Wells and District, September 2020

Monday 7 September 2020. Agh... the dark days of Covid. The lockdown had been lifted and we wanted to get out of the house for a few days and motored down to spend a weekend at an ex-colleague's B&B in Dulcote just outside Wells in Somerset.

We had spent a similar long weekend there in 2015 and were looking forward to a nice relaxing time, not rushing about, but staying fairly close with Weston-Super-Mare being the farthest we would wander away from our base. Here is a sketch of the White House. It was good to be back here and we knew that Mary and her family would look after us well.

Bob the dog was a new (to us) member of Mary's household and soon got used to me and even Maggie the timid cat came onto my knee. "It's like having Dr Doolittle here!" Mary said in surprise as Bob replaced Maggie and started stroking my face with his paw.

We headed out to Cheddar, where we found a little cafe to have lunch in and I filled in the foliage around the side of the sketch. The waitress thought it "very pretty!".

The caves were all closed, as were many of the small shops. Fran had a wander as I started another sketch of a row of tiny cottages. It started to rain as I was doing this, gently at first but after Fran had come back to me it came down in earnest and we upped sticks and found refuge under the awning of a pub beer garden where a Guinness helped me complete the sketch!

On our way down to Dulcote we had passed the Rock of Ages a huge cleft rock face set into the hills near Burrington and Blagdon. I had seen signs for it many times whilst driving to and from Blagdon when visiting the software house EMIS who produced our college software in the early days, but had never cut down the road to see it.

An inscription from the 1950s tells how the Reverend A.M. Toplady sheltered here from a storm and was inspired to write the famous hymn, Rock of Ages in the mid 1700s.

Tuesday 8 September 2020. The morning started a bit weird as I had found a tyre going down last night and booked the car in to have it looked at in Wells. What would have been a 15 to 20 minute job at our usual garage turned out to be a 2 hour job in Wells as the place was extremely busy. No matter, we looked round the shops and Fran found a sewing shop that Mary had been raving about.

Then once we had the car back we went into Weston-Super-Mare and had lunch there. It took a while to find a place as all cafes were having to ensure social distancing due to the Covid 19 epidemic and smaller cafes were just not open. Needless to say the ones that were open were very full. Once fed we had a walk along the pier - they still charge for this and were insisting that people wore face masks in the fresh open air along it...(?) Ah well. Then a walk along the Promenade and then a hop in the car to Burnham on Sea before heading back to Wells, filling the car with petrol and buying a sandwich in Morrisons.

On our way home we stopped in a forestry car park on the road from the Rock of Ages as I had seen this field that looked like a barrow field. It was misty and a bit cool and I left Fran sitting in the car to find the field looking more like a naturally lumpy field. However it did have a short row of stones marking the border with the road and forming a gateway for the path leading into the field.

I was really in two minds. It had too many humps and lumps to be both a barrowfield or a natural occuring feature.

This one looked promising, but sadly isn't included in maps of Somerset tumuli that I looked at once back at home.

Wednesday 9 September 2020. We went back into Wells for some lunch and then a sit in the Bishop's Garden, where I drew the gatehouse whilst Fran went back around the shops and a market. A woman braved the transfer of any plague-like germs to have a look at what I was doing and said she'd come back later as she wanted to see how I'd cope with the archway. In the event I coped alright with the archway, though the two sides to the gatehouse should really be the same width as each other...

Then it was back to Mary's to spend our final afternoon relaxing in the garden.

Bob comes to sit with me for a bit but then goes off to lie down near the kitchen door when I stop paying him constant attention!

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Wells Cathedral

This article has been edited from a larger article, one of a series describing a short break in Somerset. This article deals specifically with Wells Cathedral.

Two impressive medieval arches lead from the market place. This one leads to Wells Cathedral and is known as the Penniless Porch as it is where beggars traditionally asked for money. They still do, there was one there today...

The other leads to the Bishop's Palace. Built by Bishop Thomas Beckynton in the middle of the 15th century - we'll learn more about him later - it is known as The Bishop's Eye as, from it, the bishop or his agents could keep watch on who entered the city.

The Bishop's Eye leads to a green sward before the moated Bishop's Palace. Complete with drawbridge and portcullis, he was having no pagans coming from Glastonbury, ringing bells and smoking hashish and giving flowers to just anyone!

Under this window a bell hangs. A bishop's daughter trained the swans on the moat to ring the bell and would reward this behaviour with a treat thrown from the window. The swans have throughout recent history lost the knack due to tourists feeding them bits of bread - which is very bad for them anyway - and during the 1980s they learned it again. I presume now they have lost it again as there were signs advertising bags of duck food for sale nearby... I would love someone to tell me they do still ring the bell for a treat!

We would perhaps have had a look at the Bishop's Palace, but we wanted to see the cathedral and we did have a long journey to make later that day! The Bishop's Eye seen from inside.

And so into the cathedral. You have to pay for a license to take photographs inside - this applies whether you have a top range camera or just your phone. It was well worth paying a few pounds to be able to take these memory stretchers!

The tower at the crossing was damaged by an earthquake in the 13th century and 100 years later was found to be sinking into Wells' rather boggy ground. To stop it falling, it was supported by the addition of unusual "scissor" arches on three sides. You either love or hate these but there's no doubt that they do the job they were designed to do!

There is some glorious stonework in the cathedral too. I have a copy of Arthur Mee's excellent King's England book for Somerset and to my chagrin realised I had left it at home when we were halfway to Somerset, so inevitably I missed some of the highlights. Still... that's a good reason to come back sometime! The photo shows a pair of 15th century chantries that face each other in the nave.

The fabulous astronomical clock dates from the late 14th century. We arrived in front of it just five minutes before 11 o'clock and sat expectantly waiting for the hour to strike. Then just a couple of seconds before it did, someone sitting next to me struck up a conversation...

Above and to the right of the clock sits this little figure, known as John Blandifer. He strikes the hour on the bell hanging before him, but rings each quarter hour by kicking his heels back against two smaller bells. This same action causes two knights in armour to strike bells with their battle axes on the outside wall of the cathedral. At the same time four knights charge at each other on horseback above the clock face, the victim flopping back in the saddle! The Victorians replaced the clock mechanism - but sent the original to the Science Museum in London where it is still working!

The tomb of Bishop John Still. He was bishop here when Shakespeare was writing and should be remembered himself for his own penmanship. But few remember his name as they read to their children his nursery rhyme Little Jack Horner...

A rather ornate memorial to Bishop Richard Kidder who died in a great storm in 1703 when the chimney of his house fell onto the good bishop and his wife in bed.

I found this quite sad - though a look around any old cemetery or graveyard will convince you how lucky we are these days in our healthcare... Nathaniell Selleck and his wife Ann were unfortunate enough to lose their their daughter Margaret in 1676 but then two years later had another daughter, naming her Teophila - a Greek name meaning "Loved by God". He loved her so much that He took her also at the tender age of three. On Teophila's tombstone the stonemason misspelt her father's name and had to add the second and final "L" in the little space available.

The first use of an organ in the cathedral was recorded as being in 1310. A subsequent one of 1620 was destroyed by the Roundheads in 1643 and its replacement of 1662 was itself replaced by this one of 1909-10 which incorporates some of the older instrument.

I took so many photos of the interior I can't hope to show them all here. This is the choir. Music plays a large part in the cathedral's life and a lunchtime recital was due to be given that day by a ladies' group.

One of the effigies from the tomb of Thomas Beckynton who was the Private Secretary to King Henry VI, surely one of our most unhappy monarchs. Reigning in the time of the Wars of The Roses he was usurped by the Yorkshire King Edward IV and found life so intolerable he spent months at a time not showing any sign of being aware of any thing, event, or person around him, leaving his unpopular French queen, Queen Margaret of Anjou to defend his throne. Thomas was made Lord Privy Seal from 1433-34 and became Bishop of Wells and Bath in October 1433.

His tomb has two effegies. The one we saw first has him in his bishop's robes whilst, below, he lies as he was to become after death.

He had the tomb built 13 years before his death and so walked the aisles of Wells, being reminded of what he would become. In Victorian times his tomb was opened and he was found to have been buried with no regalia but for his Bishop's Ring, which was removed and placed in a museum.

We are coming to the end of our visit. Leaving the church, we pass again into the cloisters. These are a bit of an anachronism - Wells was never a monastery, but perhaps the cloisters had a function as a processional route.

I left the cloisters and had a quick look around the square court they surrounded. The oldest thing to see here is the oblong stone jutting into the flower bed. It was first used by the Romans.

The west front of the cathedral is stunning. Would that every cathedral in the country had kept as many statues in their niches.

Yet Wells has not escaped totally unscathed. Of almost 500 there are well over 300 statues still here, some whole, some worn and some, including the topmost figure of Jesus above his twelve apostles, damaged by the bullets of Monmouth's rebels in 1685.

We passed back through Penniless Porch into the Market Square. This is the drinking fountain with three sides. Only one side of the three still flows of this fountain, built around 1799 to replace an earlier one that had been pulled down due to its condition in 1756. The earlier one dated from 1451 and was erected at the behest of our old friend and cadaver, Thomas Beckynton.

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Glastonbury Fright

Thursday 14 July 2005. I'm in Glastonbury. It's later afternoon, starting to go dark and I'm at Weston-Super-Mare for a workshop on the following day.

I walked up towards the Tor but it was a bit too far away and if I had gone it would have been dark before I'd have got down again.

The path was steep in places and wasn't always as well-defined as this. To be honest, I wasn't even sure this was the right path, though it was going in the right direction... up...

This is as far as I got. I had no torch to come back in the dark and there was no lighting and the path led through some thick undergrowth.

Going back down was to get more exciting though not necessarily for the right reasons...

I retraced my steps and as I came down the narrow steep path, some animal snarled as I passed. I've no idea what it was but it sounded exactly like a large cat (as in leopard not a big tabby!) and I was somewhat nervous as I carried on! I still don't know what it was. I don't know what noise a badger might make - or even whether badgers might have a go at you if you stray to close to their sett, but it certainly wasn't anything as small as a hedgehog and I've never heard any domestic animal make a noise like that. Was the Beast of Bodmin on its holidays perhaps?

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Axbridge Tadpoles

Friday 15 July 2005. I've been giving a day's workshop in Weston-Super-Mare and am heading homeward. Having promised Miss Franny that I'd try to get some clotted cream I stop off in Axbridge just around 5 o' clock and buy some tubs.

King John's Hunting Lodge was built for a wool-merchant's house around the year 1460, just a tad after King John's death in 1216... At one time in its history part of the building served as the King's Head pub. In a time before the vast proportion of the public became literate, pubs had signs to denote their name. The sculpture of the King's Head on the corner of the building is a replica, but the original according to Wikipedia is still kept inside. The building is now a museum.

The town, named for a bridge over the River Axe, has a long history, being listed in a contemporary Anglo Saxon document as one of King Alfred's burghs.

The church of St John the Baptist is 13th century and whilst built mainly of limestone, the steps are a conglomerate commonly known as pudding stone where rounded pebbles of various colours have been cemented together into large blocks or faces of stone as a natural process by a contrasting finer-grain cement or binding.

Just around the corner from the foot of the church steps are the town wells. Curious to see if they were still fed by spring water, I went for a closer look...

Oh yes, very appetising. The tadpoles in particular seemed to be thriving! I was lucky in that the one and only grocery shop had a couple of tubs of clotted cream left. It was 5:30pm and I had a five or 6 hour journey home. It was scorching, but in the car it was freezing as I had to have the aircon on full to keep the clotted cream refridgerated!

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Miss Franny's Fabulous Fridge Magnets

The last time I showed some of Miss Franny's fridge magnet collection was way back in July. This time I show some of the UK places commemorated on the bits of plastic that disguise our fridge.

This one covers the entire county of Somerset and was bought this year when we spent a long weekend with friends near Wells.

Whilst I'm not going to put up photos of every place mentioned on it - actually there are some places we haven't been yet on it - I'll cover the top right and the one below it. We've been to Cheddar lots of times taking photos of the same unchanging scene every time. The thing that changes is the style of cars in the car parks, so... guess the year!

Weston-Super-Mare was a regular holiday destination place during my early teens. We first went in 1967 but it's a while since we stayed there. I think the last time I visited was in June 2004 whilst on the road for work and whilst it was a June evening, it was cold and dull so that I remember the weather more than the town.

This one is for a very specific place. The British Museum in London is a fascinating place to wander round and anyone with an interest in history and cultures will find time going very fast indeed when you are in there.

I remember it with the open courtyard, but for quite a while now it has been roofed with glass. This looks even more spectacular from outside provided you can view it from a vantage point such as the 17th floor of the Centre Point building.

The King Arthur magnet could have come from any corner of England, or from the centre of it. So many places claim to be the site of his birth, his battles, his city of Camelot...

I even wrote my own version a few years ago which is available for Kindle e-readers.

The fridge magnet came from Tintagel in Cornwall, where the famous castle remains are a few hundred years after the historical Arthur was supposed to have lived. Tintagel features in my book as the home of Merlin.

A 3D sculpted fridge magnet from the Prince Regent's opulent and exotic Royal Pavilion at Brighton. A real mix of styles it comes across as an Indian palace from outside and a Chinese one inside. Well worth a visit.

My photo was taken one night whilst I was travelling for work and due to run a workshop at Brighton University the following morning.

The Polperro fridge magnet shows the entire county of Cornwall and therefore makes finding Polperro quite hard unless you already know where it is!

It's one of my favourite places in the whole of England and despite the fact that it seldom changes, my camera always gets a thorough work-out when I'm there!

A look at foreign parts in the next article about Miss Franny's Fabulous Fridge Magnets!