Roaming the Ancient Sites and Old Villages of England and Scotland

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Come hither in my footsteps . . . Part 1

My trip to England and Scotland was by far the most extraordinary six weeks of my life. Daydreaming about my trip immediately puts me in a state of bliss. It exceeded my expectations exponentially; what I experienced in each of the six weeks would have satisfied my expectations of the entire trip. There were no disasters, no dangers, and no disappointments. However, I was a bit anxious when I first started driving. The first few days I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to manage on my own. But after a good week of practice with the excellent support of my friend Clive, I took off on my own, and after the first day I had my confidence and all went well, i.e., I didn’t hit anything and only got lost five or six times.

A note about the photos

There are over 80 photos that go with this narrative, too many to include in this blog. If anyone is interested in photos of things mentioned herein, contact me at [e-mail]. All of the photos were taken by me, except for the aerial shots and one vintage photo. On my trip I was not thinking of making this booklet, and coupled with my excitement and two broken cameras, I did not take snapshots consistently, so I don’t have a photo for every place mentioned. I do have shots of everything on the video.

Chapter 1—London

My arrival in London found me in a blissful daze. Combine the factors of fatigue, being in legendary London when I have barely left the perimeter of the U.S. in my whole life, a barrage of new information (sensory overload!), the WOW factor of seeing one incredible thing after another, and trying to find my way around this strange, huge city where street signs are an occasional afterthought, and you can imagine I was lucky just to be able to get back to my hotel each day.
In fact, finding my hotel after getting off the underground from the airport was a much bigger challenge than I had imagined. The website where I had booked the hotel provided a map, and it was only a few blocks from the underground station, so I planned to walk. What could go wrong? Well, for one thing, the map had me get off at one train stop after the one I should have, putting me six blocks away instead of one block. But I was happy to walk a little extra; after all, I was in London! It was drizzling lightly, but I hardly minded—until I got to the first intersection and noticed there were no street signs! So I tried just counting the blocks and noting the rights and lefts. This got me hopelessly lost. Then a sweet young lad named Lawrence saw my damp, befuddled, wandering person and helped me find the Albany, as the map I had was useless. I’m sure I looked pathetic standing in the drizzle searching desperately for a street sign with my 65 lb. suitcase and two other bags, my damp map drooping from my hand. He waited while I checked in (the desk clerk couldn’t find my reservation at first!) then hauled my suitcase up two long flights of stairs to my little room. Only the new hotels have elevators.
The Albany, on Barkston Gardens, is a “no star” budget hotel, really basic, but clean and safe in a very nice little neighborhood (Earl’s Court near South Kensington) and near the Underground station. The four people who worked at the hotel were from Germany, Croatia, Indonesia, and South Africa. It was more of a hostel, actually, that used to be a hotel years ago. It cost only about $30 a night, which for London is dirt cheap. But I had to learn a special way to flush the toilet, and I had to rent my towels. I would find, as I made my way around England, the widest variety of toilets and water closets I have ever seen. At least I had my own bathroom.
The London bus system was not at all logical to me. You can’t get on a bus, ride around, and end up where you got on. Of course there is a lot of walking involved. You have a map and an address, so you think you’ll be able to get where you’re going, but you soon learn you are sadly mistaken. Most streets are not marked at the intersections like ours are. When there are street signs, they are located on buildings. You learn where to look for them, but I found it very difficult to get around at first. The Underground is very good, but it takes some time to get oriented and know where to get on and off.
London is beyond description. It is very international and there are foreigners everywhere. The architecture is as varied as you can imagine, one extraordinary building after another, the very old alongside the new. There’s a huge pickle-shaped glass skyscraper that locals call “the gherkin” and London city hall, a stack of disks, each one cantilevered off the one below it; the locals call this one “the leaning tower of pizzas.” The Big Red Bus tour of the central area, which includes a short boat ride down the Thames between the Tower of London and Parliament Square/Big Ben, was gasp after gasp of astonishing sights. Fantastic bridges, huge ornate buildings, the Millennium Wheel, the Tower of London—so much to see my eyes couldn’t keep up. I should have found this bus the first day (which was my original plan) as it takes you around to all the best places right away. Ah, next time.
My favorite little cafe/deli down the street from the Albany was Benkito’s. It sounds Japanese, but it had Greek, Italian, and French food in the window, was owned by a Greek, the man behind the counter was Israeli (a Bulgarian woman the next day), and my waitress was Mexican. The food and coffee were superb. With couches and overstuffed chairs, it was like going to someone’s house. The bathrooms are usually upstairs in these little restaurants, and they let anyone who asks use them. I tramped up to the third floor to the loo with my video camera in hand. These old buildings are marvelous: narrow stairways, old pictures on the walls; this one had old movie stars, the Beatles (yes!), and the owner’s family members. I passed the kitchen on the second floor and offered my kudos to the cooks,  I had no idea what nationality they were. The bathroom had an old-fashioned water closet with water that rushed into the bowl like a dam had burst.
I spent some time in the theater district; Piccadilly circus is a really fun place to hang out; I saw Le Miserables and The Lion King. Both spectacular!  One observation I would make after leaving London is that in some places it can be hard to find any Brits at all! And maybe it was just the neighborhood I was in, but I only found one tea room in London; the chef was French, and the pastry was spectacular.
I took a bus out to Westminster, St. John’s Wood, and found Abbey Road, a delightful neighborhood. I was looking for the famous crosswalk on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover, determined to walk barefoot across it, right in the lads’ footsteps. And this I did, but not before three attempts to locate the right one (it is not marked in any way) by talking to locals. Folks directed me back and forth between two crosswalks; there seemed to be confusion even among residents (they wouldn’t have done this on purpose, would they?). One look at the album cover can confirm the correct one, however, and some other zany kids doing the same thing took my picture with my camera. I hit the Abbey Road cafe afterwards for souvenirs.
I made a brief trip to the British museum seeing the Egyptian and prehistoric exhibits, but I had limited time and energy and found the museum rather sterile, so I didn’t linger there long. I would have liked to peek in at the Victoria and Albert museum but just didn’t have the time. I did ride past it on the bus, and it is a spectacular Victorian building. And I realized later on, after visiting ancient sites in situ (left where they were discovered) that artifacts in museums were of less interest to me, except for the little museums near the ancient sites that displayed the artifacts found at those sites
London is full of amazing things, and it had my head spinning. Some day I’d like to come back to take in everything I missed. But, after four days, I was in such a state of over-stimulation and exhaustion, I looked forward to getting out into the English countryside, and I was anxious to get to the ancient sites. I still had no idea what fantastic things awaited me.

Chapter 2—Salisbury, Clive, and Toby

I took the Underground to Waterloo station to catch the train to Salisbury, hauling my suitcase up stairs and escalators and walking for blocks in tunnels. I did something to my hip on the way, as it was beginning to hurt, and by the time I got to Salisbury I was limping seriously. I was really concerned since I was just at the beginning of my trip, but fortunately it went away in a few days.
I was met at the train station by Clive and his adorable dog Toby, who immediately ensconced himself on my lap. I had gotten a few letters and brochures from Clive and talked to him on the phone a couple of times before I went to England, but we had never met. A friend of a friend had put me in touch with him because he lived near Salisbury where I was going to pick up my car. We got along splendidly right from the start. Clive is as interested in ancient sites as I am and was anxious to have someone to show around, so he invited me to occupy a spare bedroom at his house and I took him up on it. It was a great chance to get into some real at-home English culture. I found that he was quite a lovely chap, a couple of years younger than me and somewhat disabled with cerebral palsy. But it certainly didn’t seem to impede him much, as he could walk or drive anywhere; stamina-wise we were pretty well matched.
First thing, we stopped for a cream tea and tour of the Salisbury museum, a small museum on the grounds of the cathedral with great Neolithic artifacts found at Stonehenge and other sites on the Salisbury plain. We were the only ones there. Then we picked up my rental car—I will never forget following Clive back to his house (about five miles) that first time. White knuckles. I hit the curb no less than seven times trying to stay as far to the left of that center line as I could with cars and big lorries (trucks) passing very close, going fast.

Learning to Drive
I was only planning on staying 3—4 days at Clive’s initially, thinking he could orient me to driving in England in a couple of days. Ha! It was much more complicated than I thought; it took 10 days of practice before I was ready to go off on my own. It’s more than just driving on the left—the signage is all different and they don’t have road name signs the way we do—you have to learn how to navigate by town and village. Once you get used to how they think and how the signage works and how to use the roundabouts, it was not bad at all. Really. You just have to know what towns are on the way to where you’re going, what towns are beyond where you’re going, and what towns are in the general area, so you’ll know if you take a wrong turn. I stopped to check my map often, but I still got lost a few times and made many wrong turns. When I was able to navigate through cryptic signage, confusing roundabouts (often using visual cues, like where the sun or sea was) and get where I was going, it was an exhilarating victory.
It doesn’t help that the British are maddeningly vague when it comes to giving directions. They often avoid mentioning lefts and rights and N, S, E, and W, instead using phrases like “go along there,” “head off that way.” and “turn off at the crossroads.” Often well-meaning folks will give you wrong or incomplete information. I just got used to asking over and over again.
And it’s a little disconcerting to see arrows painted on the pavement in your lane pointing toward you; these mean it’s time for the opposing traffic that is using your lane to pass to get back over. And then there are signs that say, Oncoming traffic in the middle of the road! “What the hell does that mean?” I asked Clive in a panic. It means there might be lorries too big and going too fast to stay in their lane. Great. Just great. And in towns, folks park right in the road. They just stop the car and pull slightly to the curb thereby creating a one-lane road. But everyone knows the etiquette of taking turns, and everyone knows the “wave” that you give someone who has waited for you. Same thing on one-lane country roads. Kind of fun really. I mean, at first you think it’s really insane, but once you get familiar, you find that in general Brits tend to all be on the same page where driving is concerned. They are more polite and follow the rules and customs more consistently than Americans do, so you see less aggressive and erratic driving.
And the roads are all pristine; I mean all of them, from the motorways to the one-lane country roads. I even saw signs on the motorways giving a phone number to call if you noticed anything wrong with the road surface. Not a pothole from the tip of Cornwall to the Orkney Islands!
Clive graciously helped me learn to drive and took me to all the ancient sites in the area, like Stonehenge, Avebury, and Old Sarum. Old Sarum is a huge hill fort, serving many uses over the millennia, with ruins at the top and a massive ditch all around it. It was there before Stonehenge and has been used by invaders like the Romans and William the Conqueror. It was the residents of Old Sarum that built the town of Salisbury. Edward Rutherford’s novel Sarum gives the history of the whole area from the ice age on. Also good reads: his novels Forest, about the New Forest, and London.

Avebury

Avebury is a complex of huge prehistoric stone circles and a henge (ditch and mound ring, this one 20-30 feet deep) so big there is a tiny village inside it. This is such a wonderful place; the stones are massive, some of them bigger than the Stonehenge sarsens (sarsen is a kind of granite). Sheep graze among the stones. It is quite jarring when big trucks and loud motorcycles come roaring through here with no regard for the nature of the place.
There is a museum and very picturesque pub called the Red Lion with B & B, and some great shops. I bought a Roman casket key, in the shape of a finger ring, at the antique shop that I can wear around my neck. It was worn on the finger or around the neck as a status symbol indicating “I have so much money, I have to keep it in a locked box.” It’s over 2000 years old. A man called Brian of the Stones ran the shop, and his family has lived for generations in the Windmill Hill area, another ancient landscape. He said the old souls were still around; he said some crop circles were real, made by these invisible beings, and they warned of human destruction of the planet. “They’re still here, Colleen, they’re still here,” he said, in the strictest confidence. Some folks still believe in fairies and leprechauns here. Fascinating.

Stonehenge

Seeing Stonehenge was like meeting an old friend, after looking at pictures and reading about it for so long. There are barrow graves all around Stonehenge in the landscape of the Salisbury plain. They look like grassy mounds, usually three or four in a row, and are surrounded by beautiful fields planted with crops of rape (from which canola oil is made) that was blooming bright yellow. We would climb up on to a barrow and gaze upon Stonehenge, imagining it as the center of the ancient communities that have lived on this plain for thousands of years. The barrows were robbed of their contents long ago. Toward sunset, a long line of cattle began slowly ambling toward Stonehenge, apparently following an ancient track called the cursus. This spot was where I first noticed the birdsong; there is constant birdsong in England and Scotland. Literally every time I was outside there was birdsong: meadowlarks, cuckoos (they sound exactly like cuckoo clocks, can you imagine?) and skylarks that sing while they fly.
Dozens of tourist buses come to Stonehenge every day. The people get off, put on the headset, and circumnambulate the stones on the paved path, listening to the recording, sometimes only glancing up at them from time to time, get back on the bus and leave. It’s just another stop on their tour. The day we actually went inside the site, Clive and I lingered on the benches, taking it in from different directions. I had fun in the gift shop too, tourist trap that it is—just had to have some things to bring back.

Corfe Castle

Another day, we drove south to Corfe Castle, a lovely stone village with a castle ruin on the hill above it, which we climbed. Corfe is a classic ruin, with the portcullis (entryway where the spiked gate and hot oil could descend on intruders) and walls with arched windows still standing. Ruined by Cromwell in the civil war 400 years ago, the villagers salvaged some of its stone to build the village below. All buildings in the village to this day must be made of the same gray Purbeck stone from the local quarry. One wishes they did not have to pave the cobbled street and put in a traffic light. Big trucks and loud motorcycles speed through town, just like at Avebury and on the road that passes right next to Stonehenge. I tend to romanticize these places and all the old villages and think the modern world should be kept away from them. But the British tend to take many of their historic sites for granted and really don’t see any reason to keep the modern world at bay or to maintain vistas where nothing modern stains the view. And in many cases it’s just not practical. They have so many historic sites, it would certainly be impossible to do that for all of them. They do preserve some things for the tourist trade, and many people do care about historical preservation and protection.
On the way home we stopped at Shaftsbury, a quaint town set amidst rolling English countryside. There is a famous street there called Gold Hill, which was used in the film Far from the Madding Crowd, based on the Thomas Hardy novel. The street is cobbled and lined with classic cottages, some of them thatched, and it is so steep, there is a railing on the wall next to the sidewalk. The view from here is of the misty rolling downs with an old manor house in the distance. A huge old stone wall, buttressed in many places, retains the hillside at the edge of the street. A solitary schoolboy ambled past us on his way home—this is just where he happens to live.

The New Forest

Clive lives on the edge of the New Forest, an area for centuries owned by the king as his royal hunting grounds, with special protections like grazing and wood-gathering rights for residents to this day. There are numerous thatched cottages and lots of traditional pubs. Ponies, sheep, and donkeys roam free (although they are privately owned) and are protected. Cattle grids are embedded in the roads at the forest border. The lambs had just been born when I arrived, and every meadow was full of them—little tiny ones. So adorable. In fact, I saw meadows full of sheep with newborn lambs everywhere I went. When the lambs are a few weeks old, they start to play together and run in little groups. The English are so used to this they barely take notice.
One day, I spotted a tiny thatched cottage by the side of the road that looked abandoned. Ivy was growing all over it, the thatch was rotting, and it looked like the door hadn’t been opened in years. However, there was a plaque on the old gate that looked fairly new that said “Mark’s Cottage— Beware of Geese.” Hmm. I couldn’t resist poking around, so I went in the gate and started to walk around the cottage. I could see there were flowers, and it looked somewhat tended. I ventured forth until I saw the watch geese. I backed quietly out before they saw me and never found out anything more about the place.
Clive and I visited the remains of the Rockbourne Roman villa, which a farmer discovered in his field. It was fascinating to see the hypocausts (sunken fire chambers) connected to chambers under the floors where the heat flowed to warm the house. Some of the mosaic tile floors were exposed and there was still water in the well.

The Woodfalls pub
Every day we enjoyed one of the local pubs, all dog friendly. Our favorite place, the Woodfalls, had wonderful food; my favorite: the seafood chowder. Food is expensive here and all over Britain; $12 would be about the cheapest pub meal you could get, and you could easily spend $30-$40. But I met lots of friendly people there, all delighted to meet an American (surprise!). No one blamed me for George Bush, but I did get a little teasing about the Governator. When we arrived each evening, Toby would precede us through the door, and everyone knew him and greeted him. We could put our dishes on the floor for him when we were done, and Toby would often be invited over for scraps by his friends. And there was always a water dish down for the doggies. Trapper Frank was one of my favorite characters. He wore a wool jacket and a tweed wool hat and had a deep, scratchy voice with a very thick accent. He didn’t say much but seemed delighted to meet me. Classic country-folk, Frank was— hammered to the gills, too.

The Downton Cuckoo Faire
The Sunday before I headed off toward Dorset the Downton Cuckoo Faire took place in the near village of Downton, a sweet little place with thatched cottages and a stream running through it lined with willow trees. From the bridge you could see this river grass growing at the bottom of the crystal clear water with blades about three feet long being pulled to horizontal by the current. It is not unusual to see a swan or two here. The Cuckoo Faire is a May Day celebration of spring, with a maypole dance, Morris dancers, a calliope, a decked out draft horse, cider vendors (ever had a suicider?) and musicians.
People love to bring their dogs to events like this, and I must have seen 20 different breeds. You know, as think back on seeing so many dogs in England, I don’t think I ever saw any dog droppings. Maybe that’s why dogs are allowed almost everywhere!
There was a group of dancers called the Plank Slappers who did Appalachian clogging in blue checked dresses to Appalachian music. I was learning as I gained more experience of British culture that American culture is an intrinsic part of it. This really surprised me. They learn our history and geography in school. I knew people would know states like California, Florida (a major vacation spot for Brits!) and New York, but in fact they know all of them and their capitols too. Our movies, music, much of our television, and our current affairs are completely integrated into the culture and have been for decades. When you watch the news, there is always news about the US. How many Americans do you know who know the counties of England? Their currency? Their government structure or even the prime minister? (before his alliance with Bush in the Iraq war, which I can tell you, most Brits are not happy about.) I digress; back to the faire.
There were numerous vendors, like the art fairs we have here. I bought some wonderful cheese made with cherries, raisins, and whiskey. But the strangest thing I saw was a vendor selling nougat cakes; I mean nougat in various colors and flavors with fruits and nuts in them the size of bundt cakes! Do they cut a slice like cake and eat it all? Yikes! The Brits do love their sweets. My favorite English sweet? Victoria sponge, a rich yellow cake with a jam and clotted cream filling and a white icing. At a nearby pub they had a pig on a spit and the crowd enjoying beer and country music on a makeshift stage—not unlike home.
I met some of Clive’s roomers and neighbors. Very interesting. Some folks surprised me and some rather comically fit some British stereotypes; all were delightful. One of Clive’s roomers, Tom, seemed a contradiction. He was from east London, used to be a tough alcoholic and had more of a London accent I guess. But now he was a Reike practitioner and talked about healing chakras while he smoked a cigarette. He meditates and painted his room lavender, a healing color. Hmm.
I also learned some quirky British slang from Clive; such things as, “Blimey! These bloody wanker drivers are making me doolally!” Here are some other colorful terms:
Gobsmacker = something surprising or shocking—makes you clap your hand over your mouth (gob).
Spend a penny = having a pee
Bugger roll = toilet paper
Bobblyjog = turkey
Tatties = potatoes
Poofter = gay man
Naf = not cool
Yob = hooligan
And then there’s rhyming slang. It’s complicated and follows no reasoning; you just have to learn each phrase. It’s like a secret code. You say a short phrase, but what it actually means is a phrase that rhymes with that phrase. This is a made up one, but it will give you the idea: hammer and nail = likely to fail. Bizarre. I got the impression it was London street lingo.
I have seen numerous signs that are so different from ours. Some were so cryptic, I never figured out what they meant. But my favorites were the oh-so-polite and tactful ones, like “If you are under 18 please don’t ask to buy alcohol because we will have to refuse.” Or “Please don’t park your car here or we will have to ticket you.” Then there are the animal signs, like “Sheep in the road” or “Nervous horses.”
Television here is more edgy, more like our cable TV, some of it just as bad, too. I mean really, they will say just about anything. A Double Velvet toilet paper commercial used the slogan “love your bum.” The euphemism for bloody ‘ell: blinkin’ ‘eck. They use “brilliant” the way we use “great.” They say “right” instead of “okay.” Way out = exit, and make way = yield. On ramp/off ramp = slip road. Pharmacy = chemist, and ironmonger = hardware store.
Finally, I was ready to head off on my own. I bid a fond farewell to Clive and Toby but not before Clive hung a “new driver” sign in my back window and a big L sticker on my front bumper (indicating “learner”). I do believe it helped other drivers cut me more slack, like when I had to back up on a one-lane, one-way street or couldn’t figure out which way to go or was in the wrong lane of the roundabout. But of course that hardly ever happened.

Chapter 3—Southwest England

My first day went extremely well, I didn’t get lost once. I had to give driving and navigating my most excellent attention. I had done months of research and reading over a period of about six years, so I knew just what parts of England and Scotland I was going to and generally what I wanted to see. My focus was on ancient sites and old villages, and believe me I had to be very disciplined to stay on track, as there are myriad things to see in England; it is like a huge theme park. I generally skipped the formal gardens, manor houses, castles, Roman sites, and museums. If I had stopped at every temptation to lure me off my focus, I wouldn’t have seen all of my top priorities. I did not have accommodation reservations, so was free to pace myself and go where I wished without the stress of being on a tight schedule or preplanned route. But I had to keep moving. I couldn’t linger as long as I would have liked in most spots because I knew I wanted to cover a lot of territory, picking out only my very favorite places to linger. There was no guarantee I would ever be able to come back. As it turned out, I saw the ultimate of what I wanted, so my research paid off in spades.
Armed with my road atlas and regional maps, I drove south toward Dorchester. I stopped at Milton Abbas on the way, a village near an old abbey with a long street lined with white two-story thatched houses all the same. They had been the old village which had long ago been moved away from the Abbey and rebuilt on one main street; then the site of the old village was flooded to make a lake next to the abbey, a large, well . . . abbey-looking place. A gorgeous, ancient copper beech tree was growing on the grounds. This tree has leaves that are a dusty rose color. This one must have been hundreds of years old as the trunk was about six feet thick. Gnarled roots and burls spread out six feet from the trunk.
By now I felt comfortable enough driving to turn on the radio. There are four BBC channels with news, sports, music, and culture. It is commercial free, and as you drive to different areas of Great Britain, it switches to the local BBC channel without you having to change the dial. This is great because you get local news as you move along. Interviews, storytelling, radio plays, news features and special reports guarantee that you are never bored, not that that was even possible for me.
As I drove into Dorchester I saw signs for Maiden Castle, which is an enormous Iron Age earthwork of three rings of ramparts and ditches, each 30 feet deep. I remembered seeing pictures of it but hadn’t remembered where it was, so this was a nice surprise, and I turned off towards it. There is a flat meadow on top with grazing sheep where the village had been over many centuries. The deep ditches surrounding it had been dug out by hand, as were all of the ditch and rampart rings (also called henges) around ancient sites, the chalk being hauled up in baskets. Some are defensive; some just mark boundaries. A labyrinth of gaps through the ramparts at one end added to the fortress’s defendability. The word castle here is used in its broadest sense, a defendable construction. There was a small ruin on the meadow of a Romano-Celtic temple and priest’s house—very cool.

Dorchester and the Unspoiled Villages

Dorchester is a lovely old town and is really the heart of old Wessex, as the southwest of England used to be called. I had read about some little old villages in the surrounding area that were a top priority to see, so I headed off looking for Chedington first, as I was hoping to find a cozy place for the night before doing more exploring. I was looking for a B & B mentioned in an article I had read online, called Lower Farm. Well, I found the Lower Farm, but it hadn’t been a B & B for 18 years! Some things on the internet are hopelessly out of date. Chedington consisted mainly of a narrow tree-lined street that looped around and then out again, with one picturesque cottage after another, huddled together with little gardens in front—so intimate an atmosphere that I felt very conspicuous just driving through it. It felt too intrusive to get out and walk around with a camera, so I just took some video from the car. This was not a touristy village at all, no B & Bs, and the pub was a mile or so down the road.
Out of Chedington, I continued on the wonderful narrow little country roads lined with hedgerows and meadows of sheep with their little lambs. Pheasants are abundant here. They live in the hedgerows and are quite beautiful. When you see roadkill in England, it’s usually a pheasant. On the way to Beaminster (pronounced Bemster), I saw a sign for a village called Stoke Abbot and drove into it, finding the most charming village you could imagine—old, beautiful thatched cottages tucked tightly together with those tiny gardens the English do so well. Narrow, cozy, wooded streets—just precious. I spoke to a very sweet lady from my car who was tending her garden, the very picture of contentment. On the way out of the village I spied the most gorgeous stone and thatch house with a lake in the front yard (pictured above). An English dream house.
From there, I went on to Beaminster, an old Domesday town (listed in the Domesday book, a census of every parcel of land, towns, animals, people, etc., and who owned what in the year 1088) looking for B & B, but found none. I spoke to a charming man planting pansies by his front door. The old town center was mostly stone buildings with cobbled streets, the typical market cross at the center.
So, not finding any B & B in these little rural places, I drove back to Dorchester for the night and stayed at the Casterbridge Hotel. This is Hardy’s Wessex country, and I had been reading Thomas Hardy novels since before I came to England. Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books. I had a copy of his short stories with me that I read before bed during my whole trip; it really kept me in the space of old England 24/7. An extra perk I didn’t expect was that now all my dreams were taking place here in England! I had dinner at the King’s Arms Hotel, a place Hardy used to frequent that is mentioned in some of his novels, particularly The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Casterbridge was a small, 18th century hotel, a little pricey for my budget, £50 or about $88. But the manager was very charming, and I loved the place. Over the course of my trip, I think small hotels were my favorite type of lodging. Full English breakfast was served in the conservatory (eggs, bacon, sausage, smoked haddock, lightly cooked tomato slice and mushrooms, homemade bread or muffins) which is way too much food, and buffet with fresh fruit, stewed fruit, yogurt, and cold cereal. Yikes!
Next day I visited Sydling St. Nicholas, a gorgeous little village with a stream running through it with a footpath along a lovely thatched cottage lane. This was another one of those rare places where you won’t see tourist buses. Quiet, intimate, old. Not many villages like this are left in England. There was a charming spot by the road with a stream winding through grass and trees, with flowers and a little bridge. A pair of geese swam lazily up and down and came up on to the grass to browse. I got a little too close with my video camera, and the gander came after me honking loudly, mouth wide open, fearless and on the attack. I quickly removed myself from his boundary, and he backed off. I must go back and stay at the B & B attached to the beautiful Greyhound Pub. I almost talked the sweet little waitress there into come back to California with me! I thought Elijah would like her. I know, shameless.

Shaldon

Southern England was really my favorite area on this trip (wonderful food, too). It has the best thatched villages, some unspoiled by tourism, though those are rare like the ones mentioned above. I headed southwest toward Cornwall through Devon where I planned to stay a few days in Dartmoor National Park seeing the very ancient sites there. The scenery was spectacular: gorgeous rolling fields dotted with trees and sheep, fields of yellow rape, and rocky outcrops on my right, and to my left the fields sloped down to the sea. I drove through seaside villages like Sidmouth and Lyme Regis, which are terribly picturesque (lots of tourists). These villages are built on fairly steep slopes and usually have small harbors, narrow cobbled streets, and small shops in the center of town, with traditional pubs in every block.
I would have loved to have spent more time in Dorset, but I was expected in Shaldon, another quaint seaside village on the west coast of Devon, by late afternoon. There I visited a woman whom I had met on the Dartmoor Stones listserv (email group). Maia is this wonderful pagan lady with lots of wild, blond hair, and she invited me to join her and friends for a Beltane (ancient pagan rite of spring) celebration and total eclipse of the moon. This was originally planned for the beach, and the night before, Maia took me down the smuggler’s tunnel to see the spot. Men were going to shoot flaming arrows out to sea as part of the celebration, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. The gathering ended up at Maia’s other house, up the hill, a funky old place with primitive amenities, like something you’d find in northern California! Maia only uses this house for these ceremonial gatherings. A maypole dance took place in the back yard, the colored ribbons woven in a beautiful pattern around the pole by the end. There were drums and someone playing a didgeridoo. There was a fire of course, where we stood in a circle and turned “the wheel of life” (made of branches wrapped in ivy). Afterwards everyone jumped over the fire. There was a potluck where I got to chat with lots of interesting people. Then we had a wise-woman ceremony. All of the women who were post-menopausal went into a large room that had been decorated and arranged for the ceremony. The four stages of a woman’s life—maiden, mother, wise woman, and crone (a woman so old and wise, her connection to the mother goddess is unfathomable)—are all honored in the Pagan tradition. A mother conducted the ceremony, and two maidens “attended” us. We each spoke, passed a cup of wine, and stepped through a hoop wound with ivy. No crones yet in the group, I guess.
Shaldon is a charming place, with little shops for everything, no big stores, and a charming harbor that looked very odd with the tide out and all the little sailboats stranded in the sand. There were lots of little pastel cottages with colored doors and tiny gardens in front, fewer stone and half-timbered cottages now, and more pastel lime-washed ones with little sun porches. I stayed at a B & B called Fonthill, an 18th century Georgian house, a little too upscale for my taste, but pleasant just the same. There was a Greek temple on the hill behind the house that had been brought from Greece, piece by piece, a long time ago by the owner’s ancestors.

Chapter 4—Dartmoor

Dartmoor was one of the most important areas of my trip because it is a vast ancient landscape dotted with Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age ruins, fragments of medieval towns lost in the plagues, stone crypts, stone circles and rows, and remains of tin mines. Maia is quite familiar with the sites here, and my first evening in Shaldon she took me to Dartmoor, starting with Kitty Jay’s grave, an 18th century remnant of the days when a woman would rather hang herself than face the ignominy of having an illegitimate child. Her grave is at an old crossroads where hangings and public humil? iations took place; that way no community need be disgraced by claiming her as one of their own. It is marked by a raised rectangle of earth held in by curbstones. It seems that fresh flowers appear on her grave every day, and no one knows who brings them.
I spent four days in Dartmoor and adored all of it. Here are some of the highlights: I stayed in Chagford, a village with many medieval buildings. I had a ground floor cottage room that used to be a stable, behind a pub. I had to wake the cook in the morning to come out and make breakfast. How I wish villages like this one could be kept as they were hundreds of years ago. Oddly, Chagford had the most amazing general store I’ve ever seen; an old-fashioned storefront on the main street that meandered back with room after room of merchandise and little stairs that went up to a 2nd and 3rd level. There was more variety than WalMart—no exaggeration—but just a few of each thing. Clearly it was a major supply source for Dartmoor residents.
Spinsters’ Rock—a perfect dolmen—three huge, broad stones set upright making three “walls” and a massive slab lain across them like a table top. It stood in a farmer’s pasture where a white horse grazed, paying no attention to me. This was one of my favorite of the Neolithic sites. It is thought that dolmans were tombs, once covered with a mound of earth. The legend of this one says that three spinsters erected this one after breakfast one day; at least that’s all I remember of it. The stone was a type of granite with perfect pink rectangles of some other stone evenly distributed throughout.
Fernworthy stone circle—I had this place all to myself, save a mare and her newborn colt who were lazily meandering in the circle. There were some stubs of old stones bordering an avenue approaching it and burial cyst stones over to one side. I approached slowly, trying not to spook them. They edged away gradually as I approached, the mare always taking care to stay between me and her baby. She ambled into the stone circle to scratch her neck and rear on the old stones, then casually went down the path into the woods; but on the way she suddenly dropped to her knees, rolled on her back, and had a good scratch before moving on. As with many stone circles, this one had two taller portal stones that the avenue led to, then the stones were graduated in the circle from shorter to taller, east to west. It’s thrilling to stand in one and imagine the ceremonies that might have taken place there thousands of years ago.
There are a number of early medieval clapper bridges in Dartmoor made of huge slabs of granite stacked as piers with granite slabs laid across them to span the river. They all have arched stone bridges near them, which were built to replace them. Clapper bridges are a primitive, enchanting remnant of the old ways of life here. These are some of my favorite sites in Dartmoor. Some were large enough for a cart to cross, some just wide enough for one horse, like the one I spotted in the woods. I was driving on this narrow road in the middle of nowhere and stopped at a charming bridge with a little meadow next to it to take some pictures. And there on the other side of the bridge from the meadow, almost hidden by trees, I spied a narrow clapper bridge. It was a thrill because it felt like I had discovered something that no one knew was there. It is known of course, but not marked in any way. Most of the sites on Dartmoor are not marked so they are challenging to find even with a large scale map.
Dartmoor scenery is unsurpassed—panoramic views, rocky tors, and stone walls along the roads and dividing the fields, some so old they had big gnarly old trees growing out of the top of them where turf had built up over the years. There are miles and miles of stone “fencing” on Dartmoor made of huge dressed rectangles of stone. The newer ones were built by the prisoners of the Napoleonic wars from the Princetown prison. The rock was (and still is) quarried at Merrivale quarry, across the road from the ancient landscape of Merrivale, where there are stones rows and a circle and some burial cysts. There are many medieval settlements on Dartmoor that were wiped out in the plagues. There are markers on Merrivale that helped people walk across the moor between Tavistock and Ashburton to leave food for plague ravaged villages.
Sheep and ponies roam free. The thick peat on the moors tends to bulge and fold on itself creating little hobbit-like landscapes. The weather changed about every three minutes, which was rather exciting. I could spend a long time on Dartmoor.

Sourton

I must tell you about two places on the edge of Dartmoor that are so extraordinary, they are worth a trip to England in themselves. The Bear’s Lake Inn is a 16th century stone and thatch pub on the perimeter road around Dartmoor between Tavistock and Okehampton near a tiny village called Sourton. It is the ultimate. It has changed little over the centuries (most places have been extensively remodeled, just keeping part of the old structure and the look of the exterior), lots of heavy beams inside and stone floors and antiques. A newer dining room had been added at the back but done so well, it felt old too. Bed and Breakfast is available here up a narrow stairway, the crooked beams still exposed on the inside. Had the best meal of my trip here too, a heavenly, creamy seafood soup.
Up the road in Sourton is a place called the Highwayman that is the most extraordinary building I’ve ever seen—not in scale or magnitude but in imagination and intrigue. It would take me pages to describe it, so I’ll try to be brief. It is L shaped, white and half-timbered in black on the outside with the shape of an old black boot built forming one wall. This side also has little shuttered windows and some gingerbread trim. There are some fascinating features on the grounds too, including an old waterwheel. Also on this side is a tiny building made of two huge barrels. There is also a courtyard with benches facing the building, and to the side of that a low hobbit-sized structure with a short door and odd little widows. Around the corner the facade is made up of parts of an old church and a ship with arched doors, and windows with ornate trim and bowed out leaded glass. The main entry is a real carriage built into the side of the building—you walk through it to go inside and the red leather seats are still there. The original building was built in 1282! There are huge beams everywhere, low ceilings, narrow passages, crooked walls, and stone slab floors. There are three main pub and dining/
sitting rooms downstairs with B & B upstairs. Every square inch is covered with antiques and strange things. Things where they don’t belong, alcoves with little seats, things embedded in the walls, a cider press for a table, a split tree trunk with branches and roots, all finished, that makes up the bar. Stained glass, dungeon-like cubbyholes and a dining room made from parts of a ship. It was dark and some of the passages were only big enough for one person. It’s like some crazy Harry Potter/Tolkein movie set! I loved this place.
Across the street was a long, angled barn being restored with all new thatch and a house with fascinating gingerbread and a curved roof (photos above). Up the hill is the 14th century church of St. Thomas a‘ Becket, with graves in the yard. The place could fill a coffee-table book, and in fact there might be one, I don’t know.

Chapter 5—Cornwall

From Dartmoor, I departed reluctantly down into Cornwall through Bodmin Moor and soon became entranced with everything in my path. I drove to Penzance, but finding tourists instead of pirates I said hello to St. Michael’s Mount from the mainland (it’s a fabulous castle on an island near the shore) and crossed over the tip of Cornwall and headed for St. Ives.

Chysauster
On the way was the Chysauster ancient village. This was really intriguing, and again I was the only one there. I think it dates from around 300 AD, but it is really not that different from 5000-year-old Skara Brae or the Black Houses of Lewis, that I would find weeks later in the north of Scotland. Over 5000 years, these houses changed little. All that was missing were the thatched roofs. Each house had a round main room with the cooking hearth in the middle and some had stones with depressions in them that might have been grinding stones or the footing for a center upright pole supporting the roof. Each had a courtyard where the animals were kept and some small rooms off the main room, used either for sleeping or storage. They were farmers and their fields were above the village.

St. Ives
St. Ives is quite charming—a seaside town with a lovely harbor and no parking—well, unless you count the sidewalks. People do park on the sidewalks in England, at least in some places. After driving around a bit, I saw an empty space on a sidewalk in front of a B & B facing the sea and hoped they had a single room for me, which they did. I inched my Vauxhall into the space and didn’t move it again until I left, for fear of losing it. It was a lovely Victorian house, and my room faced the harbor. There were fireworks right outside my window that night; I never found out what they were celebrating. I walked the enchanting narrow streets with little shops and peeling church bells and hung out at a picturesque pub to write postcards and have some dinner. The waitress kindly told me where I could get a pasty early the next morning to take with me.
Now that I was in Cornwall, I took every opportunity to try the pasties. These savory half-circle pies, consisting of mainly meat, onions, and potatoes and often swedes (rutabagas) and other vegetables, were a special treat of my childhood when I spent the summers with my grandparents in Ironwood, Michigan. Only a few years ago did I learn that pasties came from England, Cornwall in particular. It turns out that when the tin mines were depleted in Cornwall in the 19th century, many miners emigrated to the U.S. and settled in northern Michigan to work in the iron ore mines, and they brought the pasty with them; they’ve been made there ever since. The wives baked them for the men to take into the mines, and they twisted the dough at the ends to make handles (miners have very dirty hands) and pricked their initials at one end, so they could eat the unmarked half and save the rest for later, assured that no one else could claim it. I had many different kinds of pasties in England (they’re even available in cellophane in mini-marts), and Ironwood pasties are still among the best.

Tintagel
The next morning I headed up the coast on scenic country roads to legendary Tintagel. This popular spot was thick with tourists, but fascinating with the King Arthur legends, castle ruins, and amazing geology visible in the cove below the castle ruin, the mythic location of Merlin’s cave. Steep steps up the cliff made a difficult walk for me, but the views were breathtaking. The water a deep navy blue with sea green in the shallows. While I was there, a rescue helicopter circled and hovered around the cliffs, and I assumed that someone was stuck somewhere they shouldn’t have gone; however, it turned out to be a suicide. Well, if you’re going to do it, that was a very nice spot.
I especially loved the old post office in the village. The heavy stone roof weighs down the wooden beams so much that the contour of the roof is wavy (or wonky, as Clive would say). The inside is restored to its original state with incredible beams, antique furniture, and stone floors. This was one of the most beloved buildings on the whole trip. It was furnished like a home, which it was, but was later used as a post office also. It was lime washed on the inside, and I found out that this lime wash took days to make and it was very caustic while liquid. When applied to the stone, it kept out the dampness when it had dried and cured to a mineral coating by somehow helping the stone to breathe and not hold moisture.
I stayed in a magnificent stone B & B that was also a residence and elegant tea room. Outside I met their darling golden retriever named Molly with a bright pink cast on her leg and a “lampshade” around her neck. The owner said she had taken off after a deer while they were walking on the cliffs and ran for miles, straining a ligament. I had a very nice chat him, and as I had noticed before, these stony-faced Brits open up like flowers when you engage them. He mentioned having women friends, which was not the first time I had learned that English men seem to be more able (willing?) to have friendships with women than American men.

The Pixie Cottage
Shortly after leaving Tintagel, I came upon a tiny stone cottage of unusual shape, with a bowed-out window at one end that had been a lookout in an old prison watchtower. The other end contained an “earthen closet” which consisted of a board with a hole in it suspended over a pile of ashes in which one could relieve oneself. These were shoveled out and replaced at intervals. The cottage had ancient little wooden doors and tiny windows. It was next to a house, and between the house and the cottage were hundreds of ceramic gnomes with white beards and bright red caps in all different sizes, carved wooden mushrooms 1-2 feet high, and an assortment of other yard ornaments. Of course I had to stop. The proprietor was telling the story of the cottage to some tourists, and I listened in. The cottage originally was the home of the quarryman of a nearby flint quarry. Across the road was a huge mountain of clinkers, the rubble left over from the mine. It is said that the quarryman worked himself to death in his mid-thirties, working the mine and hauling the rock mostly by himself. A local witch immediately took possession of the cottage (no one dared chase her out). She was, however, a good witch and gave herbal remedies, spells, and potions to those who cared to stop by. One day the witch disappeared and the cottage was taken over by pixies. A local woodcarver took to making effigies of the little folk and sold them by the side of the road and built a little stone pixie village down by the river, which I was dying to see, but they had closed it off for safety reasons. Such things have been sold there ever since.

Boscastle
Further up the Cornwall coast, I stopped at Boscastle, and this too was a place I just adored. I ate at the Cob Web pub, a dark old place with low beamed ceilings and dusty bottles and tools hanging everywhere. I was told it had been a wine cellar once, and when they converted it, they just left the cobwebs where they were. I had a beer called Cornish Cream here, and it was the most luxurious beer I’d ever had. A man had a pair of King Charles spaniels, adorable little dogs, brown and white with silky fur.
A river runs down the hill to the little harbor right through the heart of the village, spanned by a stone bridge. I strolled down a cobbled street in a “pedestrians only” area with sweet row-cottages and grassy little gardens with benches. A few weeks after my visit, a flood roared through the village toward the sea, washing 60 cars into the harbor and doing extensive damage to the town. I believe some lives were lost also. One of my favorite old buildings, which had become the Harbor Light clothing shop, was completely washed away.
The Museum of Witchcraft is here and contains a fascinating collection of modern occult paraphernalia as well as actual artifacts hundreds of years old that were used by men and women practicing the white and black arts. In those days, wise women who practiced herbal medicine and midwifery were considered white witches. I loved the museum though there were parts that were a little hokey; They played some very cool pagan chants—sung acapella and in harmony by two women—over the PA system. I bought the two CDs there and have since obtained the 3rd, recorded in a sea cave. I later found out these women were friends of Maia, whom I visited in Shaldon. But the authentic artifacts such as wax dolls stuck with pins, hanks of hair and nail clippings in a corked bottle, animal parts in jars, witch torturing devices, dried eye of newt, and god knows what else were delightfully creepy. Some of the people involved with the museum are still involved with white magic. Oo-oo-oo.
The museum was damaged in the flood but has been restored. It was interesting to find daily updates on their website telling of the flood damage and the cleanup. From the BBC website, you can visit web pages of hundreds of towns in Great Britain.
From here, I made a brief stop in Lynmouth, another beautiful seaside village—tourist oriented, but lovely just the same. The road winds down to it from above and the views are so pleasing! I bought a fleece jacket here, and later donated my old-lady red sweater to a charity shop in Scotland, along with my raincoat which was heavy and I didn’t need. I noticed a shop here with a large sign that said “Pot Plants.” It was, of course, a nursery selling potted plants.
I planned to drive up the coast to Dunster by way of Exmoor National Park, another area covered with ancient sites, but a handsome gentleman at a little roadside market seduced me into taking the A39 near the coast, and the scenery was exquisite! On the way I passed a huge, upscale thatched hotel called the Hoops that was just breathtaking. There were birds of prey tethered in the rear garden. Too pricey to dine there, so I took pictures and moved on.

Dunster
In Dunster, medieval to 18th century buildings lined the streets where no modern buildings intruded—some in pastels with slate or thatched roofs, some old wood half-timbered (or Tudor style—white with the wooden beams exposed). The market cross in the common (most of which was used as a parking lot) was original and like a huge kiosk made of heavy beams and a rustic beamed roof, built with wooden pegs and square-headed nails. This was where the wool traders bought and sold their goods in bygone days. You could see where the ledges were worn down from years of use and an odd carving here and there in the beams.
I stayed at the Forester's Arms, a funky old small hotel badly in need of repairs and restoration. Oddly, inside—even though they had plastered the walls—they left some of the curved beams in the walls exposed and there was an odd one in my room; but the wall was painted bright green. The original wood plank flooring was covered with cheap indoor/outdoor carpeting. They had a lovely dog, though. I saw dogs everywhere in England and Scotland, all kinds, all sizes. The Brits love their dogs and take them everywhere, which I really loved. I had a very nice dinner at Hathaway’s Cottage, though quaint as it was, was owned by a middle-eastern man. The hall to the loo was narrow and stone-lined, built into the space between the buildings. I snuck through to the back door to discover a little hidden garden in the back. In these small villages, there are lots of little alleys between buildings where lots of hidden delights can be found, and I admit I went lots of places I wasn’t supposed to be. I didn’t want to miss anything!
There is a spot in Dunster at the end of the main street, which terminates in a cobbled boat ramp at the river and a unique pack horse, or gallox bridge. This bridge is absolutely precious, one of my favorites of the whole trip. There are four thatched cottages at the end of the street, and the ones on the right have a little stream running across the front of the house with tiny stone bridges crossing to the doorways. Just past the last cottage is the boat ramp and the curved packhorse bridge begins there. It’s like the ones I saw on Dartmoor, only very narrow, and it curves along the edge of the river before heading across it. It has the little places for pedestrians to tuck themselves into if they are caught on the bridge when a cart comes by (like a little turnout). The sides are low, so the width of the load on the horse’s back would clear it. Then on the other side of the river is a meadow with another thatched cottage farther back. It had a “SOLD” sign on it. Sigh . . .
Turning back toward town, I noticed the cottages on the other side of the street that had climbing roses and wisteria growing up the walls and polished brass thresholds under the heavy arched doors. There is an old mill and a castle ruin at the top of the hill, but my visits there were brief as I wanted to get on the road, though I vowed to return to Dunster for a longer stay.
Before I left the area, I made a little side trip to Selworthy, my last immersion in thatched roof bliss before heading to the honey-colored stone of the Cotswolds. Selworthy Green is a preserved park-like setting with expansive lawns and large cream-colored cottages with steep thatched roofs. There was no one about, so I didn’t learn much about the place, but it was right out of a Thomas Kincaid painting.

Chapter 6—The Cotswolds

I drove through Bath (interesting but not a priority for me) and Glastonbury (beautiful and very old looking, with a great tor on the hilltop) where I did not stop. I had to stay focused on my quest to see all of the old villages and ancient sites on my list. I made my way inland to the Cotswolds. This is a low hilly area peppered with an array of inviting stone villages all made of sandy-colored Cotswold stone. This is a very popular tourist destination, even off season. I had planned to stay at Stow-on-the-Wold, but it was full-up for a faire the next day, so I stayed at Bourton-on-the-Water nearby, which is smaller and more to my liking anyway. A lovely river runs through the middle of the village with three stone bridges across it, lined with grassy banks. Marring the view, 6-8 huge, garishly colored tourist buses were parked around the
village. Too bad they can’t just park a block away. But after the buses leave, it is such a serene place to walk and wallow in English ambience. There is a classic car museum, a mill, and a darling miniature village to roam around in that is a 1/9 replica of Bourton-on-the-Water. Lots of detail in the buildings make you almost expect to see tiny people scurrying about. This little village makes you feel like godzilla walking the streets! The trees were incredible dwarf versions of larger trees, including weeping trees with strands of yellow blossoms and some with dark red leaves. It’s fairly large, 70-80 feet square, and was built early in the 20th century.
On the main road near Bourton, there was a gypsy caravan parked by the side of the road. A fortune teller! The caravan had a rounded top and sides with odd little doors and windows in it. I wanted to stop, but I was too chicken. I had been told by more than one person about gypsies. Apparently they are known for stealing anything they can. They do have houses, but some live in trailers, and they are messy. I think they are what some Americans would call trash and have a social station similar to hillbillies. I can’t believe they’re all bad, but I never met one. I asked what made them gypsies, and the answers I got were pretty vague. Some said they moved around a lot and couldn’t be trusted. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with being Rumanian.
From my base here, I drove to wonderful little villages like Lower Slaughter, Broadway, Great Tew, and Bibury. These places are just the best. The Arlington Row cottages in Bibury take you hundreds of years back in time. The stream across the footpath that runs in front of the row has single stone steps set into the bank, worn down by the feet of women washing clothes and collecting water. Tourists and businesses that cater to them were plentiful. Best to stay somewhere locally and stroll around after the tourist buses leave. Lower Slaughter was quieter and felt like a trip back in time to a picturesque, storybook village. Broadway was equally quaint and had many little shops with tiny-paned windows and flower beds. I was delirious!
I also visited the Rollright Stones. I can’t say right now how old they are but a few thousand years at least. It’s a large stone circle out on a country road, poorly marked, kind of hard to find unless you know right where it is. The stones are deeply pitted, the way sandstone gets over time. These stones look even older than others of similar age because they are extremely weathered and eroded and covered with multi-colored lichens. All the more tragic that some mindless vandal splattered yellow house paint over both sides of every stone just a few weeks before I visited. It was like they dipped a big brush in the can and splattered it on ritualistically, the brush never touching the stones—I cannot fathom to what purpose. An outlier called the King stone nearby is tall and crooked and fenced off, untouched by the vandalism. These stones will need some very delicate, expert cleaning. I left some money in the box.

Continued in PART 2

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