In 2015 my wife and I set out with our caravan to travel through England and Scotland. Our aim was to visit Orkney. This is an account of some of our time in England.
Having left our home in Cornwall we spent our first weekend weekend dancing with Laura Shannon in the village of Puriton, just outside Bridgwater, which lies at the foot of the Polden Hills – a ridge running to Street near Glastonbury.
Laura learns traditional dances from the elderly women in the villages of Greece. The dances are done in an “open circle” and have very ancient origins. Few people live in the villages these days and the younger ones aren’t interested in the old dances and traditions. Laura says the old women are glad to know that the dances are being kept alive by circle dancers. When she runs a workshop, Laura explains the symbolism of each dance she teaches highlighting that there are deep spiritual and mystical meanings associated with the steps which have been protected and passed on by generations of grandmothers. I cannot do justice to Laura’s teaching and it is difficult to describe what a workshop with her is like. Obviously, there is dancing but through her explanations Laura takes you deeply into a transcendent experience that is unique to each individual.
We danced from 10.30 on Saturday morning to 5.30pm when we eat a meal together. (Celebration is as much a part of the ritual of the dance as is the transcendence). At 7pm we were joined by local musicians who had spent several days in a master class of Greek dance music with Laura’s partner Constantis. Dancing to live traditional music is always a great experience.
On Sunday we returned to the dance from 9.30 am (although we overslept so we were late!!). We danced till 3.30 pm with a break for a lovely lunch.
If you’ve read this far you will have gathered by now that I thought the weekend was wonderful. Having had a difficult year with a shoulder injury I was aware I had become a bit negative. This weekend has blown that away.
We spent Monday riding on the West Somerset Railway. It’s a preserved railway running 20 miles from Bishops Lydeard to Minehead. We boarded at Bishops Lydeard, which is about 12 miles from our camp site. It was great to see a long train pulled by a “proper” steam engine – a Great Western Hall class. It was also nice to see every station had well-kept gardens with lots of authentic signs, luggage etc on the platforms. With a day rover ticket, we could get on and off as we chose and as the railway runs a comprehensive timetable, we were able to visit Watchet, Blue Anchor and Minehead.
Watchet is a small coastal village with a tidal harbour/marina. Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived near here at Nether Stowey and is reputed to have been inspired to write the Rime of the Ancient Mariner after visiting Watchet. There is thus a sculpture on the little esplanade of the Ancient Mariner. Another sculpture on the esplanade is of a real-life ancient mariner nicknamed Yankee Jack. He was in fact a local man renowned for his singing of sea shanties. The sculpture is remarkably lifelike and from a distance at first glance one assumes it is a living person sat there. There was a restored Motor Torpedo Boat from World War 2 in the harbour at Watchet but unfortunately there was no information about it.
Blue Anchor turned out to be a beach with thousands of holiday mobile home type caravans in very orderly rows. All the blurbs said there was a beautiful sandy beach but all we saw was the usual Bristol Channel red mud sprinkled liberally with pebbles. There’s no village here but there was a cafe with a garden overlooking the bay, so we spent most of our time there until the next train which took us to Minehead. Now, we didn’t actually see Minehead because there was only 25 minutes before the train became the last train of the day back to Bishops Lydeard. We spent our time on the platform looking at second-hand books. We went simply to enjoy the train ride. The day had been blisteringly hot, and we returned to the caravan feeling worn out. However, Monday night is circle dancing in Chedzoy, so off went. We had a lovely evening with a friendly small group and all sense of tiredness simply vanished away.
.Moving on, we decided to stay at a Camping and Caravanning Club Site at Wolverley just outside Kidderminster. The journey was very enjoyable with the land showing the brown colours of winter and the bright green of spring. It was invigorating to see the greening of the land, loads of lovely blossom and every so often to see huge swathes of bright yellow oil seed rape. The camp site is right next to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal so Thursday evening we had a stroll along the towpath
Wightwick Manor is a National Trust property on the outskirts of Wolverhampton which we visited. It was built in 1887 to resemble a Tudor dwelling and was designed to appear as if extra bits had been added over time. Ironically, they did add a large extra bit a few years later. The owners were the Manders who had made a fortune from paints and varnish. The company still exists today making chemicals and specialist inks.
The house is as it was when handed over to the Trust in 1937 and is decorated using William Morris wall coverings and has a large collection of Pre Raphaelite and Arts and Craft paintings, drawings, tapestries and tiles.
Sir Geoffrey Mander, who gave the house to the Trust along with 20,000 shares in Manders (worth £1m then!!), was a Liberal MP and a Congregationalist. He was famous for the exemplary way he treated his workers (paying sick pay for instance when no one else did).
We loved the very ornate chimneys. The gardens were largely bare of flowers apart from a few bluebells and with a chilly wind we didn’t linger long outside. And the place is pronounced Whit Wick.
Friday morning, we decided on a bike ride along the canal. My brakes were binding, and they are hydraulic discs so I couldn’t sort it out. We finally found a competent bike shop in Bewdley, 3 miles away. We left the bike at the workshop and spent the day in Bewdley, which is a beautiful place on the River Severn.
Bewdley claims to be famous as a Georgian town. It certainly has lots and lots of beautiful buildings, mainly Georgian but some much older.
The River Severn here is wide and languid but flood markers show that it can reach an amazing height which would, I guess, be about 8 metres above its normal level. The Environment Agency has installed a flood defence system along the embankment which isn’t in evidence in normal times except for 1-foot square stainless-steel plates in the ground every few feet. This enables them to erect a solid steel barrier along the river side that protects the whole town.
One can walk along the bank for miles and Bewdley itself has a lovely “promenade” embankment. We did spend time sitting and watching the swans, geese and ducks on the river. There must be at least 30 swans there. Naturally we also spent time in the charity shops; or at least, one of us did!
Bewdley Museum (free entry) is interesting. It is located in a complex of single-story workshops with exterior passageways and displays show the local industries of the past. The town sits on the border between Worcestershire and Shropshire and apparently in the past was a place where the law was difficult to uphold with villains from both counties frequenting the place. The Museum also has a lovely outdoor cafe (fab cheese scones) and herb garden and has access to a lovely park between it and the river. All in all, Bewdley is a friendly relaxed place and one that I would happily visit again and again.
On collecting the bike, about 5pm, I was putting on the cycle carrier on the roof of the car (which is very high) and I lost my grip on the bike. It crashed down on my head and there was blood everywhere. Mona and passers-by stopped the bleeding, but I went to a local health centre and they suggested the minor injuries unit in Kidderminster. I had 5 stitches in the wound which is apparently quite deep. None of the medical staff I saw had ever treated someone who had a bike fall on their head!! I’m not in pain but unfortunately it hasn’t knocked any sense into me. LOL
We moved on to a camp site in rural Cheshire. We decided to explore a brown tourist sign which said, “Whitegate Way”. Whitegate Way is a former railway line which has been turned into a trail for walkers, cyclists and horses. We had a walk and tomorrow hope to return for a bike ride. Amazingly it was very quiet with only a few walkers and cyclists, even on a Bank Holiday.
The line was constructed for the transportation of salt from the salt mine at Winsford. It was a short line, only 6 miles, that ended where it joined the main Chester to Manchester line at Cuddington. Eventually it also took passengers and had one intermediate station at Whitegate. The station house is the ranger’s office and the platform still stands. The trail is a haven for wildlife and in parts is lined by silver birch trees. We found a beautiful mere where we lingered for a while watching a Coot and Canada Geese sharing the lake with a couple of fishermen in their shelters. The trail is managed by the council and they have sown wildflower seeds (agrimony, cow parsley, foxglove, hedge bedstraw, hedge garlic, nettle leaved bellflower, red campion, lesser knapweed and oxeye daisy). They have also planted fruit trees (apple and damson) and the sign says anyone is welcome to pick the fruit in due course for their own use. This was a magical place for us. We hope to return in the future to see the wildflowers and fruit.
We visited Port Sunlight and the Lady Lever Art Gallery. We saw Pre Raphaelite paintings, copies of Roman statues, fabulous 17th century English furniture, Chinese and Wedgwood porcelain and 2500-year-old Greek pottery vessels. Lever, of soap fame, was an avid collector. He bought two Newlyn School paintings which he thought weren’t much good but would do to be copied for advertisements. As I write there is a lovely full moon apparently hanging in a young ash tree outside our caravan.
We were amazed at Port Sunlight. You probably know that Lever built it in the late 19th century to house his workers. His aesthetic taste was a major influence on the design which was used as an inspiration by the Cadburys at Bournville, and by others, including the garden cities. The scale of wide streets, green spaces and splendid houses makes it look like a wonderful place to live. Lever’s workers must have thought they had landed on a different planet having previously been housed in slums that were demolished to make way for the model village.
My wife being in dire need of more knitting needles, we found a Hobby Craft store where she purchased some bamboo needles. The day of culture ended with a trip to Morrisons for much needed groceries.