Castles and Cathedrals

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Tuesday 3rd June

The first thing we decided to do was double back to Canterbury as we had intended doing the town and Cathedral yesterday but were thwarted by the incompetent car rental company.

Many towns in England have attempted to alleviate congestion in their city centre's by instigating a "Park and Ride" system where you park on the outskirts of the city and catch a frequently running bus to reach the city centre. The cost of parking automatically covers any number of bus trips. The only important thing to remember was which parking lot and bus (identified by both a colour and a number) to catch.

We didn't have time to explore the city as we would've liked, but had to move straight to the cathedral. Our timing was excellent as we arrived shortly before a guided tour was due to set off. So we booked in and had a bit of a look around prior to the tour. Canterbury is another ancient building undergoing repairs.

Our guide, Maureen started off the tour by talking about the cathedral from outside and distinguishing where the original smaller church had been built. She then, in sequence, detailed the numerous embellishments and extensions that had been added.

We then toured around the interior of the cathedral. She explained that this cathedral exhibited three different types of gothic architecture; Early English Perpendicular and Decorative; and showed us examples of each.

We then went out and admired the roofing, the stained glass and the other general architectural features of the cloisters. She also showed us where Jack Blaxland, had traced his foot and signed the result in wet cement while a "naughty" King's schoolboy at Canterbury. Jack later emigrated to Australia together with his more famous brother, Gregory who was one of the first group of three to cross the Blue Mountains in NSW, saving the fledging colony of Sydney from starvation, She also stressed other Australian connections with Canterbury for our benefit which included church paraphernalia created by Australian artisans, and memorials to important people (such as William Grant Broughton - fist Bishop of Australia, Edward Parry - Bishop of Dover, etc.) who were born or died in Australia,

One of history's most famous murders, that of Sir Thomas Becket, took place at Canterbury, so, in the words of an American tourist she had guided earlier, Maureen ”showed us where Thomas Becket, was shot." Becket was assassinated by four knights and there is a very clever modern memorial on the wall at the place of his murder. Have a good look at the picture of the sculpture on this blog. Can you see the four swords? (See end of this entry if you are still puzzled.)

Maureen also relayed a story about another time she was guiding when she was asked "How many Archbishops of Canterbury had been assassinated while in office?'. When Maureen answered five, the American lady replied "Not much job security there!".

Having enjoyed seeing the cathedral, we headed for St. Margaret's Bay (also on yesterday's ruined itinerary). Owen had requested seeing the "white cliffs" and the web had suggested this as one of the better places to see them (it was probably unnecessary, as they were very visible above the actual town of Dover). The road down to the parking area at St. Margaret's beach was very windy (it had a sign "Road not suitable for coaches". A coach would have had no chance of negotiating the hairpin turns on the narrow road, indeed we were very worried that "The Whale", wouldn't make it either. The slow trip was worth the effort as we were rewarded with some fine views of the cliffs.

From here we went to Dover Castle. As we gained height the bay below became less and less distinct as a sea fog rolled in and obscured both the nearby countryside and the bay below. In addition to the Dover Castle itself there is a system of secret tunnels underneath the castle. These were used by the military and were "top secret" until they were declassified a few years ago.

Marion explored the castle itself, while Owen and I went on a tour of the secret war tunnels.

To get to the start of the tunnel tour involved walking down a steeply inclined tunnel which was lined with speakers playing old World War 2 songs ("Roll Out The Barrel", "White Cliffs of Dover", etc). Owen and I ended up being the only people on the tour, but unfortunately we had an "L" plate guide who found it harder dealing with a small group, rather than a large group. The tour is quite clever and involves a lot of audio-visual effects.

We learnt that the original tunnel was built in medieval times after the French, in 1216, almost overran the citadel by digging, undermining and thus causing the collapse of one of the castle's main gates. This gate was permanently sealed and defences constructed further out, but these required a tunnel to allow the troops to reinforce vulnerable parts of the ramparts. In the 18th century the threat of Napoleon attacking Britain resulted in many soldiers being stationed at Dover. The castle and town were unable to accommodate the many thousands posted there, so caverns were excavated as barracks for these troops.

In 1940 the tunnels were used by Vice-Admiral Ramsay to conduct, control and monitor Operation Dynamo. More often referred to as the "Dunkirk Miracle", this was the evacuation of around 287,000 Allied troops trapped by the Nazis. We were shown a newsreel and another film and given some further information about this from our guide.

In 1941 the military extended the tunnels.

One new section of the tunnels was used as a makeshift hospital; surgeons operating on rescued seaman and pilots who, once stabilized, were transported to safer areas beyond the range of the German bombers. On the tour we were walked through the path an incapacitated soldier would take on arriving at Dover. This was accompanied by conversations (from loudspeakers) of the people involved and (in a couple of places) film of participants moving about. The tunnels contained period furnishings, including, what would bow be considered crude, medical facilities.

Other new tunnels were built to house the General Post Office which was in charge of all land communications including the vital telephone and teleprinter sections. We were shown rooms full of battery charging equipment and others where a large number of WAFs manned telephone exchanges.

Finally a third section of the new tunnels was used as a Combined Headquarters complex to help co-ordinate the British Defences and eventually the D-Day assault. We were shown through a number of the rooms were enemy and allied movements were plotted and recorded.

In the cold war the tunnels were redesigned to be a "bomb shelter", one of ten locations around England to be a Regional Seat of Government.

After the cold war it was revealed that Dover was one of the Russian's prime targets in England, and the tunnels would've collapsed if an atomic bomb has landed anywhere nearby.

As I said, the tour was informative and well-scripted, the audio-visual sections were well-designed, the old furnishings gave the tunnels atmosphere, but the guide's lack of confidence made it much less interactive that it should've been.

While Brian and Owen were touring the tunnels, Marion wandered around - above ground - and watched a short introductory video of sights to see at the castle after which she visited the stronghold to view the preparations for a visit by King Henry VIII in 1539. This was a different way of presenting a castle and was designed to be educational for school parties with hands on activities. Marion was interested to see an inventory and listing of expenses for various tradesman. She wondered how many were actually paid?

One of the highlights was a visit to Thomas Becket's chapel at the castle which was for the use of the king and dated back to 1188. It was a small chapel and has changed very little since its use by Henry. The chapel was quite simple with some lovely stonework.

In the grounds of Dover Castle is St Mary in Catro Church, dating from 1000AD and thought to be on the site of an earlier Saxon chapel. The church has had a number of architectural changes over the years, as well as different uses. It ceased being used for worship in 1690 and was used for cooperage, as a storehouse and then as a coal store until finally being rescued and restored in 1860. Today the church is once more used for worship by the Dover Garrison.

The Church has some fine stained glass windows and Marion particularly liked seeing the embroidered kneelers with regimental insignia.

Time Team enthusiasts might be interested to know that we observed some archaeologists doing a geophysical survey of the grounds at Dover. They didn't give away any secrets and we had to be content with just watching what appeared to be a very tedious task with the sea fog rolling in around them.

Re-grouping at the car park we began the longish drive to Salisbury. It was straight down the motorway. We had only just started the journey when we came across a horrific accident on the "to Dover" side of the median strip; the remnants of a car were being extracted from under the back of a truck. I suspect it must've been a fatality, I can't see how it could've been anything else, and all traffic on the other side of the motorway was being diverted away from the accident miles further down the road.

After a lengthy run along the motorway we headed down a major A road toward our B & B at Little Langford. As we crested a hill, Salisbury plain was spread before us with Stonehenge dead ahead. It was after visiting hours but we just headed down the minor road that led to the parking area and had a quick look over the fence. The main change from 23 years ago was that the road has been moved so that the heelstone (a more distant "sighting" stone) was now on the same side of the road as the rest of the monument.

We left the Stonehenge parking area and headed for Little Langford, where Marion and I had stayed for two nights on our honeymoon over 20 years ago. The proprietor then was Patricia (along with her husband Nick), but she was better known by the nickname "Topsy" and was still running the bed and breakfast.

Both Topsy and her beautiful house had changed little in the interim.

A minor disaster had occurred, however. To lighten the load and make the logistics easier, Topsy had kindly allowed us to post her some mail earlier in the trip. Somehow the paper envelope had got ripped in the Post. Our map book of England had arrived but the plastic folder containing the rest of our English itinerary, some additional info on particular sights in England, and notes and maps pertaining to Tallinn that Marion had garnered from her mother's documents were nowhere to be seen.

Although Vista had kindly corrupted half of our Britain documents on the storage device we have been carrying, I have earlier versions that are still OK outlining three-quarters of our time in the UK. The extra info on England, and the data and maps of Tallinn are unrecoverable, even when we get home.


We had a very nice dinner at one of the local pubs and retired after a very long and quite tiring day.
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Four Swords in sculpture: Two of the four swords are actually part of the sculpture, the other two are represented by the shadows these cast on the wall.

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Photos

Canterbruy Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral, the death place of Thomas a Becket, seen from outside.

Spire
A view up into Canterbury Cathedral's central spire.

Canterbury Cathedral
Part of Canterbury Cathedral's impressive ceiling. This is in the decorative gothic style.

Monument
This is the sculpture to Thomas Becket, at the place where he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. Can you see four swords?

White Cliffs
The impressive white chalk cliffs, seen from St Margaret's Bay.

Dover Castle
Dover Castle, seen in all its fortified glory.

View
The view out over Dover from the castle. Note the sea mist!

Tunnel
One of the tunnels around Dover Castle (not one of the secret war tunnels - no photos were allowed).

Chapel
Thomas Becket's Chapel, inside Dover Castle.

Kneelers
The kneelers in St Mary in Catro Church - every one is different!

Dover Castle
The area inside the walls of the Dover Castle.

Stonehenge
Our first view of Stonehenge!