Letter 15 from Europe RV trip

Remember the mantra that Henry Higgins forced on Eliza Doolittle: In Hampton, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen? Well, we’ve been to all three. Hampton Court Palace, Hereford and several towns in Hampshire. We can vouch for Henry. No hurricanes here. The weather has been outstanding. There’s been intermittent sun, just a few sprinkles, and the temperature has been between 60 and 65 Fahrenheit.

The morning after we arrived in the campground near Hereford we set off by bus to visit that city. None of the “cities” that we’ve been visiting are very big. They are called cities only because they have a cathedral in them. Most of them were cities when the cathedrals were first built – in the 12th or 13th century. All of them have very old areas, with 600 or 700-year-old buildings that are still in use as residences and as businesses.

There is still a cattle market in Hereford (they don’t call those beef cattle Herefords for nothing), but it is now used as an open-air market. There is also a cathedral and several government buildings from long ago. Both of us are very interested in architecture and history – and cathedrals combine both. It may sound as if we are on a religious pilgrimage, but we are really on a historical hunt. There are all kinds of shops in all these towns, but we aren’t really interested in shopping (although Ron has never seen a supermarket that he didn’t want to visit). We like to walk the streets, see the really old buildings and listen to the voices around us.

Back to Hereford. This is a very old cathedral, built by the Normans back in the 11th and 12th centuries, using huge circular columns. Perhaps the most pleasing part was the so-called Lady Chapel, which has beautiful stained glass windows, but it was all interesting. There were the usual groups of school children. One group was middle school age, and they were all dressed in medieval costumes and were being instructed in how to conduct a medieval pilgrimage. As the lady next to me said, school was never like this before.

We decided not to view the Mappa Mundi (the very first map of the world) which is owned by the cathedral. We looked at the tomb of a knight whose name was Pembridge (which turned out to be the name of the next town we saw) and who fought in the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. This was very interesting to both of us because Poitiers and Crecy, both in France were places where battles occurred that permanently changed the way wars were fought. In both places, English long-bow archers decimated the French chivalric knights who fought in armor on horseback with lances, swords and axes. These battles marked the end of that sort of fighting.

We were ready to leave, when Adelle asked the Verger about the dispute during the English Civil War about altars made of stone. Why should the Puritans demand that they be taken away and replaced by altars made of wood, preferably a wooden table. The Verger stopped a volunteer guide, and asked that the guide tell us about it. He never did really explain why the Parliamentary Army and Cromwell got so incensed about an altar of stone. However, he did explain a lot of other things about the cathedral to us, pointing out the pagan images that are sculpted in stone in various places. And showing us the 26,000 stone flowers that were used to decorate the arches as well as the bell tower. These were quite expensive, since it took a mason one full day to make three! The cathedral had to negotiate a loan from the Vatican sometime in the 15th century just to pay for them!

As we go through these buildings, we consistently see the names of the men whose exploits are described in the histories we are reading. Sometimes they paid for parts of the cathedrals, or donated something to them, and sometimes they are buried there. In any case, it adds interest both to the building and to the history book.

As we walked through the town, we noticed a Market Hall in a beautiful old building. Of course we walked through. That is the first time we saw a cheese called “Smelly Bishop”. It boasts that it is washed in perry. We didn’t buy it – but it made an impression. Afterwards, we mused about what all that means. It wasn’t until days later that we learned from a woman washing dishes next to Ron that a smelly bishop is type of pear, as well as a type of cheese, and that the cheese is washed in a cider made of pears (hence perry).

We wanted to get back to the RV early, so we could leave to drive to Leominster (pronounced Lemster with an “e” like lemon). We drove through the city but we didn’t tour. The campground we had picked out was supposed to be only six miles from town. This is a little longer than we like, but we decided to try it. The campground in the town of Pembridge turned out to be a beautiful, modern facility but we were concerned about bus service. In England, service from rural areas into the towns is quite expensive and not “brilliant” as the lady in the campground said. She suggested that we take the RV into town and use the car park, which she assured us had no barrier keeping out motorhomes.

So that’s what we did. We got up early and drove into the village of Pembridge (remember the tomb of the knight?). It is a small place but notable for the large number of half-timbered buildings referred to as black and whites built between the 1300’s and the 1500’s and still in use. It also has a 13th century church with an even earlier bell tower. Not a cathedral, but just as interesting both architecturally and historically. After walking around for about an hour, we were ready to move on to another black and white village, Weobly (pronounced Webley). While it is a bigger village than Pembridge, it is not very large. It also has a very old and beautiful parish church, which we visited. Then we stopped to buy a few groceries, and we drove off. We were going to take our chances with parking in Ludlow, which is in nearby Shropshire.

Ludlow is a small city, and has a large assortment of black-and-whites. The best by far was The Feathers, which was built in the 16th century and first turned into an inn in the 17th century. We walked into the lobby, and a young lady asked if she could help us. When Ron told her that we just would like to see the inside, she suggested we go upstairs to the James I room, and the Charles II writing room. These are the oldest rooms in the Inn. Both were full of beautiful carved furniture of the period. There is a large beam going across the James I room that exhibits a decided downward sag, and a King James I crest in plaster in the ceiling. At first, we got a big charge out of the fact that we were in one of the very tilted gables that we had seen from the outside. It didn’t feel tilted! Then we realized that the tilted gable was the third floor! Incidentally, we were told with pride by a lady we met on the street that the Prince of Wales stays in this hotel in a suite named after him whenever he is in town.

The first thing we did in Ludlow was ask at the library if we could use the computer. A very nice librarian told us that they had no objection to nomads like us! After we read our e-mail, we walked around the downtown area of Ludlow, saw Ludlow Castle (started by William the Conquerer) and went to the supermarket. By then, we were really tired. Three places in one day is quite a lot. We had tea and then drove back to the campground. But there’s more to the story than that.

As anyone who is reading this knows, we’ve been having a terrible time with the internet service in England. Fortunately, we can often read our mail and post letters to the blog even if we can’t post our pictures. To make it all worse, we’ve been in quite a few places that didn’t have public telephones. British Telecom maintains the most phone booths of any country in Europe, but there are still places without the ubiquitous red phone booth. Adding to our confusion, Adelle had misplaced our communications bible. She had a little address book that has everything in it, but it has disappeared. Fortunately, before we left home, she had copied all the addresses into a new book – but of course she missed some, and made a few errors. When it came to calling people, we had a problem.

We had received an e-mail message on Wednesday in the Ledbury Library where we had been reading our e-mail. It said that we needed to be available for a radio interview from the U.S. on Friday evening. We weren’t sure that the campground phone would take incoming calls, so there was a big flurry about that vs. the cell phone. Fortunately, the telephone at the campground would take incoming calls, so we were able to make arrangements to be called at that number. All of this added a fillip of tension to the last two days. But we are glad to report that we finally figured everything out and the interview went without a hitch. Of course, we had to eat dinner at 9 p.m., but that was no problem.

Our next stop was to be Worcester (as in Worcestershire Sauce). We drove into town but found it very difficult to park because all the lots had height barriers. Rather than fight the terrible traffic, we decided to go on to Lincoln, which will be the furthest point of our journey this time. That 125 miles or so that we drove was by far the longest trip we’ve made. It was considerably easier driving than some of the short hops we’ve taken. Single lane roads with lots of curves are more difficult than straight motorways where faster traffic can pass in the other lanes. Anyway, we can always go back to Worcester on our way south.