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Pulteney Bridge
The first well-known landmark we saw from the Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour in Bath.Thursday 5th June
Bath is one of the many cities in England that is sited on the River Avon. Indeed, it is the second such city we have visited, since yesterday we visited Salisbury which was also sited on the River Avon; even though it is not the same river.
England is criss-crossed by a large number of rivers named Avon. This comes about because the ancient Romans named all their rivers, so they had assumed that the Britons did likewise. So whenever they met some Britons they would point to the nearest watercourse and ask its name. The Britons nearly always answered "Avon". It was sometime before the Romans twigged to the fact that "Avon" was the Briton word for river, as opposed to a name. Hence, England has a plethora of rivers named Avon.
Although overcast, the day was fine, so we started the day with a hop-on, hop-off bus tour.
Bath is quite a pretty city with many houses of a soft cream colour. The first
well-known landmark we saw was the Pulteney Bridge. This was built in 1770 and was inspired by the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Like the Ponte Vecchio the bridge
Crescent
One of the crescents Bath is so famous for. is an enclosed structure supporting a broad street and small shops on each side. It is quite a pretty sight when one looks down the Avon as there is also a small slipway waterfall before it.
Bath is also famous for its beautiful crescents, semi-circles of connected multi-story buildings. As well as the Lansdown and Camden Crescents, we also saw the glorious Royal Crescent. The Royal Crescent was the first terrace of its kind and faces a huge open lawn in its centre.
Many of the buildings were decorated with curlicues and gargoyles of various types. Owen was particularly taken with a gargoyle which was the head of a grizzly bear, complete with a salmon in its mouth.
The circuit of the town finished outside Bath Abbey beside the Roman Baths (which give the city its name).
Inside Bath Abbey the organ-master was testing the functioning of the entire organ, so our visit was tempered with some teeth-rattling bass notes and some high notes that were painful to hear. In spite of this distraction we enjoyed seeing the Abbey's magnificent stained-glass windows as well as the intricate carvings. I liked the carvings of the "orchestra" of
Bath Abbey
The beautiful Bath Abbey, next to the Roman Baths. angels on the choir screens as well as the weird creatures carved into the arms at the ends of the choir stalls.
We moved on to the Roman Baths which had been a disappointment to me 23 years ago, and i had the same reaction again. The problem I have is that almost all the baths are fake, all that really remains is the plumbing, which is a stupendous achievement. (I'd like to see a modern day tradesmen give a 2000 year guarantee!) I am still dumb-struck at the longevity of the spring and the workmanship that allows the complex to continue to function.
My objection to the site is the fake modern walls that have been built around the pool, topped by fake modern statues. Downstairs anything Roman has been jumbled together, altars, mosaics, statues, anything Roman from anywhere in England seems to have been conveyed here as part of the exhibit. To make things, to me at least, even worse they now shine pictures of bathers preparing for their bath and splashing sounds around the cold quench pool. Seems a touch cheesy and unnecessary to me; don't people have an imagination nowadays?
Leaving the world's
Bath Abbey Ceiling
The beautiful ceiling of Bath Abbey. best plumbing job behind we headed off towards some other stone-age sites in the Avebury area.
We pulled off at a rest stop along the way to find a "snack food" stall set -up there. It was obviously a near permanent installation as a number of truckies pulled up to grab a bite, along with another chap who worked out of home but came down here each day to buy his lunch. The lady running the stall was basically offering sausages, rissoles, onions, eggs and most of the other hamburger-type ingredients on either a bun or a baguette. I groaned and asked for my snag and onions on a bun saying we had had enough of baguettes in France.
She laughed and said, "These aren't French baguettes, they contain real bread."
They were what I would call a hot-dog roll. Rolled and baguetted we headed on our way.
On the way to Avebury we passed a second hillside horse carving, the Churhill White Horse.
Nearer to the town we saw Silbury Hill appear on our right. Silbury Hill is one of the most mysterious ancient stone-age constructs in Britain. It is a huge man-made pile
Baths
One of the famous Roman Baths. of earth about 39.5m high. It is estimated that Silbury Hill was begun around 2660BC, it covers an area of about 2.2ha (5.5 acres), and consists of 350,000 cubic metres of chalk and soil quarried with simple stone, bone, antler and wooden tools. Esimations are that using this equipment it would've taken 18 million man-hours to build the hill, that is to say it would've taken 700 men 10 years of unbroken work.
When it was recognised as a stone-age site (the local Roman road heads straight for the hill, but skirts around its base) it was expected to be some sort of massive burial mound, similar to the smaller round barrows that are scattered across the Salisbury Plain. However numerous excavations by archaeologists have revealed nothing beyond the method of its construction. Why it was built remains a major mystery.
It was only a 5 minute drive to continue the rest of the way to the Avebury stone circle. In construction it is far more extensive than its better known brother, Stonehenge. Unlike the Stonehenge site, there are no horizontal lintel stones balanced on two uprights. There also appears to have been little carving of the stones;
Silbury Hill
The massive Silbury Hill. The blue dot on the side of the hill is a person, wearing a blue top. Avebury's magic is the extent of its construction, including the largest Stone Circle in Britain.
Like most of the other stone-age sites it is circled by a henge (which can loosely be translated as flat circular area ringed by a ditch and bank. At Avebury the ditch and bank surround an area of 11.5ha (28.5 acres) and are 1.3km (0.8 mile) in length. The size of the earthworks when first built was enormous, the deepest point of the ditch being 9m down, while the highest point of the bank was 6.7m; a span of 15m (50ft) which would've been dazzling (literally) in its original white chalk state. Although somewhat eroded over 4000 years they are still breathtaking in scale. Within the henge were three circles of stones, an outer circle of 98 huge stones (weighing up to 20 tonnes) and two smaller non-concentric circles of 29 and 27 smaller stones. Within the southern of these, an unknown number of stones were placed in an indefinite configuration (the position of 12 can be ascertained).
Leading away from the henge to the West there used to be an avenue of more upright pairs of stones following a winding course of
Churhill White Horse
The Churhill White Horse. 2.3km (1.5m) connecting Avebury to another prehistoric site called The Sanctuary.
The prehistoric site is bisected along by high street (which runs east to west), the main street of the village of Avebury; the centre of which is not far from the centre of the circle. Two other roads run through the circle allowing access to High Street from both the North and the South. During the mid 1600's most of the circle was destroyed. Many of the stones were simply rolled into the ditch, others were broken into many pieces The breaking of the stones was effected by lighting large straw fires around the stones and then pouring cold water on them, causing the heated rock to crack into many pieces.
What can be seen at Avebury today is very much due to the efforts of Alexander Keller. In the 1930s he purchased the site and located and repositioned as many stones as possible. It was during this restoration work that a medieval skeleton was found crushed under one of the toppled stones. The accident has been carbon dated to some time around 1310-1320 AD. The skeleton had a purse containing scissors and coins. This stone is
Avebury Sign
A sign on a fence leading into the stone circle of Avebury. now commonly referred to as the Barber-Surgeon stone because of the possible profession of the man it killed.
We begun our expalanation of the site in the SW sector which has a large number of stones from the outer circle still standing. The land is still under use and all areas of the circle had sheep grazing.
We then crossed one of the roads and had a look at the SE sector where few of the large stones still stand, but there are a number that were part of the smaller circles and the bank and ditch is least eroded. Being human we climbed up the bank and surveyed the countryside.
To finish we were going to have a look at the NW sector where about 16 large stones are still standing (including the Barber-Surgeon stone). The NW sector was not visible from the part we had explored as there is an intervening hotel and house that comprise the town.
When we finally arrived we found the sector full of people. They had ringed the poor old Barber-Surgeon with two rolled sheets and then connected these with a colourful scarf. The majority of the group (including
Naughty Sheep!
Naughty Sheep! He didn't read the sign! children) were sitting in a circle away from the stones. Others interacted in an attempt to commune/communicate/gain psychic energy from various stones. These interactions included the following: Standing stock still and staring fixedly at your subject stone,
doing Tai-Chi in front of the stone,
standing on the bank and waving a very long scarf around,
rolling down the bank towards the stone in slow motion,
dancing around the stone waving a short scarf at it,
shaking rattles (maraca type, not infant type) at the stone intermittently,
putting your forehead up against the stone and remaining in a rigid position, etc.
It should be noted that not all of these were directed towards the same stone.
It really is amazing how some people can waste their time; hopefully they were keeping the sheep amused!
We had been hoping to stop by and have a look at the Uffington White horse, the only horse hill carving that was created in prehistoric times, but we had to forgo that as the day was growing late and we needed to swap "The Whale" over for a car in Oxford before the dealership shut up shop for the day.
After unloading the
Avebury
Some of the large stones at Avebury. luggage from "The Whale" at the B & B we were staying at in Oxford, we went off in search of the rental dealership. We had been given a street name and a house name in Oxford but no number, and we found the street with little difficultly. Having got to the far end of the street, but not having found the car renters, we called our original contact in Slough. He could shed no further light on the address so put us on hold while he talked to the Oxford branch, then switched us through to the Oxford branch who told us they were opposite the mosque (just as we drew up alongside the mosque).
Driving around to the car yard we were fairly off-handedly directed to park the car in a relatively awkward spot. Having had quite enough, Marion abandoned it in the middle of the yard. Again we were dealt with in a very cold, unhelpful manner and the lady dealing with us had to double-check with Slough that the petrol tank not being full was OK.
Eventually we were shown to our new replacement vehicle, a black Volvo station wagon. The lady handing over
Avebury
"I surrender, O Rock! Take me to your leader!" the car suggested we inspect it for any bumps. scratches, scrapes,etc. We could find no fault with the body work but marks and wear in the internal furnishings in the boot and rear seat.
Thankfully the Volvo was much quieter than "The Whale" and Marion reported that it also handled much better.
The proprietor of the B&B was a very tiny Indian lady who suggested a local Indian restaurant (possibly owned by her son, nephew or cousin) as a good spot to have dinner. We didn't mind as the restaurant offered one of our favourite hard-to-find Southern Indian specialties: Dosai. Dosai are very thin crepe-like lentil pancakes that can be stuffed with all sorts of wonderful fillings. Owen and Marion chose Potato Dosai, while I chose chicken. They were delicious as usual, but not quite up to Aussie Indian standards.
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