More Walls

I’m writing this week’s post in the car as we drive to London. We’ve had a great week touring around England.

We spent one day touring York. We really enjoyed the afternoon service at the Minster, walking the wall, exploring the Snickelways and the Shambles, and sleeping at a pub.

On our way west, we drove north to see Hadrian’s Wall. We stopped at an archeological site called Housesteads where they have uncovered the remains of a Roman fort built along the wall. We took a guided tour of the site and then hiked along the wall to Sycamore Gap. A pair of hooligans cut the tree down in 2023, but the stump is still there and saplings are growing.

We loved the Lake District. We stayed in a little rock annex to a farmhouse. We really enjoyed our hikes around the fells and lakes. We tried Grasmere Gingerbread and enjoyed dinner in Keswick. It’s so pretty throughout that area.

We left the Lake District to head south. Our intermediate stop was in Chester. This city was a complete surprise and delight. Like York, the history there goes back more than 2000 years. The city has got a gorgeous cathedral, a really cool old town with medieval half-timbered buildings galore, and a city wall. Highlights were the cafe where we ate lunch, the organ concert in the Minster, and a wonderful conversation with a Reverend there. We also stopped in Ironbridge to see the first cast iron bridge, built over the River Severn in 1779. That area was a hot spot during the early Industrial Revolution.

We ended up in the Cotswolds, just outside the little town of Chipping Campden. We stayed in another annex to a very old house, and then we spent a couple days hiking the countryside, walking past fields of ripening grain, beneath shady trees, and through villages big and small. If the best idea that the United States had was National Parks, then I think the United Kingdom’s best idea is the “right to walk”. They protect public rights of way so that people can walk on footpaths across the country, some of which are very ancient. It means that you are often walking through a pasture or farmer’s field through gates of all kinds and climbing up and down stiles over fences. It’s fun! Unfortunately, we are in the middle of Britain’s third heatwave of the year, so it was very hot and the landscape much drier than usual. The little towns are lovely,  with a mix of old sandstone buildings and medieval cottages. It’s no secret to the world that the Cotswolds are charming, so we did encounter crowds and traffic in a few places. For the most part, though, we had peace and tranquility since we were walking the paths.

We also spent a delightful afternoon with an excellent guided tour in Stratford-upon-Avon, hearing tales of Shakespeare and the history of that pretty town. We followed that up with a Royal Shakespeare Company production of a play called “The Constant Wife”. It was clever and witty and beautifully acted. What a treat!

And now we are London-bound, but we made a couple of stops along the way. We stopped in Oxford so Nathan could see that university town (I visited with El in 2017). It’s the oldest university in the English-speaking world. We saw lots of cool old buildings and heard stories of its 2000-year history. We visited the science history museum and the extensive Blackwell’s bookstore. We also stopped at two family history sites linked to Nathan’s Putnam ancestors (his maternal grandmother’s line): Aston Abbey and Puttenham.

We are happy to be returning to London for a few days. We get to regroup and do some laundry and Nathan gets to practice the piano a bit. When we check in next week, we’ll be having a new, if a bit familiar, adventure. Enjoy your week!