a legend that if the ravens ever leave the tower, the monarchy will fall. King Charles, obviously had no desire to take chances – he had just barely restored the monarchy!

Hyde Park

From the Tower, we boarded the water taxi back to Westminster for a visit to the Abbey. Here the London Pass proved its worth as we were able to go straight in rather than wait in a rather long line. Westminster Abbey is formally called the Collegiate Church of St. Peter at Westminster. It started out a community of monks perhaps as early as 960 under the direction of St. Dunstan. The present structure was begun in 1245 by Henry III as a burial place. Edward the Confessor is buried there, as are Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Richard II, and Henry V. However, not just British Kings and Queens are memorialized there. Indeed, the place is so crowded with monuments to various nobles, soldiers, scientists, and artists that it begins to feels like a disorganized museum rather than a church. The audio guide is narrated by Jeremy Irons and is fantastically informative. The best story is the one explaining the unexpected presence of a marker on the floor bearing the name of Oliver Cromwell. He was of course the man who destroyed the Monarchy and had Charles I executed. After his death, he was interred in Westminster Abbey. A few years later, after the Monarchy had been restored, Cromwell’s body was exhumed, beheaded, and drawn and quartered. He is no longer buried there, but the spot where he was is still marked.

Hyde Park rose garden

Westminster Abbey sits beside the Houses of Parliament whose most notable feature is its iconic clock tower. That clock tower is known as the Elizabeth II Tower, renamed for the current monarch at her Diamond Jubilee. The name most people think is ascribed to this tower, Big Ben, is actually the nickname of the Great Bell which tolls the hours and weighs 16 tons. The Houses of Parliament has another tower, without a clock but flying a large Union Flag (it’s only the Union Jack when it is flying from a ship), called the Victoria Tower. If you plan to enter the Houses of Parliament, be warned, it is against the law, under penalty of hanging, to die inside.

The Teachers' Tale

The River Stour

Canterbury packs an enormous amount of history into to a relatively small area. It has been occupied since the Stone Age. It was a capital city for the Celts, Jutes, and an important Roman center as well. Today it is still the epicenter of the Anglican Church. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Our objective, much like Chaucer’s pilgrims, was the cathedral. Saint Augustine was shipped to England by the Pope to convert King Ethelbert. He set up shop in Canterbury and became the first Archbishop, building an abbey and the first cathedral. In the late 9^th century the Danes destroyed a great deal of the city. Archbishop Dunstan rebuilt the cathedral which was destroyed, again by the Danes, in the 10^th century. The natives, if not actually welcoming, certainly made no attempt to fight of William the Conqueror – doubtless feeling sure he could keep the Danes at bay. Or perhaps they were just sure he could raze the entire town if they resisted.

The ceiling over the alter

William invested Lanfranc as the first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury and he started putting the cathedral back together again, this time in stone (Yeah, Normans!) imported from Caen. The cathedral was almost continuously being expanded, improved, ornamented and the like – especially after the 12^th century murder of Thomas Becket transformed the cathedral into one of the premiere pilgrimage destinations in Europe. His shrine and tomb was the point of the epic journey taken by Chaucer’s 14^th century characters.

Other notable burials include: St. Dunstan, St. Alphege, the Black Prince, Edward Plantagenet, and King Henry IV. Contemporary sources describe unexampled richness in decoration, votive offerings, chapel and service appointments, as well as architectural and sculptural achievement.

The cathedral suffered the typical Reformation traumas, actually Henry VIII took a very personal interest in the shakedown of this site. He put Thomas Becket on trial for treason, and when the Saint didn’t appear at his trial, (due to having been dead for some centuries at this point) he had him convicted in absentia and confiscated his treasure. In spite of all this, the cathedral looks magnificent today.

The screen in front of the quire

It is a beautiful blend of Romanesque and Gothic with the usual sweeping vista of nave and soaring vaulted ceiling. The most extraordinary aspect is the cathedral’s windows. Canterbury Cathedral has Britain’s oldest stained glass window. This is the Ancestors of Christ window that occupies the south transept. It dates from the early 12^th century, is 55 feet tall and 25 feet wide, and shows 56 predecessors of Jesus in truly glorious glass. In 2009 the window was completely dismantled because of the need for extensive repairs. Some of the pieces were stored, some put on display in other parts of the church, and some made part of a traveling exhibition. The problems was that centuries of piecemeal fixes to the window which consisted of a wide range of materials, techniques, and abilities have not reacted well to one another. About a dozen and a half Ancestors are on view in the cathedral and they are amazing, but they also make the need for repairs abundantly clear. There are places on some of them where the window bows out more than an inch which is not something one wants in a stained glass window.

One of the Ancestor windows looking good at 800 years old

We attended Evensong passing through the magnificently ornamented quire screen and seated ourselves in the stalls. Once again the experience of sitting beside the choir, their exquisite voices combining with the organ to fill the vast space, surrounded by the rainbow glory of almost 100’ of stained glass and the wealth of intricately carved stone vaulting was all that the medieval builders and archbishops could have desired. You are swept out of your drab quotidian existence and transported to another reality. So, yes…good service.

Canterbury's baptismal font

Family portrait

In which a game is played at Pooh Sticks Bridge

At 5:30 Friday morning, we gathered in the entry way of the YHA Salisbury and dropped our keys into the checkout box. Then we walked out into the early morning sunshine and headed for the train station. The 6:06 train took us to the town of East Grinstead which we found has a Starbucks next to its train station. This was nice because, after arriving in east Grinstead, we had a full hour to wait until the bus to Hartfield left.

This town’s name will probably be completely unfamiliar to you. It is the gateway town to Ashdown Forest. The writer A.A. Milne had a summer home in Ashdown and Milne is of course the creator of the stories of Winnie the Pooh. Many of the places in Milne’s fictional Hundred Acre Woods (the Pooh Sticks Bridge, Sand Pit, Eeyore’s Gloomy Place) are based on real places in Ashdown Forest. They are all far from the main road and difficult to visit without one’s own transport. However, the site of one of our favorite stories, “Pooh Invents a Game and Eeyore Joins In”, is an easy 2 mile walk from the tea shop/gift shop in Hartfield, Pooh Corner. This is the story in which Pooh invents the game of Pooh Sticks after dropping a pine coin into a stream.

You are advised to bring your own sticks, as the area immediately surrounding the bridge is almost entirely denuded of downed twigs and branches. We collected fistfuls on our hike. The entire area is incredibly lovely – rolling green hills dotted with clover and wildflowers, dense green tunnels through the forest, and finally, the rustic bridge. We played several rounds before ambling back to the Pooh Corner Tearoom for marvelous cream tea!