COTSWOLDS: Sheep-on-a-Roll

Mo 16 May

Creative Naming

A is Oxford, B is Stow-on-the-Wold, 
C is Chipping Campden; the green area
where B and C are is the Cotswolds.
Two orange markers show Bath, Stonehenge

OK, I came up with a good pub name in the other post (The Cow and Kite); now I'm working on a good small town name. Today we went through Stow-on-the-Wold, and we've seen other names like Moreton-in-Marsh and Bourton-on-the-Water. And of course there's the well-known Stratford-upon-Avon. After seeing the cute room decor pictured above, I've decided we're at Sheep-on-a-Roll. 

Actually we're really at Chipping Campden, which is a pretty distinctive name, too. "Chipping" is from an Old English word for 'market-place'; there are other towns that were deemed market places as well: Chipping Norton, Chipping Sodbury. The overall area we're in is called the 'Cotswolds', a lovely region of rolling hills that has a history of very successful sheep farming. The area is also characterized by stone houses made from the local oolithic limestone (had to get in a mention of 'oolithic'). 

Last morning in Oxford

We started the day with a last bus ride into Oxford's City Centre to run a couple of errands. We also managed to catch a small exhibit on the Oxford English Dictionary, at Oxford's Weston Library. It seemed an appropriate last sight to see at Oxford.

Rainy lunchtime snack at Stow

A little before noon we headed up to the Cotswolds, about an hour's drive away. We stopped briefly at Stow-on-the-Wold, where I had some lemonade and a tasty pesto pastry snack. The bakery was full inside, so we sat at an outside table, but it started raining! It'd been raining off and on, on the drive, but had stopped when we got to Stow—only to start again when I was eating. Doug stood over me to shield me from the rain (he wasn't eating) and I hurriedly ate the parts of my snack that would be hard to pack, and packed up the rest. Then we wandered about Stow.

Chipping Campden

Before long, we continued on to Chipping Campden, our main destination. After checking in at our lovely Eight Bells inn, we first visited the nearby St. James church. The church itself is lovely, but I was especially struck by the fairly extensive graveyard surrounding it. There are so many old headstones which are now very difficult or impossible to read. It made me sad to think of how people thought they were leaving a permanent remembrance but it's now gone. The ones you could still read were often very touching and some were still being honored with fresh flowers. Behind the graveyard, we were rewarded with the sight of multiple sheep grazing!

After seeing the church, we wandered up and down Chipping Campden's main street, a street which the English historian G.M. Trevelyan considered to be "the most beautiful village street now left on the island." It is indeed a lovely street, though there are so many cars! It would be even lovelier without the cars...

Note: One side of the street is lower; note how the cars are higher than the sidewalk in a couple shots.

Next Post

Tomorrow we will leave the Cotswolds already, and head up north for a few days in the Lake District.

The Eight Bells inn we are staying at.

Note the Ukrainian flag. We have seen the Ukrainian flag a number of times on this trip. The Bath Abbey was flying the Ukrainian flag, and Merton College at Oxford was flying the flag, too. Bath Abbey also had slips of paper you could use to write and post prayers for Ukraine. Two large boards were crammed full with prayers. I added one, too.

OXFORD 6: World wonders, plus punting!

Skeleton in back is of an Asian elephant
Tall skeleton right of center is a giraffe

Su 15 May

Since the forecast was for rain, we figured an indoor activity would be good, and we'd been meaning to see the Oxford Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum, but I didn't know that much about them. They are both SPECTACULAR, each in a different way. We were blown away by the richness and variety of both collections, as well as by the architectural settings they're in.

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History

The setting of this museum collection is breathtakingly beautiful, with a high glass ceiling flooding the space with natural light, and with lots of loving detail in the archways, columns, lights, floor tiling, etc. The collection itself is wonderful, too, with all kinds of information about animals and minerals. There are skeletons and fossils and stuffed animals, and every column in the second floor gallery is made of stone from a different part of Britain. It's a dazzling display of the wonders of the natural world. (Note that two rock photos are included, for a particular rock fan...)

The Pitt-Rivers Museum

The adjacent Pitt Rivers Museum is a very old-style museum, full of dimly lit old-style cases (dimly lit to protect the objects on display). It is more of an anthropological museum, focused on human-created objects of culture and ritual. In the museum's own words, its very existence is based on a colonial outlook on the world, where the world's treasures are yours to collect and own. The collection includes objects from all over the world, including a giant totem pole from Canada, Noh masks from Japan, brass anklets from Nigeria, etc

The museum seems to be working hard at finding the right path to take going forward. It has various info panels scattered about, calling attention to things like the importance of how you name and describe exhibits; it is also working more with the communities being represented. For example, one info panel explains that a previous well-known exhibit of shrunken heads is no longer on display, as it was considered to be offensive by the peoples involved.

One plus of having such a wide assortment of objects is that the objects are displayed thematically, rather than being grouped more by time period or place of origin, as is often the case. For instance, there is a case devoted to Lutes of all kinds, from all over the world. Upstairs, in the section on body adornments, there are cases devoted to Tattoos, or Masks, or Headdresses. There are cases devoted to different Playing Cards. It can be very interesting to see items grouped in that sort of thematic way; apparently this unusual approach came from the founder Pitt-Rivers, and is one of the things that sets the museum apart.

Both museums reflect a deep love of their subject matter, and a devotion to sorting, cataloguing, and organizing the world that is mind-boggling. 

The Handle Bar and Punting After All

In the mid-afternoon, we met up with Allie at The Handle Bar, a fun café/bar decorated with all kinds of bikes. We discussed activity options, and I think Allie picked up on the fact that Doug was still hankering to go punting, despite the grey skies and off-and-on rain. So off we went! 

I was a little worried that the boathouse might have closed early, with the inclement weather. But it was still getting a fair amount of business, and we lucked out in that we only got a few occasional drops of rain while we were out. 

Doug says keeping your balance standing on the boat wasn't as hard as he feared, but steering was tricky. He was able to move us along at a pretty good pace; sometimes I'd want to take pictures of ducks, but we'd go by them faster than I could get ready! Partway through, Allie switched with Doug to try her hand at it. It was a very fun outing. If we were staying longer, I'd definitely go again, and I'd even try it too.

Next Post

It's hard to believe it's time to leave Oxford already...it's been such a treat to see Allison every day. The weather seems to echo our sadness, with its wetter, more blustery turn. 

OXFORD 5: Stonehenge! Avebury!

 

Sa May 14

Stonehenge

The mystery is revealed: today we and the Beloved Daughter took a field trip out to see Stonehenge, which none of us had ever seen. We had planned the trip for Saturday because Allie would be free that day; we lucked out in that Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day, a great day for Stonehenge viewing. It's about an hour's drive outside of Oxford. We also ended up going to Avebury on the way back, which is the location of a very different kind of stone circle. (The Google map inset is showing 1 hr 55 min for the combined driving time all the way to Avebury.)

We swung by Allison's place at 9:30am to pick her up, and then hit the road. . I can tell Doug is more comfortable now with both the left-side-of-the-road thing and the stick shift driving thing, but driving here still seems like a challenge to me. Roads are often very narrow; roundabouts are very common and sometimes confusing, and remembering the correct side of the road to be on still requires constant vigilance. On the plus side, drivers in general seem to be reasonable and well-behaved. It's extremely helpful that our Vauxhall car works with Android Auto, so Doug's Android phone can pipe navigation info to the car's screen, including helpful side info like where to find a petrol station. Doug said figuring out the cruise control on the car was also a big plus. It was quite pleasant today, driving through the green English countryside, and learning new English road vocabulary along the way, e.g. soft verges and laybys.

As you might imagine, Stonehenge gets tons of visitors, but the crowds are managed well. There's a beautiful, large visitor center; from there you get on shuttle buses to take a brief ride to the actual stones. You can also walk there from the visitor center, it's about 1.5 miles. At the site itself, a walkway circles the stones at a distance, but then comes up closer to the stones at the end. You can't go right up to the stones—there's too much risk of damage and wear to them. 

I found it very impressive to see the stones in person. You feel the size and massiveness of the stones more, and it's also interesting to be able to walk around them and see different vantage points. 

The line to get on the shuttle bus

Models of stages of Stonehenge construction

Avebury

After a quick lunch at the Stonehenge Visitor Center cafe (where we had, among other things, a "rock cake"), we headed on to Avebury. Avebury has the world's largest stone circle, but it is not as famous as Stonehenge because it's not as striking or impressive. The stones are more random looking and don't serve the astrological calendar function that the Stonehenge ones do. Also the circle is so much larger than Stonehenge's that you can't really see the whole circle at once (except maybe from the air). Because of these factors, it's a much more casual setting. A road and parts of the town actually go through the circle, and lots of people use the grounds for picnicking.

Original circle is now divided by a road and pathways into
four quadrants. Click to enlarge to see the stones. You can clearly
see the surrounding circular henge (ditch and bank) here.

Next Post

Tomorrow's our last full day in Oxford... Among other things, if the weather holds up we may try for a bit of punting...!