England: Frome and area

 

We left the Rabbie's tour in Glastonbury and were met by our dear friends, Stephen and Irene.  They are part of the SIL mapping team that Dave volunteers with.  We've met in person before, at the SIL team meetings in Dallas.  Now it was a privilege to visit with them, to eat home-cooked meals and to play the card game, Canadian Patience, in the evenings.  They were eager to show us the sights of Somerset.

The Glastonbury Abbey ruins date back 1500 years, the stuff of legends, and may very well be the burial site of King Arthur.  The abbey was suppressed during the dissolution of the monasteries at the time of King Henry VIII and the dressed stones were hauled away.  It went into private ownership until the late 1800s when it became a site of archeological value and now a tourist attraction.  We had a beautiful afternoon wandering among the stones, trying to visualize the abbey that once stood there and what life might have been like centuries ago.

time for tea in Glastonbury

From there it was to the Wells Cathedral which is still very much in use.  In the Vicar's Close, we could hear music wafting down from the apartments, rehearsing for the next worship service.  In the cathedral, choirs were rehearsing for Evensong.  We stopped to listen to the Astronomical clock chime with jousting knights going around in a tournament.  All a beautiful feast for the ears and eyes.

Vicar's Close

the clock

a carver with a sense of humor

As we wandered on, we crossed a moat and entered the Bishops' palace grounds and stopped at a cafe for a coffee break. 

Frome (rhymes with broom) is one of the prettiest towns we've seen.  It was one of the largest centers in the area during the Industrial Revolution due to the cloth and wool industries.  It is still an important town and has a beautiful historic town center where we spent our time poking into the various shops, and walking up and down (literally) on the cobblestone streets with Stephen and Irene as our guides.

Dave straddling the leat (man-made channel)
 that runs down the street

One of the most curious things I've seen is a horse carved into the chalk hillside.  It was created some time in the 1700s and needs to be weeded and refreshed regularly.  We couldn't get up close because the area was closed for a soap-box derby. 

We went to another look-off called Heaven's Gate on the Longleat Estate.  It was a little hike through the forest and then opened to a sculpture garden and views of the countryside.

We continued onto the historic village of Horningsham and walked around, finding some thatch-roofed houses.

Sunday morning we went with Stephen to church on the Orchardleigh Estate.  What an adorable little church, part of it dating back to the 1300s. It had no electricity or plumbing.  The church was lit by candlelight and sunlight.  Stephen was organist and it was a hand-pumped organ with another gentleman operating the pump handle as he played.  The service followed the liturgy from the 1600s, but they were planning to update it for the next service. The message was from taken from Acts 10.  If you believe in Jesus you are filled with the Holy Spirit.  Pause and think on that for a moment.

Sunday roast is a traditional British meal.  It might be roast chicken, pork or beef and it comes with all the trimmings, including Yorkshire Pudding.  Together with our friends we enjoyed a delicious meal at the Woolpack Inn and restaurant.  

We stopped at the Kennet & Avon Canal on Caen Hill to watch some narrow-boats make their way through the locks system.  There are 29 locks in this flight travelling a distance of about 3 1/2 kms in an effort to cross the hill, a rise of 72 meters.  What a long slow process of opening and closing locks, by hand, and carefully driving the boat in and out of the locks.  Some friends from home went on a narrow-boat trip last year.  It sounded much more romantic than it turned out to be.

We'd had a wonderful time with Stephen and Irene exploring their part of the country. They then drove us on to Reading where we caught the train into London, back to Paddington Station.  Maybe this time we wouldn't feel like the lost gopher on our arrival in the city.