England

This is part 2 of my UK trip. Adding photos is unreasonably difficult on Blogger, at least if you want them in order, so there are some things that are not worth the effort to share. If you missed the first installment, here's Part 1: Scotland!

As we entered England on August 2, we soon found ourselves in the Lakes District of England, where a lot of poets resided. My main point of reference is the Taylor Swift song "The Lakes."

We drove along very narrow roads to get to the home of Beatrix Potter. We were impressed with the  driving skills of our bus driver in the Lakes District, and there were some exceedingly tight passages. I felt bad for the other drivers on the road, as they had to squeeze between the bus and walls, tucking in their side mirrors. And then we had to get on smaller shuttle buses that took us directly to the home.

The home had lots of Beatrix Potter's artwork, and the garden outside inspired Mr. McGregor's garden. 

It was fine, but I didn't necessarily think it was worth the harrowing drive. I've never read Beatrix Potter (though of course I'm familiar with Peter Rabbit), and the home was basically twentieth century, which I can see anywhere.

Then we drove to a town called Kendal in the Lake District, where we stayed for the night. We had dinner at the hotel, and our guide, Peter Fagg, sat by me and I asked what I do. When I told him, he said he has read Utah Historical Quarterly during the course of his research. My mom told him about when I worked for the Church History Department, and he wants to read my Saints Abroad book. 

I was glad I packed my running shoes, because I took the opportunity to run along the River Kent. It was a lovely evening, and I wish I had had more time. I only went two miles.

The next morning, Sunday, August 3, there was free time so people could attend a church service if they wanted. Most of us on the trip were LDS, so we went to a local Latter-day Saint branch. We swelled their numbers, and we weren't even the only Americans visiting. Their branch could fit in any Utah Relief Society room. 

I was embarrassed when one of our group members bore her testimony, which to me sounded like "Utah is so much luckier than the rest of the world," and she apologized for wearing pants—but I know that "pants" means underwear in the UK. But the member of the branch who followed her seemed to appreciate it. I got the vibe that this branch had a more conservative brand of Mormonism.

We went to a train station where we rode on an old-fashioned train that was the setting for The Railway Children, which I had never heard of. This rail line still has some steam trains, though we weren't on a steam train. But we did see a steam train pass us, and our conductor had to stop the train to put out a small fire on the tracks.

"Mind the Gap"

Once we got to our destination, we got on our bus again and drove up to Haworth, which is where the Brontë family lived. (I have never read any of their stuff.) They had a cool cemetery outside their house. We toured the museum inside their house, which was very professional and well-done, but it wasn't as interesting as the other things we saw in England.

We also toured the nearby chapel, and I was happy to see a Christian flyer lending its support to combating climate change.

We walked along Haworth's main street but didn't do anything. 

Then we drove to Bakewell, where we stayed at Rutland Arms Hotel, which was built in the early nineteenth century. Charles Dickens once stayed there, and they also believe Jane Austen stayed there. They also converted some former stables across the street into hotel rooms.

The rooms were not big enough for three people, so my parents and I had separate rooms—my parents across the street in the stables, and me in the hotel itself. This was the fanciest, quaintest hotel I have ever stayed in. (Well, as far as decorations go.) I was sad we only got to stay here one night. Before I went to bed, I was able to watch my ward's sacrament meeting on YouTube.

That is the worst place for toilet paper I have ever seen.

We had dinner as a group at the hotel. Some of my table mates asked me what my favorite part of the trip was so far; I said St. Andrews in Scotland. I was surprised when they said the Brontë home and the Beatrix Potter home, because those were the least interesting things to me. Maybe because I'm in those centuries every day? 

Our dinner was a traditional Sunday roast, and it included Yorkshire pudding, a weird edible bowl. The word "pudding" gets a lot of mileage in the UK.

The next day, we drove to Chatsworth House, a sixteenth-century "house." There are several houses and castles in England that still belong to the aristocratic families, but they can't afford the upkeep, so they get subsidies as long as they open them to the public. I don't remember which ones meet that description, however.

This house was full of elaborate artwork, including modern artwork and ancient artwork.

A ceiling mural

More ceiling art

More ceiling

They also had really nice gardens, including a maze. I walked the gardens with my dad in the rain.

Then we drove to Haddon Hall, which is another castle built in the twelfth century and expanded in the fourteenth. 

This was probably my favorite of all the castles we visited. The duke that owned it decided not to live there in the early eighteenth century. For two centuries, it sat vacant, with a caretaker and random people who would visit it. In the early twentieth century, the aristocratic family set to restoring it. The family still owns it today and hosts events there, even though it is so old. The Princess Bride was filmed there, but I haven't seen that since I was a kid.

This site is truly a palimpsest, which is something that has multiple layers of history. (These pictures are not in a particular order, because it's so hard to wrangle photos on here.)

There are fifteenth-century (or thereabouts) tapestries on the walls

The family still plays pool here! In the same room as the centuries-old tapestries!

The colored glass dates to the 1500s. The clearer glass is newer.

It's hard to tell, but a lot of people in the nineteenth-century scratched their names on the glass, along with the date they visited, during the two-century interlude when the duke didn't live there.

Much of this room is from the sixteenth century, but I think this painting is from the 1930s.

There is a chapel with fourteenth-century frescoes

This is a closeup of St. Nicholas saving children from being turned into sausage, according to one of the site's tour guides

The site's tour guide said the font and the lower portion of the column were built by the Normans (which would be like 1100s). The other portions are newer—like 1300s newer.

Many of the steps are worn down

Then we got on our bus and drove to Stratford-upon-Avon, which is Shakespeare land. We stayed at the Arden Hotel, where all the rooms were named for trees instead of having numbers.

I went on a short walk, and I saw Guild Chapel, which is just a thirteenth-century church in the town. NBD.

Then the next day, Tuesday, August 5, we actually saw Shakespeare sites. We went to the Anne Hathaway home (Anne Hathaway was his wife).

And then we went to Shakespeare's birthplace. This was a very touristy place; you had to wait in line before going inside, and then you shuffled through the house. Outside there were actors performing scenes from Shakespeare's plays. 

The wall decorations are not original, but they are based on the kinds of wall decorations Shakespeare might have seen

There was a very busy gift shop, where I bought this book about Old English. I took a semester of Old English back in 2013, and it's been fun to relive it, even though I don't remember much about it. (Our teacher knew a lot about medieval literature, but I don't think she was very good at teaching languages. All the different tenses and inflections were a challenge.) But I don't know why they sold this with all the Shakespeare-themed books and souvenirs, since Shakespeare spoke Early Modern English; Old English was several centuries before him.

We had lunch in the touristy part of Stratford-upon-Avon, and then we went out to Warwick Castle, which my dad was eager to see, because he used to visit it on his mission. These days it is very much a family tourist destination. A lot of the exhibitions and gift shops are geared towards families with kids. 

My dad and I went on a walk along the outer walls of the castle, which included ascending steep, winding staircases in the towers. It was a fun experience.

In the afternoon, they had an elaborate performance about the history of the castle with warring factions. This performance included actors riding on horses with jousting sticks (with safely blunt ends). We didn't see the whole thing, so I didn't quite get what was going on—and I find war history boring.

After that performance, the tourists went over to a special performance of birds of prey. They narrated the story of a falconer who lived at the castle, and they had actual birds of prey fly over the audience to retrieve food from the performers. They even had them catch food in the air. Many of these birds were flying inches above the audience. Then at the end, they had all the birds flying above the audience at the same time. This included sea eagles, bald eagles, falcons, and more. It was really impressive.

That evening, some of our group went to watch a Shakespeare play, but we had decided we didn't care to watch it. Shakespeare was a brilliant wordsmith, but that doesn't mean I want to sit in a theater hearing people speaking in archaic poetry—especially since it was one of his obscure plays. 

Instead, my parents and I checked out England's version of McDonald's, and then we went to a local grocery store. When we were in Bakewell, our guide had told us about Bakewell tarts. The grocery store sold these mass-produced Bakewells, and I was surprised they had images from The BFG on it, since the book is more than forty years old. When I was in elementary school, I read all of Roald Dahl's children's books more than once, and once I had a dream that a grocery store sold a drink called Frobscottle, the drink mentioned in The BFG. So it was surprising, nearly three decades later, to buy a product that had Frobscottle on the packaging!

That evening I went on a run by the River Avon, which included running by an old cemetery. There was a little bit of a path by the river, but it didn't last very long, and I only went a mile and a half.

On Wednesday, August 6, we left Stratford-upon-Avon. We made a brief stop in Broadway, which is part of the Cotswolds, a region where buildings are made with oolitic limestone.

Then we visited Bourton-on-the-Water, a very touristy spot with a very shallow river running through it. We walked past the various shops, and I was unreasonably disappointed that one of the ice cream shops was sold out of its Easter egg bowls.

All over, there are these red mailboxes and defunct telephone boxes

Then we visited Highclere Castle, which mostly dates to the nineteenth century. The aristocratic family still lives there, so pictures are not allowed inside. It is where Downton Abbey was filmed, but I haven't watched that. Compared to everything else we saw, this was less interesting to me.

Then that evening we arrived at our next hotel in Bath, a city so named because of its natural hot springs. Many of its buildings date to the eighteenth century, so those were fun to see. Our guide took us on an optional walk through Bath, and we saw a couple of hot air balloons, which I think of as being more common in the morning.

The next morning, we headed into Wales. And I will pick up there in the next post.