Stonehenge & Salisbury Cathedral

We almost made a horrible mistake in our planning for visiting Stonehenge.  We had booked everything for the day before the Summer Solstice.  By chance, went to London the day before that and ran into some partiers from the Salisbury area who warned us that tons of people go there on the Summer Solstice and we might want to change our plans.  Boy were they right, on June 20th there were already traffic jams on the country roads so we quickly rebooked for the following Friday.

To get to Stonehenge, we took the train from Reading and grabbed a variation of a hop on hop off bus that does 3 sites:  Stonehenge, Salisbury Castle and old Sarum.  You can add an option for entrance into the sites which we did.  Salisbury is a quaint old English town with a very tall church cathedral.  The bus picks you up outside the station and off you go into the countryside.  When we got to Stonehenge, there is a nice new visitor center with parking for all the tour buses and then there is either a 1.3 mile walk or short bus ride to get to Stonehenge itself.  We first did the visitor exhibition in the visitor center and then walked to Stonehenge and rode the bus back.  Part of the route is through a field that was part of Stonehenge proper/landscape. 

 We got to Stonehenge itself and had to show our timed entry tickets and then started the audio guide on our phones as we walked around the ring of stones.  Now a days most tourists cannot get inside of the stones rather you are kept back a ways on a roped off walkway.  Still it was impressive to see.  Jeff and I were surprised to learn that the horizontal rocks (lintels) did not just sit on the rocks they crossed but that there were joining pieces in the vertical rocks to hold it all together.  Part of our audio tour pointed out that the gentle moundings in the dirt was not natural but had been done as part of the building of Stonehenge.  As we walked to the site we had been near part of the moundings/pathway.  The audio pointed out that there had been some burials around parts of  Stonehenge and that throughout the neighboring fields were mounds that were also burial areas.  None of the mounds are anywhere near the size of the Indian burial mounds you find in Collinsville or St. Louis, but they were distinctive.  Jeff and I enjoyed Stonehenge, but were somehow a little disappointed.  We suspect it is because up in Orkney Scotland we had seen a large ring of stones and another spot with the large stones like this that we were able to go right up to and touch.  I understand the need to protect the area.  I just think we were a little prejudiced after our earlier site visit.

arrow shows where the sun light hits on the 2 solstices

From Stonehenge we went to Salisbury Cathedral in downtown Salisbury.  The cathedral is right in town and was built in the 13th century.  The cathedral is special because it has the tallest church spire in all of England, large cloisters and because it has one of the 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta.  Since the cathedral is so old, it was originally a Catholic church.  I point this out because the room that the Magna Carta is in was a former room specifically for the monks. In that room there is a stone frieze of some common biblical stories.  Another interesting thing about the church is that it is built in an area that in at least modern times has a very high water level.  Very high as is they have a spot in the floor where they lift up a stone to check the water level with a stick - think checking your car's oil level.  A few years ago the water did rise up and flood the church (I think inch or 2 not bad).  As you wander around the church you find the crypts and stones for prominent townspeople over  the years and some distinct chapels.   Also it is because of the catholic monks that there are a lot of very old books and documents that the church owns such as the Magna Carta.  We wandered around the inside of the church some and then went to the chapter house to see the Magna Carta. 

Baptismal Font

The chapter room has a display about how the document came to be.  Seems the king at the time (King John) had run up some serious bills and was trying to unduly tax the nobles who weren't too happy about it.  They threatened him with a civil war.  The document guaranteed certain civil liberties and all was good except the nobles had to force the king to follow it.  Later kings would use it to their political advantage thus it has been amended some since its original writing.    When it was our turn to see it, we entered a small dimly lit enclosure with a light sort of shining on the document.  Meaning you see it, but you aren't going to read it - not really.  The document was written on sheepskin in very small writing.  Yes I could see start and stop of words, but I couldn't make anything out and it was probably old English that I would not have understood anyway since it was written in 1215.  But hey I can mark that off some bucket list!

After the cathedral, we walked around town some and then headed back to Reading.  We skipped Old Sarum which is a medieval town.  I guess you could say it was the original town of the area before Salisbury.  There is the foundation of a cathedral there that the Salisbury one replaced and other medieval time period buildings (remnants).  

Oxford and Windsor

We did a day trip to Oxford from Reading.  It was an enjoyable day and I could see where it would have been nice to spend a couple of days there - in some ways we did squeeze 2 days into 1!  Oxford is an old town with 45 colleges in it of which 39 make up Oxford University.  I have to admit that most of the college's names went in one ear and out the other.  We did a hop on hop off bus tour with 2 walking tour options which we did both and there was overlap - those are the colleges I remember.  Additionally at the end of the day we did a Thames River cruise.  Like I said we squeezed 2 days into 1.  We did it partially because we visited Oxford on one of the days the rail workers were not on strike.  The next day there was very little rail coverage and thus would have been hard for us to get to Oxford.  There is a castle in Oxford that  later became a prison, but we skipped it so be ready for lots of pictures of neat old college campuses.

downtown Oxford

All of the college campuses are enclosed within walls.  Students choose their college.  This is where they will live and will be tutored by a professor, but all of the classes are taught within the walls of Oxford University Buildings.  Their school year is very different than an American one.  Once they hit University they will only take classes in their major and only one per 8 - 10  week period.  If I understood correctly, they write a ton of papers - like 1 a week and then have some written tests at the end.  Oh the cost to attend such a prestigious university?  9,900 pounds per year per the government.

All Souls College - is a school only for post doctoral students.  The guides like to say there are no students there and then say only fellows.  The school's physical distinction is it is full of turrets on the roofs of its buildings.  After the walking tours we were able to walk in parts of some campuses including the quadrangle  and chapel of All Souls.

All Souls

All Souls Chapel

Lincoln College - was one of the campuses we were able to peak in.   This is the school John Wesley attended.  There is a bust of him in the central area of the campus.

John Wesley bust in upper photo also appears on right of lower photo

New College - we actually could walk in a significant portion of this college.  It is known for its choir which we could hear practicing in the chapel so we could not tour the chapel.  The cloisters of this school were in a couple scenes for a Harry Potter films.  There is a large oak tree in a corner that was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  When we looked at the tree, we did recognize it.  We also saw their "hall" which is their dining hall  - think the dining hall in Harry Potter and you get an idea of the dining halls at these schools.  We also got to walk around their gardens (tourists stay on the path, students lying around the yard).  The gardens were nice and quiet but the real reason they let tourists go there is that the school has the original city walls built into its campus.  They are required to keep the wall maintained.  The city walls are from the 12th century.  I got a flyer from the tour and it says there are 600 undergrad and 60 graduate students enrolled at the school.

Dining hall with exterior on bottom

City wall

Cloisters used in several Harry Potter movies

Christchurch  - gets the award for the most commercialized campus.  Jeff had heard it was a good one to view so we went to that end of town to discover we had to make an appointment which we could just still do for the day and the tour included an audio tour.  Somehow that audio tour turned us off and when we saw the cost (triple other schools) we passed.  However, there was a very nice garden there that anyone could walk around and we did.  Even had cows in their pasture.

Sheldonian Theatre - was built by Sir Christopher Wren who also built St Paul's Cathedral in London.  It is known for being one of the first buildings with roof trusses that went a significant distance (no supports in the middle of the building to ruin the view).  Surrounding the outside of the building is a wall with a lot of busts of men.  Turns out these are just ordinary people up there.  No one special is in the busts and they do replace them when they get worn down by the weather.  Oh yeah it is a 350 year old building.

Radcliffe Camera - it is a round building that is currently a reading room for the Bodleian library.  It was built by William Radcliffe who was a  medical doctor. 

Bodleian Libraries -  only toured the outside but I thought of my book loving friends here.  By law, every book that gets a copyright must give a copy of the book to this library.  They said there were several floors of books below our feet as we stood in the courtyard of the building. (Nearby modern addition to the library has 3 floors above ground and 8 floors below.)   The reading room is needed since you cannot take a book out of this library; you must read it inside their walls.  Click here for virtual tour including the Radcliffe Camera building.  

Bodleian Library

 Alice in Wonderland ties - as an old and major university, Oxford can claim ties to several major authors such as J.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Agatha Christie and Lewis Carroll.  The one they really key in on is Lewis Carroll.  On the tour they pointed out how Lewis Carroll was a mathematics lecturer at one of the colleges when he met the dean's daughter Alice.  As we walked around they pointed out unusual parts of a building that is supposedly where Carroll got an idea since he would have walked this way to class.  There is also a story about how he started the idea of the book as a story for the real Alice.  Another point in our walks, the guide pointed out that Tolkien regularly would have gone down this street and see a very large tree (cut down in 2014) that may have inspired the character of Treebeard from Lord of the Rings.  Alice in Wonderland is the one the town has truly embraced though with a shop and an annual day.

Alice Shop

Thames River Cruise - after walking around for several hours, it was time to enjoy a boat ride. The Thames River meanders through Oxford so we selected an evening cruise.  We enjoyed the river scenery and learned about the strong rowing culture amongst the Oxford Colleges and the townspeople.  We saw some rowers out with coaches on bikes along the river tow path.  Also from the pictures below there were a lot of canal boats along the banks.

We had the back seat on our boat

Windsor Forest and Great Park  - on the next non railroad strike day we ventured over to Windsor with the plan of renting bikes and exploring the Great Park.  We thought we knew what we were getting into.  We both thought the Windsor Great Park was going to be this nice manicured park like Central Park in NY or Forest Park in St. Louis - um no.  Officially it is a former king's dear hunting ground  and is now a big (great) park that is mostly wild.  People go there to walk their dogs, horseback ride and bike ride.  But it is mostly meadows, no water fountains rarely nicely mown grass  and for the longest time we could not figure out where the iconic long walk was.  We knew it had to be around because the bike rental place warned us to stay off of it or he and us would be in trouble.  Do you like the herd of Windsor cows we found in the picture below?

Royal Cattle

View during our bike ride

Interestingly, there is a small village in the middle of the park so we headed that way in search of bottles of water.  When we got there, we found a store and several cute houses all with names.  The lady in the store suggested we head for the Seville Gardens which were right past the gate.  She assured us she was talking a mile or 2 so off we went.  With a little trepidition,  we went past a sign about limited entry or something and then found the back entry to the gardens.  They looked like quite nice botanical gardens, but we were in search of some food which happily they also provided.  After our break we headed back the way we came.  THEN we finally found some scenery other than grass meadows.  We stopped on our way up a slight hill because the grass was mowed in an area (caught our eye) and there was the view!  The castle one way and a statute the other.  Yippee!  Seems we had the view at our backs on our way so going back was much more interesting.

The Long Walk below is a straight 2.64 mile avenue from Windsor Castle Gates to the ‘Copper Horse’ statue of (mad) King George III.  We were not allowed to ride our bikes on it, but our bike route intersected it at the photo below.    

“The Long Walk”

We got back to the bike shop and turned the bikes in to go wander the town some. Windsor has the neat, old shops and houses of much of the "quaint" England and this one really big old place right smack at the edge of town. We walked the length of town and up to the castle gates and then started exploring the streets more. We passed on touring the castle because we had done that years ago plus the more inclusive tours would not start until July.

Getting closer to the castle

Windsor Castle from a street in town

Replica of the royal train at the Windsor Station

Windsor pedestrian shopping street

After taking so many pictures of painted Snoopy and Cows, I had to get a British Lion 

Odd leaning building

Reading

Reading on London’s west side was our base for exploring London and the surrounding area.   It was selected for its easy train access to Royal Ascot and being much less expensive than London.   Despite being a suburb it has an urban feel to it.  Our flat is over a tailor shop on a side street in the central business district.    Each day we are serenaded by street artists on the High Street, which is closed to traffic.   It’s a great location with lots of food options, a mall with riverside restaurants and our favorite grocer, Marks & Spencer. 

High Street

High Street

Cross St with our flat far down on the left

WW I monument with neat building pointing above lions head

We like to explore our first day so its time for a walk.   We enter the Oracle mall at the end of our block and come out the other side at River Kennet.  Then downstream past low rise housing flats until we reach the river Thames where its more wooded and we start to encounter people living on canal boats. 

As part of one of our further walks, we explored the Reading Abbey Ruins.  It was the fourth largest Cathedral when completed in the 12 Century and is the burial site of King Henry I and was opened by Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1164.  (History of the Abbey here) 

Amazing how thick the walls were

Reading Abby Ruins

I take advantage of every opportunity to get on the water, so a River Thames Cruise to Goring was a must.  We traveled passed million+ dollar homes, a 5 square mile estate, rowing clubs and riverside restaurants.  The unexpected thing were WW II pillboxes.   The Stop Line Red along with others were established after Dunkirk.  They used natural barriers like the river Thames to delay German tanks as the last line of defense should the Germans invade.    It consisted of pill boxes along the river bank, some of which remain today. 

MV Caversham Lady is a fine vessel

Even the smallest home was valued over a million

Only restaurant we spotted before Goring

Approaching one of two locks we traversed

A privately built toll bridge

WW II era Pillbox, now a graffiti canvas

Isambard Brunel’s work appears again

Just needs a mast

We went ashore at Goring-at-Thames, ‘South of England village of the year.’  Our first stop was The Miller for lunch.   We are now 3 for 3 having very good meals at places who designate themselves as ‘Restaurants with Beds.’   After lunch we explored town until it was time to board for our return journey.

The thatch was very thick and covered in chicken wire

On our second and last Sunday in Reading we were able to attend a Catholic church that was partially built upon the ruins of the Abbey.