No visit to SW England should ignore Bath, the site of England's only hot springs and the background for many English novels - the vacation destination of choice for the rich and famous. We set our satellite navigator for the Roman Bath Museum and found ourselves creeping along amidst hundreds of pedestrians and wondering if we would soon be greeted by a pleasant officer will better directions for us. Next thing we knew we found the parking space conveniently left open for us right between the Kings & Queens Bath and the Cross Bath. We live a charmed life.
Pictured here is the Kings and Queens Bath and the famous Pump Room where we enjoyed a fine bowl of soup and fresh bread. The ancient roman built bath area was just outside our window as you can see here.
The water is a bit green due to the algae that flourish in it. The hot springs produce about 250,000 gallons per day of 117° F water. The water level had to be lowered a few years back but you can still see the old level at the top of the orange staining on the walls. Each niche was reserved for a bather who could sit on the enclosed benches with just their head above water.
The Golden Crescent, made famous by many a movie (Jane Austin's Persuasion, for example), is the temporary lodging of the rich and famous who come on "holiday" to Bath. Notice the hundreds of chimney pots on the roofs of these apartments - one pot for each fireplace - at least a dozen pots per chimney.
Finally, we have to have another landscape photo here. Even in the middle of winter - December 31st to be exact - the countryside is beautiful. The rolling hills are always a luxurious green patch-work quilt of hedged fields, treed lanes, and everywhere the white dots of grazing sheep. Everything stays green all winter, our lawn is as green now as in summer in spite of killing frosts and several inches of snow that have come and gone. It is surely a charming place to live.
Glastonbury, in Somerset England, is probably the site of the earliest Christian meetings and structures. It is a town rich with legends and factual history and a generous blend of both. Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathaea, a wealthy uncle of the Virgin Mary - the one who loaned
his tomb for the temporary burial of Christ - came to this place and built a small church of waddle and mud. Some conjecture that he brought the young family here to protect Jesus while he was attaining the age to become a teacher. The facts are that there has been a church here for thousands of years and at one time, it was the most powerful abbey in England. This photo of a late medieval ruin is the southern third of a huge structure, the floor of which covered the tomb of King Arthur.
When Joseph came, he brought a walking stick made from a plant grown from the crown of thorns and when he stuck it into the ground on a nearby hill, it immediately took root and sprouted. That thorn bush eventually died, but not before cuttings were planted elsewhere in Glastonbury. It blooms for both Christmas and Easter. The tree is actually a variety of hawthorn, one usually found in Palestine. We were anxious to see if the tree was in bloom on December 31st. (When the calendar was changed to the Gregorian version the dates shifted in respect to the earths position in orbit by 11 days.) Here is a picture of one of the trees with many buds that will be in full bloom in a few days - probably by 11 days after Christmas.
The picture to the left is the Abbot's Kitchen, a large structure built away from the abbey so as to keep kitchen fires from threatening the bigger structures. It is about 40 feet square with a large fireplace in each corner and an elaborate center chimney so the intense heat from the fires could escape and draw in cool air for the kitchen crew. Click on this picture and when you see the larger one, click on it again. You will see a tower in the distance standing on the top of a large hill. The hill is the Tor of Glastonbury and the tower is from St Michael's church, a large, monastery built in the 14th century.
Oh, and then there is the red spring in Glastonbury, a never failing, iron rich stream that runs continuously through droughts and leaves a red residue on everything it washes over. Supposedly Joseph of Arimathaea brought the chalice her (Some think that last supper was held in his upper room.) and when he buried it, this spring burst forth. If you do a little Google searching you can read all about these legends. In recent years the New Age people have become dominant in the city. We saw at least two witches while we spent a couple hours there. No, we didn't burn them. There is so much "smoke" in this little town, it is hard to believe that it could all be fables - but it is possible - the pilgrimage trade was substantial here and increased when new "discoveries" were made.
Avebury Henge is the largest stone circle in England and has many more interesting features than Stonehenge. Here
in the left photo,
you see a little less than one fourth of the circle. Stones that have been removed from the circle to make buildings in the village, etc. have been replaced with concrete pillars. Just outside the stones is a deep trench with the tailings thrown up away from the circle which proves that it was not intended as a defensive earthwork. There are a number of other interesting features in Avebury including Silbury Hill, the largest manmade prehistoric hill in the world made of soil only. It stands about 100 feet tall and is 550 feet in diameter. There is enough dirt in it to fill a bucket for each person in England today. (Aren't you glad you know that?)
There are also other stone circles connected to this one by an avenue of stones. several burial mounds in the area, and West Kennent Burial Chamber. You can read more about these here.
The picturesque village of Avebury has grown up inside and outside the stone circle. This photo shows a little of it. (Remember you can enlarge any picture - twice.)
The ancient inhabitants were probably Druids, who originally had a patriarchal religion similar to the Old Testament record. They were likely part of the dispersion of the ten tribes of Israel. Their religion became corrupted and became what they are famous for and the basis of a resurgence of interest by present day youth looking for meaning in a confusing world.
Later today, we managed to get to Stonehenge just after sunset on a dreary, heavy overcast day. Bad traffic made us arrive after the gates were closed and this picture taken in the dusk a bit off color. It does show the
massive lintels above the stone columns that make Stonehenge such a wonder.
There are many stone circles in England. We think Avebury is the most complex and interesting while Stonehenge is the most famous probably because of the heavy stone lintels. These are all prehistoric sites and speculation abounds as to the intended use of them. There is no question but that they were very important in some way or another because they required a massive amount of engineering and hard labor. Many of them show astronomical connections since they are often aligned with the solstices (solar positions on the horizons approx. June 22 and Dec 23)
Tomorrow we hope to see Glastonbury and Bath.
Today we visited Tintagel and hiked out to the inland side of the narrow pass between it and the "island" where the castle ruin stands. You can see it in the center of this picture. Click on it for a better look. Then click on it again to get the full sized view.
The legend of King Arthur is probably just that, but this site has been investigated thoroughly, of course, and there has been a fortress here for at least a few thousand years. The castle whose ruins are visible today, was built by Prince Richard, Earl of Cornwall in about 1230 AD, well after the legendary King Arthur might have been here.
The site is a wonderful one for a fortress, being located on what is almost an island, connected only by a very steep and narrow neck to the mainland.
Archaeologists have uncovered huge quantities of 5th and 6th century Mediterranean pottery - more than all the other Dark Age sites in all of Britian combined. Whoever was here was a wealthy trader, probably trading Cornish tin for the commodities that would have been in all these jars.
Joseph of Arimathea in whose tomb Jesus was temporarily buried, is thought to have been a wealthy tin trader in this South West corner of England, but there are no stories of his being here.
This lower picture shows the cove on the North side of the narrow land bridge. The cove on the South side looks like a twin. Most of the shore line is shear cliffs, but there a little bit of a beach right where a small craft could easily moor.
We just had our first and last Missionary Zone Conference. Seems we are the zone in Europe (most church farms are in the US) so our Mission Director (center) doesn't get around to us very often. Besides, he doesn't supervise our daily work activities. His job is to make sure we are healthy, happy and working for the Farm Manager - our real boss (right) who is actually a full-time paid employee of the farm system. We had a wonderful day with our Director and his wife, reviewing our projects, sharing stories of the many amazing coincidences where things seem to work out better than they ordinarily should. We took them on a tour of Camp Liahona, the houses we have remodelled and farm projects we have worked on. In preparation for our meeting Jack created a list of about 70 different projects that are either on-going (like mowing) or one offs. One interesting aspect of this list was that about 15 projects were completed by Sister Pemberton largely on her own.
The ancient city of Ely is located about 20 minutes West of us on a rise in the otherwise totally flat land of the fens of East Anglia - so it was anciently an island. The first significant church built there was a monastery founded by Etheldreda, a Saxon Princess in 673AD. Destroyed by the Danes in 870 and then re-founded as a Benedictine Community in 970. The present building was started in 1081.
Pictured at the left is the East end of the Cathedral. It is at least twice as long as this end is wide. We have actually visited here a couple times. The last time was with our good friends David and Denece Little who we knew when we lived in Alpine, CA. The organists were practising for the Battle of the Organs program and the building was fairly vibrating with the intense energy of these two great organs. In our tour of the lantern we saw the three largest base note pipes lying next to our path on a high balcony. They were about 33 feet long and 18 inches square!
The Cathedral is adorned with many stained glass panels and tombs with carved covers. There are plaques on the wall and floor everywhere announcing the names of the dead buried there.
We took the tour up the tall, stone, circular stairs to about 100 feet up where we crossed some open roof and crawled into another yet narrower tall, stone, circular stair case that took us up into the lantern - a huge octagonal stone and wooden structure with windows that let the building fill with light. The picture below is looking up into the lantern.
Below the 32 windows at the top are 32 long narrow panels of paintings all done on wooden boards. These panels are about 30 inches wide and several feet tall. Each one is hinged so that they swing into the tower for servicing. The tour took us into this tower round about the lantern where we could also see the huge oak logs that support it. This was part of a spectacular engineering feat accomplished in the 1330's after the Norman central stone tower collapsed leaving a gaping hole in the building. The architect designed the lantern to throw all the weight of the structure out into the eight huge stone pillars that form the tower and hold it above them into clear space. The lanterns support was all done in 18 inch green oak logs so they would be under full load whilst drying and thus settle into position without cracking or splitting. They are still in excellent condition after 680 years!
From the roof around the base of the lantern we could clearly see the 13 miles to the sugar plant north of our house.
The cabins are nearly complete. We just have a few minor things to finish off like the bird blocking between the rafters, and the fold-down tables inside the front windows. We are very pleased with them - they get a lot of compliments from visitors who seem surprised at their roomy interior and beautiful exterior.
We did a lot of praying whilst doing the architecture and the result was a plan that generates extremely little scrap and a lot of room. The roof and floor, for example, consist of 16 full sheets of 4 x 8 sterling (or particle board in the USA) board and 2 sheets each cut once. The cladding (siding) comes in exact 4 meter (13.123 feet) lengths. The rear wall is 16 feet long so it needs 2.877 foot boards which are exactly provided by the scrap from the windows.
They needed strong, steep roofs so as to shed the small branches and leaves from the forest around them and to protect people from collapse when large limbs or trees break in the winds that ply these fens: so the rafters are supported by purlins which are supported by 6 vertical poles. Therefore there are no trusses. This makes the cabin feel large because the roof is high, your vision is not interrupted by trusses, and your eye is drawn upward by the poles that support the roof and the sides of the bunk beds. They have been really fun to design and build!
Today we were out reconnoitering the upcoming handcart trek route with an agent of the Environmental Agency. He had been informed by a farmer whose fields we would be going through that due to the threat of hoof and mouth disease, out trekkers would have to be equipped with special sanitized footwear. So he found a detour that would allow us to avoid the problem. Here is a picture of Sister Pemberton showing the point where the detour starts. Elder P. took the picture with his camera and here it is. Isn't she just the cutest little grandma that you ever saw. I do love her!
She is standing in front of a small pile of aluminium (say al-you-min-ium in England) irrigation pipe and an large circular abandoned bit of rusty farm equipment.
This evening, after hosting the local Ward's traditional Fourth of July Celebration at Camp Liahona where we serve as volunteer Camp Directors, we sat in our back yard and watched the fireworks. It all seems very normal except that we are in the nation whose tyranny caused the Declaration of Independence to be written in the first place. Not only that: one item among the objections listed by the declarers was that England had stationed a standing army in the colonies in a time of peace. But the fireworks we watched came from canons on the local Royal Air Force base which is staffed and operated by the USAF - the United States has a standing army in England (and everyone is happy about it).
These strange and wonderful facts illustrate the quirks of history, the perplexities of the nations and the fact that these two nations have been and remain sisters. There is also the reminder that the English in 1776 didn't exactly like what King George III was doing to them either. We have found that most of the people here have absolutely no resentment toward Thomas Paine (who was born in Thetford, a 30 minute drive from here), the US, or our celebration of our independence from them. They are quick to say something like: "And it was a good thing too because the US has saved us from destruction twice in the last century."
The reason the local Ward has a traditional Fourth of July celebration here in England is that the Ward boundaries encompass three RAF bases staffed and operated by the USAF. There are enough Mormons among these airmen that 80% of the Thetford Ward is American.
It is sobering to note that today, 2 and a third centuries later, we have leaders in the US government making statements like "We don't want to waste a good crises." To suppose that these people are unaware of the fundamental Marxist nature of such a comment is probably a dangerous choice at best.
President Uchtdorf says we are cool! Here's the proof! He and Apostle Anderson shook hands with all 280 missionaries. There was no conversation, so the line moved pretty fast. Elder Pemberton is right behind me.
Jack let Charlet go first, of course, so all you see is his nose, of course.
Elder Oaks of the Area Seventy described a program implemented in Europe that has increased membership by 22%. This confirmed our testimony that we need to grow our little camp to serve more youth. Part of that is building cabins to extend the usage into spring and fall.
