I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all…~ Joni Mitchell
Before being re-erected at Bodnant in the 1930’s, the building was originally put together in 1730 as a picnic house or shooting lodge, or it is thought it may have been used as a garden house. Later, the building was used as a factory for making dressmaking pins with two furnaces for that purpose inside the building.
WPC: Reflecting
An imperfect photo? Surely not 
However the subject of this image was seriously flawed.
Thursday September 15th 2016: We deliberately meandered along the foggy shores of the Firth of Forth on our way to Edinburgh with the purpose of stopping in North Berwick and having seafood chowder or lobster bisque for lunch from the well-known Lobster Shack.
Mouths watering in anticipation we made our damp way to the harbour and then saw that the shutters were down. Gutted! Closed except for weekends.
Please visit Paula to see other representations of this week’s challenge.
Leaving Durham behind, we continued northwards to Alnwick in Northumberland where we would spend our last couple of night in England before heading over the border for 10 days. We stayed in a welcoming B&B on the outskirts of the town and within easy walking distance of the gardens that were our main reason for stopping here.
I have desired to go
where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow
~ Gerard Manley Hopkins
After all the beautiful sunny warm, even hot, days of September thus far (with the exception of Norwich) the weather finally turned. We woke to thick fog and rain. With only one full day here we had no choice but to make the best of it and set off to visit the famous Alnwick Water Gardens. On the way, and in a bid to get out of the wet for a while, we popped into Barter Books, originally a Victorian railway station on the North Eastern line and now a second-hand bookshop. And far more…
…an enchanting place filled with poetry lines linking the bookshelves above your head, 40 foot murals and a model train-set in the air; a station café, free wifi, comfortable armchairs and plenty of seating.
O western wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.
~ Anon (early 16th century)
The books are almost the last thing you look at.
There were, naturally, several books in this second-hand bookshop in Alnwick Northumberland that I could have walked out with, but the thoughts of having to carry them around with me for the next couple of weeks turned me off the idea.
The thought of living in this pretty little town however…
‘He breathed in air/He breathed out light/ Charlie Parker was my delight.’ ~ Adrian Mitchell
It’s quirky, it’s rambling and it’s the most eclectic place to browse in. Set up by Mary Manley in 1991 it is a second-hand bookshop based on the swap system and called Barter Books and home of the original reproduction ‘Keep Calm and Carry On‘ second world war poster.
And it was very tempting to abandon the garden visit and settle in for the entire day here!
This is Peter Dodd’s ‘Famous Writers’ Mural. In brief, this is a huge (38′ x 16′) mural comprising almost forty life-size characters – specifically, famous writers in the English language from 1800 onward.
They reminded me very much of the Murals in Coit Tower San Francisco.
Finally I will leave you with this poem written by Louis MacNeice an Irish poet who was part of the generation of the Auden Group, also sometimes known as the “Thirties poets”. I find it quite poignant.
“To Posterity”
When books have all seized up like the books in graveyards
And reading and even speaking have been replaced
By other, less difficult, media, we wonder if you
Will find in flowers and fruit the same colour and taste
They held for us for whom they were framed in words,
And will your grass be green, your sky blue,
Or will your birds be always wingless birds?By: Louis MacNeice (1957)
After two lovely sunny days in Lincoln we were ready to carry on northwards. Instead of heading for the A1 immediately we decided to drive through the Lincolnshire countryside via Gainsborough and Bawtry and get onto the A1 near Doncaster. A lot of this region is familiar to me as I grew up in Retford (Notts), Scunthorpe (Lincs) and then moved to Doncaster (S. Yorks) on my return from South Africa. I still managed to get confused on the outskirts of Doncaster though as many of the road routes have altered since I was last there. And then we hit an accident on the A1 and were at a standstill for about an hour!
Eventually though we were about to hit Durham, another city that although I have passed by many times I have never actually visited. My intention was to find the park ‘n ride and bus into the city, but obviously my directional awareness was totally absent on this day as I couldn’t find the site and finished up almost in the city centre where more roadworks were taking place. Heading back out of the city we eventually found the right road (it is next to the A1 but not very well signed) and caught a bus back into the city. It was a very hot day and by the time we had walked up to the castle and cathedral area we were feeling very warm!
First stop was to get some lunch and relax! We saw a nice looking café on the Palace Green and found a table outside. After 10 minutes we moved inside to get out of the heat. Now bear in mind this was mid-September in the north-east of the country!
You are not charged to enter the cathedral, though a donation is suggested, and you are not allowed to take photographs inside either, which was rather disappointing. I did see a few people surreptitiously taking a few shots with their phones and a couple who had cameras were approached, rather more gently than my Lincoln experience.
I did make a few notes and sketches though:
Prior Castell’s clock – a highly decorative wooden clock; the shrine of St Cuthbert; huge pillars carved in a diamond or chevron pattern in the nave; coloured marble floors and a lectern stand with pink and green marble pillars and heraldic lions at the base. Inserts of patterned marble and bands adorn the upper columns. Shrines with traces of the medieval paint in red and blue… Lindisfarne Gospels
On entering the cloisters, where the monks would have once passed daily on their way to the Chapter House, the Monk’s Dormitory, Scriptorium, Refectory and Great Kitchen, I decided the photography rules no longer applied. The shadows on the stone slabs were far too tempting and how could I resist the flat wooden ceiling with shields at the intersections of each cross beam and the golden angels near the Chapter House.
More notes: Arched shadows form on the wide stone floor as the hot sun beams down on the cloisters. Wooden pews line the walls and marks in the stonework indicate that possibly a recess has been blocked up. Maybe where the monks stored their books? A pipistrelle bat flies down the passageways and surprises me – I have never seen one at this time of day before. Maybe the darkness in here confuses it into thinking it is dusk. Dust motes float in the air and I can almost imagine the slapping of the sandals of the monks from distant times in the all-pervading silence.
We exited the cloisters into a Memorial Garden which stands on the site of the Monastic buildings. A young lad sat peacefully on the bench studying his text book in the sunshine whilst we soaked in the colour and the beauty of the roses still flowering in September.
Brought back from Ypres in 1917 by Lieutenant H J W Scott 5th BN:DLI. Since then it has travelled with the Scott family from Essex to Surrey and to Cornwall. Presented to this garden of remembrance by his son Mr O T Scott. Planted on Remembrance Sunday 1978.
College Green is a quiet area on the south side of the cathedral, it has a very beautiful secluded village like quality to it, with the houses being the home to members of Durham’s Dean and Chapter. Many of the buildings surrounding the Green originated in the Middle Ages.
An arched gateway on the east side known historically as the Abbey Gates also called Prior Castell’s Gatehouse of 1495-1519 leads into the street called the Bailey. The gate is still locked each night. It has some delightful carvings on the ceiling.
The south western corner of the College is the home to the Durham Chorister School. This was originally established as a song school around 1390. Former pupils of this school have included the former Prime Minister Tony Blair and the actor, Rowan Atkinson most noted for his role in the BBC comedy Blackadder and as the comedy character Mr Bean.
As usual, colourful doors and interesting windows caught my eye as we made our way back to the Palace Green where we could catch the cathedral bus back to the Park ‘n Ride stop.
For some inexplicable reason I failed to get a shot of the full west face of the cathedral (I have a vague recollection that there was scaffolding around some of it). To see some images of the cathedral then please visit this site.
These memorial crosses near the cathedral did manage to catch my eye. I was particularly drawn to the rather arts and crafts style of carving on the larger cross.
IF YOU ENJOY A WALK, LONG OR SHORT, THEN HAVE A LOOK AT JO’S SITE WHERE YOU ARE WELCOME TO JOIN IN WITH HER MONDAY WALKS.
Lincoln has a magnificent cathedral, but practically opposite there is the castle. Not any old ruin, but a grand Norman castle with two keeps and a complete curtain wall. Its highly strategic position has given it continuing historical importance – the site of many battles, sieges, medieval wheeling and dealing and it houses one of the four surviving examples of that monumental document – the Magna Carta.
Nowadays it is a wonderful museum telling the stories of life as both Georgian and Victorian prisons, the rebellions, the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, which came about because of the struggle for the throne between Matilda, the daughter and chosen heir of Henry I and her cousin Stephen; the siege of Lincoln 1191; the Magna Carta, 1206, and the civil war siege in 1644. From 1660 it ceased to be a military stronghold and became a jail and courthouse.
We decided to join a free tour of the castle and grounds which was very interesting and we learned a lot about the history of the site. Afterwards we wandered around the prison cells where they have short films telling the story of individuals and why they were in prison and also went to have a look at the ‘Magna Carta’ and the ‘Charter of the Forest’. Then I left OH resting on a bench in the sunshine whilst I walked around the Medieval Wall Walk.
Cobb Hall is the latest of the three towers, estimated to have been built between 1190 and 1220. The tower defended the castle’s north-east quarter. Although flat on this side, externally it is rounded and inside the walls have been carved with graffiti by prisoners and bored guards. Between 1817 and 1859, 38 prisoners were hanged on a wooden gallows from the top of this tower.
Although outside the castle walls you cannot avoid noticing this impressive tower. The 120-foot-tall building was constructed a result of a Typhoid epidemic in Lincoln that started in late 1904. 113 people died from the outbreak which was one of the city’s biggest peacetime disasters. The building was completed in 1911, decorated with the fleur-de-lys – the symbol of Lincoln Cathedral’s Patron Saint, Mary Mother of Jesus. It is supplied by piping water from a reservoir 22 miles away at Elkesly, Nottinghamshire.
The red cross is the Saint George’s Cross representing England. Yellow represents the crops grown in the county, as well as the nickname “Yellowbellies” given to people born and bred in Lincolnshire. Blue represents both the sea of the East coast and the wide skies of Lincolnshire, and green symbolises the rich lushness of fenland fields. The fleur de lys is a recognised symbol of the City of Lincoln.
The Lucy Tower is named after one of the formidable women linked to the castle. It was built on top of its Norman mound and is a polygonal shell keep, the internal space was kept open.
The wall walk continues around the back of the Victorian prison to the Observatory tower which was built on the smaller of the two mounds that join the south curtain wall. The additional tower was added in early †19C by prison governor John Merryweather who was a keen amateur astronomer.
IF YOU ENJOY A WALK, LONG OR SHORT, THEN HAVE A LOOK AT JO’S SITE WHERE YOU ARE WELCOME TO JOIN IN WITH HER MONDAY WALKS.
TRAVEL WORDS 