Twelve Apostles

High on Burley Moor

Boggy walk
If you take a picnic up onto Burley Moor high above Ilkley, following rising flagstones and well-trodden paths, you stumble upon a mysterious stone circle. (In truth, there are plenty of online maps to download different ways of getting there on purpose.) Archaologists estimate there were originally up to 20 standing stones but there are now 12 securely planted. Their original design may have been related to the movement of the moon or the rising of the sun, like Stonehenge. But it’s also possible that they’ve been moved more than once in their history and how or why they came to be known as “The Twelve Apostles” is lost in the vagaries of local mythmaking. Any road up, the walk, though squelchy, felt primitive and dramatic and perfect for a wintery chance to blow away cobwebs and set the world to rights….

Mini Stonehenge in Yorkshire....

Stourhead

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.

Return to Stonehenge

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….

Dove descending breaks the air

Mompesson House, a National Trust property in Salisbury's Cathedral Close

Mompesson House
In Salisbury’s Cathedral Close, a National Trust Queen Anne townhouse is accessible and imaginatively presented. The plasterwork inside Mompesson House is exquisite and I became obsessed with a set of Mezzotints by Thomas Frye – the faces seemed to be real people with real lives and real things to say about Eighteenth Century living. The house has been inhabited since 1701 (until 1975) and the walled garden is tranquil and welcoming.

Into the medieval period
It took nearly 38 years to build, it has the tallest spire in Britain, Constable’s famous painting of it is worth millions and we went there. Salisbury Cathedral, begun in 1220, five years after the sealing of the Magna Carta, and rising from a grassy estate in the town of Salisbury. It’s currently home to a soaring installation by artist Michael Pendry; this depicts a flight of doves (Les Colombes) made from individually folded doves, the majority by local community groups. As a symbol of peace, hope and new beginnings it was truly breathtaking.

Interior Salisbury Cathedral - spot the flight of doves.... Michael Pendry's Les Colombes

Highlights
The extraordinary internal walls, the bowed columns, the decorated ceilings, the infinity font, the lovely cloisters, the weird medieval clock, the Prisoners of Conscience window, the intricate quire stalls, the tiny sculptures of Vices and Virtues, the medieval friezes in the Chapter House, the Magna Carta exhibition (yes, one of the surviving copies is there), the model with masons, blacksmiths and artisans at work building the cathedral (with nary a harness or hard hat in sight!) Proper Ken Follett Pillars of the Earth stuff (and, yes, Kingsbridge in the novels was inspired by Salisbury.)

Little Gidding panels, the infinity font and Les Colombes

Little Gidding
The title of this post comes from Little Gidding, T S Eliot’s final poem in The Four Quartets, a masterpiece of yearning. In my (tentative) reading the poem speaks of love; pilgrimage and travelling, real and metaphorical; escaping earth-bound concerns for a better self; confronting regrets, fears and doubt and striving for hope, renewal and authenticity. Only Connect. We need to reflect on who we were, examine who we are and believe who we can be. Somehow the glass panels in Salisbury Cathedral and the soaring doves of Michael Pendry (and the ridiculous optimism of the Magna Carta – what it was, what it is and what it may yet be – somehow synthesised for me on our visit.
We die with the dying: 
See, they depart, and we go with them. 
We are born with the dead: 
See, they return, and bring us with them. 
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration…..
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time.

Road to Stonehenge and Winchester

Avebury

Avebury Stone Circle
Emily and I started our father-daughter Arthurian road trip in Devon (Plymouth) and travelled via Cornwall (Tintagel) and Somerset (Glastonbury) to arrive in Wiltshire and some Neolithic marvels. Avebury seemed to have at least three identifiable Stone Circles – one massive one and two smaller ones. What was remarkable was how intimate you could be with the stones, how up close and personal.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge
Much more controlled was the environment around Stonehenge with a shuttle bus to take us closer and then a guided walk which brought us pretty close indeed to the monumental ring. The absolute truths about the construction(s) of and the purpose(s) of Avebury and Stonehenge are unlikely to be discovered. What is certainly true is how astonishing they are in “real life” – very familiar from photographs, films and paintings and yet monstrously alien too. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote in his History of the Kings of Britain that Merlin had constructed the stone circles in the time of King Arthur with the help of giants, hence the legitimate inclusion of Stonehenge in our Arthurian pilgimage. Writers from the past had a healthy approach to mixing history and legend (healthy in my opinion.)

Merlin and the Giant constructing Stonehenge

Winchester Great Hall
Our fifth county on the trip was Hampshire and a visit to the cathedral and the Great Hall where hangs the Round Table. Yes, the actual Round Table. King Arthur’s Round Table. Yes, the very one. Well, at least, the Round Table constructed in the 13th Century and repainted in Tudor times.... (If you look closely at the image of Arthur on the table, you can tell it looks like Henry VIII…!) Apart from the glory of the table, we enjoyed visiting Queen Eleanor’s Garden with its medieval layout and admired the impressive Hall itself.

Winchester Great Hall, Round Table, Cathedral and statues of monarchs past and present

A pair of philomythists
Did I learn anything new about the Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table? Maybe not, but I certainly got a feeling for the geography of these famous sites. The trip ticked off a couple of items on my bucket list but looking back at it now, the thing I most valued was just spending time with a fellow philomythist (a lover of myths and legends.) Emily and I both agree with the author of Les Misérables, Victor Hugo:

“History has its truth, and so has legend…. history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath fleeting man.”