EYWandBTV

Monday November 10
WORCESTER
We said a sad goodbye to Bath, hopped the train to Worcester Foregate station and lo and behold there was Cousin Sheila waiting for us, just in from Birmingham. We walked to the Premier Inn, across the bridge over the Severn, nice view of the cathedral in the distance, fleets (flocks? gaggles? bunches?) of swans floating past.

This was our first Premier Inn. I had read about the chain online. It suited us just fine. New, well designed building, comfortable beds and pillows, and more of those enormous English breakfasts, if desired. Plus: a Costa coffee machine. Had not encountered these little wizards until now. Push the cappuccino button, watch the wizard grind the beans just for you, foamy milk and voila. One slight defect: the machine does not make those little swirly things on top. Oh well.

First order of business: lunch. We were all starving after our long, arduous train journeys. We went to the Crown on Broad Street, had very serviceable salmon salad, hamburger (yes), soup, ale. When I went up to the bar to get my pint the bartender asked if I wanted an IPA that turned out to be made in America. “I didn’t cross the pond to drink American beer,” said I. “Aha, a man after my own heart,” said a neighbor at the bar.

After lunch we went to the cathedral. Warning: I am a cathedral addict, any flavor will do, Norman, Perpendicular, French Gothic, Neapolitan Baroque, anything. The Worcester cathedral is a treat. 11th – 14th centuries plus a fair amount of Victorian touch-up work. A big floor plan, Norman crypt, double transept, misericords, some bits and pieces surviving from the monastery (the Edgar Tower is in good shape), and the cloister. Much destruction during the Reformation: stained glass windows destroyed, statues decapitated, tombs smashed. The central tower is strong and massive. In front of the high altar is King John’s tomb. Prince Arthur, oldest son of Henry VII (Arthur died early, the younger son became Henry VIII) is buried in the chancel to the south of King John. An especially beautiful tomb is that of John de Beauchamp and his wife Joan. Their heads rest on two black swans, part of their coat of arms.

After a slow walk all around the cathedral we went to the new library building attached to the cloister. It houses the Mappa Mundi and the chained library. The Mappa Mundi, created about 1300 A.D., is the largest surviving medieval map of the known (to Europeans) world, about 4 feet by 5 feet. We had a long conversation with the guide about the richly detailed presentation of rivers, cities, continents, imaginary animals, and religious symbolism. The next room houses the chained library, several hundred priceless medieval manuscripts and books going back to the 8th century. Another fascinating conversation with the library guide. Both guides were volunteers, very knowledgeable about the collections and eager to discuss them.

The chained library room also contains the library seized from a Jesuit college in Wales during a wave of anti-Catholic feeling in the 1670s. The library sheds valuable light on the survival of Catholicism in England and Wales after the Reformation. The cathedral and a nearby university have been funding research on this library in the past decade.

This was lot to digest from this afternoon visit. We wanted to hear evensong at 5:30 p.m. and it was already 4:30 so instead of marching back to the hotel we simply sat in the nave and enjoyed the quiet.

Evensong was just as beautiful here as it was in Christ Church cathedral. Toward the end of the service the Canon (? Correct term?) sang a long prayer for many people and causes and I, a very lapsed Catholic, was amazed to hear him sing at one point “…and for our brother Pope Francis….” Well, times change!

For dinner we went to Saffron, highly recommended to us by a couple of people we chatted with after the service. We had a table in front of the fireplace and enjoyed a dinner of smoked mackerel, sea bass, braised beef and mushrooms, and other good things. Just right for a chilly evening.

Back to the Premier Inn, off to sleep, get ready for our day trip tomorrow to Hereford.

annhig

Toward the end of the service the Canon (? Correct term?) sang a long prayer for many people and causes and I, a very lapsed Catholic, was amazed to hear him sing at one point “…and for our brother Pope Francis….” Well, times change!>>

the Church of England is a broad church, EYW&BTV - some prayers actually refer to it as a "catholic" church, though not "Roman" Catholic of course.

and the convocation of the CoE just approved women bishops.

EYWandBTV

annhig: yes, I was fascinated to learn more about the CoE history and I was especially struck by the many community outreach activities undertaken by every congregation we visited, also by how deep was the commitment to music as part of the life of the congregation.

EYWandBTV

Stop the presses! Two paragraphs in my notes about Hereford sneaked into the Worcester section: the Mappa Mundi and the chained library are attached to the Hereford Cathedral, coming next. Sorry.

annhig

EYW&BTV - the church may be losing its congregations, but it makes up for that in good works. and even those of us who left it a long time ago can appreciate [and in my case contribute to] the wonderful music.

i don't belong to it but I do admire the work that it does.

EYWandBTV

[It is now 6:40 a.m in Vermont, U.S.A. A panel of judges, or to be precise, just one judge, me, have announced the winner of the quiz.... and it is janisj! Janisj demurred when offered a free pizza, to be delivered by an Amazon drone. She preferred a Pimm's. Therefore, the judging panel have been developing a powdered Pimm's, you just add one-half pint of water and voila there you have it - to be droned to janisj's front door this afternoon. Let's have a big round of applause for janisj. By the way, janisj, who's going to win Rochester tomorrow?]

ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ:

ha-ha – a ditch to prevent cattle from entering parkland

glakit – Scottish for befuddled, confused

Royal Peculiar – a cathedral whose dean is appointed by and answerable to the Queen and not to the bishop

baths (no the thing you bathe in and not the city) – straw bales used by archers for practice

samphire – green vegetable

white or brown – which color toast do you prefer with your scramble?

apple cider faggot – balls of bits of meat, cooked with apple cider

nodding ogee – an ogee arch which bulges outward into space toward the peak

cor blimey (translate into proper English) – “God blind me” – a mild curse

ney – or ey – Anglo-Saxon for egg; “cockney” = a cock’s egg = rural folk’s term for strange city dwellers

sackbut – medieval trombone

farrier- cares for horses’ hooves, makes horseshoes

please release the shoot bolts – sign on the emergency exit door in St. Richard’s Hospice Store in Worcester; Yanks would call a shoot bolt a dead bolt – yes, this was a toughie if you haven’t been to Worcester ☺

drookit – another Scottish-ism – soaking wet

EYWandBTV

Tuesday November 11
HEREFORD and back to WORCESTER

Every good trip should have a special, unexpected “peak experience” and we were about to have one.

We boarded a morning train for the quick ride to Hereford. It was cold and drizzly when we arrived so we took a taxi to the cathedral. Work on the present cathedral began just a few years after the Conquest; only small sections of this early work survive. Much of the construction was carried out in the 12th century. The great Norman pillars of the nave, massive, round pillars, are intact. Suspended in the crossing of the nave and the transepts is something I have never encountered before, a kind of bronze chandelier-type sculpture of a very wide, oval shape, representing Christ’s crown of thorns. It is extraordinarily beautiful, floating about 20 feet above the pavement.

I could find no description of this in the cathedral bookstore but searching around the web I found this information: “The Silver Gilt Corona was designed by Simon Beer and installed in 1992. It holds 14 candles and which represent the 14 deaneries in the diocese. The design symbolizes Christ’s crown of thorns and his crown of glory.” [This information comes from Ellen B.’s blog, The Happy Wonderer (sic), website: https://happywonderer.wordpress.com/...ord-cathedral/

The western part of the nave collapsed in the 18th century and was rebuilt, and much additional work and (over?) restoration occurred in the Victorian era. The exterior sandstone has a dark pink cast. This cathedral does not have the unity of style of a structure such as the York minster, which has great uniformity of style because it was built so quickly, but I found the Hereford cathedral very beautiful and the accumulation of different parts from different periods fascinating.

We did a quick tour of the cathedral and then went off in search of lunch. Across the green on King Street we found the Steak and Cider Works, across from the western entrance to the cathedral. Here is where I had “apple cider faggots”, an item which has triggered some learned comments at the beginning of this TR. But I do solemnly affirm that this phrase is what was written on the menu. The waitress explained that each morning the restaurant staff go down to the local butcher shop and buy “faggots”, balls composed of bits and pieces of different meats. They cook them with gravy or, in this case, cider. I decided to try them and they were very tasty indeed. Partner had cider (apple), Sheila had tea, I had local ale, very good. Well fortified, we returned to the cathedral.

We headed to the cloisters and to the new annex constructed in the 1990s to house special treasures: the Mappa Mundi, the chained library, and the 1217 Magna Carta held in the archives.

The Mappa Mundi, created about 1300 A.D., is the largest surviving medieval map of the known (to Europeans) world, about 4 feet by 5 feet, created on a single sheet of animal skin, probably calf. Many of these kinds of maps were made in the early middle ages and hundreds survive. We had a long conversation with the guide about the richly detailed presentation of rivers, cities, continents, imaginary animals, and religious symbolism.

The next room in the new annex houses the chained library, several hundred priceless medieval manuscripts and books. The oldest work is the Hereford Gospels from the 8th century.

Another fascinating conversation with the library guide. She explained the development of what we today take for granted: the concept of a “library” with books arranged vertically on shelves and desks on which to read them. Each of these elements was a “technological” breakthrough at some time in the past. For example, books used to the stored horizontally. They were not cataloged, not even with a simple numbering system. Duke Humfrey’s library in Oxford began the practice of simply writing numbers on the books sequentially, with no regard to subject matter. Hereford adopted this partially at a certain point. Then someone had the idea of building narrow desk ledges next to the shelves so one could place the book on the desk and sit down and read it. Books, of course, were extraordinarily valuable. The chaining of books to iron bars bolted to shelves possibly dates to the 15th century for the Hereford library. Both guides we met were volunteers, very knowledgeable about the collections and eager to discuss them.

The chained library room also contains the library seized from a Jesuit college in Wales during a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment in the 1670s. This “Jesuit library” sheds valuable light on the survival of Catholicism in England and Wales after the Reformation. The cathedral and a nearby university have been funding research on this library in the past decade.

Now comes the peak experience: we returned to the cathedral to find that various cathedral choirs were practicing for the 7:00 p.m. Remembrance Day concert. There were at least three choirs practicing during our visit: the young children’s choir, the women’s choir and the men’s choir. Sometimes the children would sing by themselves. This was angelic music. At one point the children sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Sheila cried. Then the women’s choir began to practice. One of their pieces was “We Will Remember You” – lovely.

We took a break from listening to the music to pop into the cathedral café for tea and scones, then returned.

When all three choirs sang together, with the hymns floating up throughout the cathedral, the effect was spellbinding. Later in the afternoon a young man practiced his reading of letters sent home by soldiers fighting in France. He was followed by a young woman in uniform, an active member of the armed forces, doing the same.

We chatted with one of the choir organizers toward the end of the afternoon. She explained the hard work and dedication of the members of these choirs. They have won a number of awards. She kindly invited us to the evening concert but alas we did not want to stay and have to catch a late evening train back to Worcester.

Late in the afternoon we reluctantly left the cathedral to catch our train to Worcester. It was already dark outside. The big central cathedral tower was floodlit in red light and poppies surrounded the memorial monument on the cathedral green. A beautiful end to a deeply moving experience.

During the brief train ride back to Worcester we were all rather subdued, trying to absorb the events of the day.

Dinnertime on a chilly evening: we went the highly recommended Galleria Italiana – starters: bruschetta; mains: tagliatelle Bolognese, lasagna and a good bottle of Australian Shiraz – delicious food, fresh taste, and an attentive owner overseeing the tables.

Off to bed to rest up for tomorrow’s trip to the countryside to visit the village of Martley, where Partner’s and Sheila’s great-great-grandfather was baptized.

julia_t

Enjoying this trip report.

Especially intrigued by the reference to Martley - for a good few years I lived 3 miles away in a tiny cluster of houses called Monkwood Green. My children attended the little school in Martley (it's greatly expanded in recent years), and my very best friend has lived in the village for around 25 years now.

EYWandBTV

julia_t: Yes, we loved Martley. We are thinking of going back to England next year, flying into Birmingham, visiting cousins again, going down to Martley and staying one or two nights and walking the marked trail around the countryside. I noticed that there is a guest house just a few hundred feet up the road from the church, The Chandlery. Do you know anything about it? Then I have Lincoln on my list and must revisit York.

julia_t

Well there are some great walks around the Martley area, and the Teme valley is beautiful. The views from the hilltops over towards Tenbury Wells and Ludlow are stunning.

I'm not sure who runs The Chantry now, but will try to remember to ask my friend when I next speak to her.

latedaytraveler

EYWANDBTV, wow, you folks certainly make the most of each day when traveling. No doubt, the guides at these cathedrals and the like enjoy showing you around.

Wonderful report...

tuscanlifeedit

Immensely enjoying your report. Thanks.

EYWandBTV

Wednesday November 12
WORCESTER AND MARTLEY AND COLESHILL/BRUM (aka Birmingham)
We did not have to leave Worcester for Birmingham until 3:00 p.m. We had planned to dedicate the first half of the day to go out into the countryside to visit the village of Martley, where partner’s and Cousin Sheila’s great-great-grandfather was christened a couple hundred years ago. Our Worcester taxi driver knew the area well and took us straight up a little hill to St Peter’s church. Oh, what a lovely place!

St. Peter’s is a rock-solid 12th – 14th century Norman church, a no-nonsense big square tower, no shilly-shallying around with useless decoration. All in orangeish-red sandstone. On a gentle slope on the side of the church is the cemetery, looking down a little valley. A big Celtic cross marks one grave. Goodness, we are in the middle of Miss Marple country.

We entered the church. On the opposite wall is painted a quotation from Betjeman:
“Martley … should be seen when the blossom is clothing all the hills and filling the valleys with its beauty; there is nothing in England to compare with West Worcestershire in the spring. If we were really civilized all folk would leave their work and come and see it and thank God for so much beauty, and Martley church would be a good spot in which to do so.”

At the west end of the nave is the font where we thought the ancestor was baptized in 1806. But we were mistaken. From St. Peter’s very detailed web site: “The font is dated 1875: a Norman one originally stood there but this was removed as it was damaged (possibly by Cromwell’s soldiers, who stabled their horses in the church in 1651 and broke other items – maybe the bells and clock too).” So, no…perhaps it was the old Norman font where he was baptized? Maybe, if in fact it had not been destroyed by Cromwell’s folks. In any case, there was the spot.

There is a tall, narrow arched doorway in the north nave wall, perhaps Norman (there are a lot of “perhapses” and “maybes” here because of the many alterations this little church has endured). One of the congregation entered as we were visiting to arrange some things. She told us that this doorway was very tall because knights would ride their horses into the church for a blessing.

The church was restored in 1909, in the sense that the walls were stripped of their paint in order to reveal some very old, pre-Reformation paintings: a Crucifixion scene, portraits of a lord and lady, geometric designs over several sections of the nave. In 1829 a pre-Reformation sacring bell ( = a sanctus bell, to be rung when the host was consecrated at Catholic Mass) was discovered.

We left this wonderful little church and walked up the lane on the west side of the church. We had been told by the woman in the church that the unofficial historian of the place lived just up the lane, but alas he was not home. I photographed the sign with the names and email addresses of the church officials for future reference. Across the main road intersecting this lane was a guest house, The Chandlery. I rang the bell. No one in at the moment. Took a picture of the sign with the phone number for future reference.

On the lane was a marker for a walking path into the countryside, all around the village. Some ideas were forming in my mind for a future visit: Stay a couple of nights in Martley, go to a church service, take long walks, go down to the pub for a meat pie and ale (there is only one pub, The Crown). It sounds like a plan.

Time to go. Our patient taxi driver returned us to Worcester, pointing out different things as we rode through the countryside, showing us the turnoff for Elgar’s home and museum. Next time.

In Worcester we had a little extra time before catching the mid-afternoon train so we wandered around, went into St. Richards Hospice Store, which sells good-quality second hand books, CDs, and clothing and donates the proceeds to charity. We had fun picking out some scarves for friends back home, then went upstairs to the store’s café, Snowdrops. Had good salads, sandwiches, and tea. Here is where I encountered the quiz phrase “please release the shoot bolt” on the exit door leading to the rooftop terrace.

We picked up our bags at the Premier Inn, crossed the bridge over the Severn, said goodbye to the swans, waved goodbye to the cathedral in the distance, and had an easy walk to the train station. We said a painful goodbye to Cousin Sheila, who was catching a different train to a different Birmingham station. Then we caught our train, arrived at Birmingham International station, to be greeted by Cousin Kevin, who drove us to our B&B in Coleshill (now a suburb of Birmingham, but a separate, thriving coach-stop town in the middle ages; more on this below).

LCBoniti

Loving this - our trips almost coincided time-wise, although I was primarily in London. I hope to do a trip report soon but am enjoying yours in the meantime.

EYWandBTV

Wednesday November 12, continued
COLESHILL / BIRMINGHAM
Kevin dropped us off at our B&B, Springfield House, a 200-year-old farmhouse, a very good place run by Louise and John. This is only 10 minutes from Birmingham International train station and the airport. We got settled and then walked up the main street of the town (now part of greater Birmingham) to meet up with Phillipa and Kevin at the Coleshill Hotel bar for a pint. This hotel and several other buildings along the main street are several hundred years old and were built during Coleshill’s boom years as a coach stop.

Then on to a traditional Brum dinner…..a BALTI at the world famous Balti Cottage! If you are a strange foreigner such as myself, you may not know what in the world this is. Well, as far as I can understand, many years ago some enterprising south Asian restaurateurs in Birmingham adapted their region’s cuisine to meet the needs of Birmingham partiers in the wee hours of the morning and voila, the balti was born. So it’s an adaptation of an old cuisine to a new culture, in the same way that the States took part of Mexican cuisine and morphed it into Tex-Mex, which you would never find in, say, Oaxaca or Puebla. It’s all good.

Our restaurant hosts were a charming Bangladeshi family. Our dinners: naan, pappadum, mushroom puri, chicken tikka baltis all around, other treats. Delicious! Long live the balti.

Next: a final pint of the evening at the not-so-famous Green Man pub, a very old and very un-fancy pub. Again, in an old building, several small rooms, a central bar. When I went into the little bar room to get our pints, several of the old regulars fixed me with a stony gaze. Was it something I said? Anti-American sentiments? Perhaps you’re not supposed to walk up to the bar to get your pint? No, none of these, said Phillipa when I rejoined our group in the next room. It’s just that they’ve probably never ever seen an American come into this bar, she said.

Pints finished, we said goodbye to Kevin and Phillipa. We shall see them when they come to visit us in Vermont next August. Back to Springfield House to get ready for our trip the next morning to the Very Big City to the south.

annhig

Our restaurant hosts were a charming Bangladeshi family. >>

you may not be aware of this but virtually all "indian" restaurants in the UK, save the specialist ones along Tooting High Street and the odd posh one in city centres, are run by Bangladeshis; not only that, the staff nearly all come from the same city in Bangladesh. Strange but true.

<<No, none of these, said Phillipa when I rejoined our group in the next room. It’s just that they’ve probably never ever seen an American come into this bar, she said.>>

we call it the two head syndrome - i.e. they are looking at us as if we have.... Once in Prague we wandered into a locals' bar which had a bust of Stalin at one end of the room and a picture of Vclav Havel at the other - they were clearly hedging their bets - but they obviously didn't get many foreign trade, passing or otherwise.

EYWandBTV

Thursday - Sunday November 13 - 16
LONDON
After an excellent English brekkie by Louise at Springfield House, we caught the train to London. Are we country mice ready for this? We stepped out of Waterloo station and began walking the block to our Premier Inn. Suddenly the Eye loomed ahead, Big Ben and Parliament across the Thames, and we are feeling sucked into London’s immense buzzing energy vortex. From Martley to this, gulp. I had not been in London since 1975!

A quick roundup of our days London:

--The Eye: I thought it looked cheap and cheezy from photographs but it was striking and beautiful in reality, illuminated at night in bright blue light, and enormous. We took a ride. I had a vertigo attack at the top, still worth it. At night, all of central London sparkled below, Big Ben looked about one-half inch high.

--Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum: fascinating to see how and where the center of British government operated in the darkest days of the war; even after the structural reinforcements ordered by Churchill in late 1939 the underground offices were still terribly vulnerable to a direct bomb hit.

--“The Lion King” at the Lyceum: splendid; the giraffes win my prize for best animals.

--St. Martin in the Fields: half the churches in New England look like small imitations of this beautiful, elegant church; the inside fairly glows, full of light.

--Tate Britain → then a boat ride to the → Tate Modern; the prize for me was Hockney’s “Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy”; the viewer is fixed by the gazes of the two humans in the picture, while Percy the cat looks out the central window. Genius.

--National Gallery: what is there to say? Two Michelangelo’s, Leonardo’s cartoon for the Virgin and Saint Anne, armloads of Botticellis, Bellinis, and luminous Vermeers.

--Westminster Abbey: we had an excellent guide for our verger tour, which we had reserved two days in advance. Although there were still a few empty slots for the tour when we arrived, I think that reservations must be essential during the summer. Highlight: Elizabeth I’s tomb, her statue’s face modeled on her death mask. What a thrill to look at the face of Elizabeth I. And Henry VII’s Lady Chapel—beyond description.

--Lunches, dinners: facing the dollar-pound exchange rate and given London’s prices, we shifted gears and ate simply, with small splurges here and there. Cocktails at Rules in Covent Garden, lunches at the crypt cafes of St. Martin in the Fields, the Cabinet War Rooms, and the Westminster Cathedral (this is the Catholic cathedral, not Westminister Abbey); dinners at St. Stephens Tavern (just across from Big Ben, nary a tourist in sight, mainly office workers downing a few pints before heading home), San Carlo Cicchetti on Wellington (this is a chain, quite good), and a humble Indian (Bangladeshi?) restaurant where we had succulent tandoori butter chicken.

CONCLUSION

We headed home Sunday, November 16, a painless exit through Heathrow, then to Chicago and transfer back to Burlington.

Observations: we felt we had some brief exposure to a wide variety of places, from small village to palace to megalopolis. We had visited the north of England a few years before (York, Durham) and Scotland (Pittenweem, St. Andrews, Edinburgh) but we had not visited the south of England for a long time. The places we visited this time seemed to us a very appealing blend of deep history and youthful dynamism. Yes, the country is going through debates on the big questions—where do we want our society to go, who are we exactly, how do we relate to the bigger world (Brussels and all that)—but it seems to have a dynamism that we did not sense during our visits to Italy and France in the last few years. All this for what it’s worth, humbly submitted.

Now to start planning next year’s trip!

annhig

Thank you, EYWandBTV, for your observations and comments about the UK - it's always interesting to look at ourselves through others' eyes, especially those as observant as yours.

for what it's worth, on my last visit to London about 6 months ago i too was struck by its vibrancy but i'm not sure that it is any more vibrant than, say, Paris or Rome.

and there are far more people, and cars, than there are back here in Cornwall, for which I am thankful!

bilboburgler

"you may not be aware of this but virtually all "indian" restaurants in the UK, save the specialist ones along Tooting High Street and the odd posh one in city centres, are run by Bangladeshis; not only that, the staff nearly all come from the same city in Bangladesh. Strange but true."

Better not let all the Kashmiris in Bradford hear you say that Ann

LCBoniti

Loved your trip report - thank you so much for sharing.