Catching up
Recent blogs (2nd and 9th June) have been about a trip back in May. This blog’s no different. I declared in January that I was easing off on my blog to do a big push on my novel and that’s been happening. A draft has now gone out to a bunch of readers who’re sending feedback in my direction, prior to offering it to agents. Raydan Wakes has now “left the building” – it’s escaped from my imagination – who knows what next? Tags on the right will lead interested readers to previous mentions of Rhenium Tales, my Young Adult speculative fiction trilogy.
In the meantime
The recent bout of sunshine has allowed England to be not only be green and pleasant but also baking hot and bursting with summery blossom. After being Neolithic in Stonehenge, medieval at Winchester Cathedral and dallying in Queen Anne’s reign at Blenheim, Stourhead House and Gardens provided another stop steeped in history on our May odyssey. According to its National Trust brochure, Stourhead was described in the 18th Century as “a living work of art where all is grand and simple or a beautiful mixture of both.” That describes it pretty well to me.
Folly walk
Our main reason for going was for the gardens and we were delighted by the undulating maze of pathways lined with rhododendrons, azaleas, Spring meadows, classical temples and grottoes anchoring viewpoints around a lovely (artificial) lake.
The Good, The Magnificent and The Scholar
The owners were heavily influenced by Italian styles and had evocative nicknames:
- Henry ‘The Good’ (1677 – 1724)
- Henry ‘The Magnificent’ (1705 – 1785) and
- Colt Hoare, the Scholar, who combated the grief following the early death of his wife by travelling through Europe and immersing himself in history and the arts.
F.A.B.
Like many of the UK’s stately homes, Stourhead has seen its share of filming – from the Palladian bridge and the Temple of Apollo in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice to the use of the gardens in Stanley Kubrick’s ravishing film of Barry Lyndon. A model of the building was used for Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward’s mansion, too – she of course being the London agent of the Tracy family in Thunderbirds. I didn’t feel like we were on a film set, but it definitely felt like a paradise.
Avebury
Developed and populated around 2600 BCE, Avebury is the site of a stunning concentration of Neolithic and Bronze Age remnants including West Kennet long barrow, Silbury Hill, ditches, avenues and the enigmatic circles within circles of standing stones. I went a couple of years ago on a King Arthur road trip with Emily and this time we returned with Sally.
Close Up
The astonishing feature of Avebury is that you can get super-close to the stones and walk along and amongst their grandeur. They are a perfect way, if you visit the Alexander Keiller museum on site, to introduce you to the weird landscapes in this part of the country before going on to the monumental “other” part of the World Heritage Site, site of many a battle between environmentalists, pagan worshippers and English Heritage…. Stonehenge.
The Alignment
Stonehenge’s axis runs north-east to south-west and at midsummer the sun rises in the north-east and at midwinter the sun sets in the south-west. Even on a May evening (when we were there) on a clear night the sun setting is a powerful event. It’s easy to be awestruck about how the original builders and engineers could align both solstices, six months and 180 degrees apart.
Our ancestors were not so primitive
Avebury’s stones were lifted into their positions at a similar time that the Egyptians were raising up the Great Pyramid at Giza. Given the other Great Wonders of the Ancient World, I have to conclude that just because we have no written records, it does not mean our ancestors were incapable of scientifically elaborate achievements. What would we now know about the past if the Librar(ies) at Alexandria had not burned down several times – nor indeed if other libraries throughout the world had been better preserved?
Stonehenge’s history, as far as we currently know
Long barrows in the Stonehenge landscape appeared as early 3500 BCE and by 500 years later the first wide circle (with smaller stones) had been constructed. Avebury (and the Great Pyramid at Giza) came about 500 years after that. We can place the erection of the larger stone circle with its uprights and lintels to about 2500 BCE, two generations after Avebury.
Durrington Walls
A nearby settlement either housed the builders or thrived on the trade generated by the presence of Stonehenge and a group of huts have been recreated next to the Visitor Centre.
What is Stonehenge?
Over the years Stonehenge has been proclaimed a celestial clock, a temple, a place of sacrifice, an art installation, an impressive site for civic ceremonies – the current view is that we simply do not know how it was used in its heyday. We’re not even sure it was ever completed.
Not for Druids (originally at least)
One certainty is that it could never have originally been a Druids’ Temple, as Druid practices began in the Iron Age, long after Stonehenge had appeared. Druids may have appropriated the stones in later years, but so have poets, novelists, songwriters, artists and plain old romantics….
Afternoon tea and a shock for George III
En route to Salisbury Cathedral (see previous blog) and before the ecstasy of Stonehenge (following blog) we rested for afternoon tea at Blenheim Palace. As you do. Apart from the glory of the treat, we had a guided tour round the State Rooms, a virtual tour round a weird “Untold Story” with ghostly projections giving a flavour of Blenheim’s history (and in fact on the return journey we stopped again to peer into the Duke’s rooms.) At times like these, I usually feel like Heathcliff must have felt staring into the windows of Thrushcross Grange, expecting at any moment to be thrashed and sent back to Wuthering Heights. At Blenheim the guides were in fact very welcoming, impressively knowledgeable and were able to motormouth through the chequered history of battles, wars, loveless marriages, tragic events, bitter legal disputes and architect tiffs that went into the creating of the only building in England called a Palace that’s neither royal nor connected to the church. Although the construction began during Queen Anne’s time, it was George III who cemented Blenheim’s reputation as being too big for its non-royal boots by gasping “We have nothing to equal this!”
"Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail"
In John Donne’s poem of witty poetical advice To Sir Henry Wotton he remarks that “Life is a voyage,” “Cities are sepulchres,” “Courts are theatres” and “The country is a desert” unless you can look within and “Be then thine own home.” No amount of luxury or power will satisfy your soul if you fail “to thine own self be true” as Shakespeare had Polonius say in Hamlet. Donne admires the snail who carries “his own house still, still is at home” and the fish who glide by “leaving no print where they pass.” Seeking fame or fortune means nothing without loved ones. I’m sometimes puzzled by my own politics of liking big houses and estates (and supporting the Monarchy as an institution 100%) – when I’m instinctively liberal and hate entitlement and the unfair distribution/hoarding of wealth by the few. Could it be that my “view within” (as E M Forster put it in A Room With A View) recognises that the “gorgeous palaces” can be seen as prisons, trapping those inside whose souls can never truly be free?
