Today we need to start early since we need to be to the Victoria Coach Station by 8:15 and it is hard to predict travel time when using the metro. So we were down for breakfast by 6:15 and left for the metro by 6:45. We arrived with little trouble by 7:50 which gave us lots of time to wait. The organization went fine, except we were almost loaded onto the wrong bus. Fortunately it was noticed before we all got loaded or carted off to the wrong tour.
As we travelled our tour guide, Jess, was an excellent historian and speaker. She pointed out key landmarks and gave a bit of history about the significance of that landmark. Now I say excellent historian, but I assume she was telling factual and if not, at least it kept our interest. We heard about Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the area of the city with many buildings dedicated to him. Then we heard about King Henry VIII, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and even Queen Elizabeth II.
We asked about Lady Jane Grey and the connections to her (actually her Uncles) claim to the throne and received an excellent history of English Monarch evolution and English cultural/religious history. She suggested that we read a book “The Adventures of English” by E. Bragg to gain insight to the English language development and the influences of historical culture and religion on the English. I am not able to even begin to repeat what she shared, but it was incredibly interesting and really kept everyone’s attention while we drove down the freeway. By the way, the weather was not looking all that good as we were traveling through rain.
We arrived in Stonehenge to a windy, wet and cool environment. We had been warned of the possibility so everyone had come prepared with coats and umbrellas. However the wind was a bit blustery so the umbrellas became useless.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. It is at the centre of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.
Archaeologists have believed that the iconic stone monument was erected around 2500 BC. One recent theory however, has suggested that the first stones were not erected until 2400–2200 BC, whilst another suggests that bluestones may have been erected at the site as early as 3000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC.
Archaeological evidence found by the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2008 indicates that Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Stonehenge was produced by a culture that left no written records. Many aspects of Stonehenge remain subject to debate. This multiplicity of theories, some of them very colourful, is often called the "mystery of Stonehenge". Whatever religious, mystical or spiritual elements were central to Stonehenge, its design includes a celestial observatory function, which might have allowed prediction of eclipse, solstice, equinox and other celestial events important to a contemporary religion.
The Heel Stone lies just outside the main entrance to the henge, next to the present A344 road. It is a rough stone, 16 feet (4.9 m) above ground, leaning inwards towards the stone circle. It has been known by many names in the past, including "Friar's Heel" and "Sun-stone". Today it is uniformly referred to as the Heel Stone or Heelstone. When one stands within Stonehenge, facing north-east through the entrance towards the heel stone, one sees the sun rise above the stone at summer solstice.
After an hour of wandering around the Stonehenge and listening to the self-guided audio tape we returned to the bus to continue our journey on to Bath. Bath is a city in the ceremonial county of Somerset in the south west of England. It was granted city status by Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590, and was made a county borough in 1889 which gave it administrative independence from its county, Somerset. The city became part of Avon when that county was created in 1974. We were fortunate to have a bus driver on the tour that was willing to give us a driving tour of the city to show us a few of the city attractions.
Bath presents some of the finest architectural sights in Europe such as the Royal Crescent, the Circus and Pulteney Bridge and attractions including the Roman Baths, and Bath Abbey. There were so much more we could have seen but we did have a limit on time. What was really great was the sunny skies that greeted us in Bath - gone were the clouds and rain we experienced at Stonehenge.
Our first visit was to visit the Bath Abbey. The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Bath, commonly known as Bath Abbey, is an Anglican parish church and a former Benedictine monastery in Bath, Somerset, England. Founded in the 7th century and reorganised in the 10th century it was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. Today it stands proudly close to the historic Roman Baths, our second stop in Bath.
The city was first established as a spa with the Latin name, Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis") by the Romans in AD 43. They built baths and a temple on the surrounding hills of Bath in the valley of the River Avon around hot springs. Edgar was crowned king of England at Bath Abbey in 973. Much later, it became popular as a spa town during the Georgian era, which led to a major expansion that left a heritage of exemplary Georgian architecture crafted from Bath Stone. The thermal springs found in the town of Bath produce the highest temperature geothermal water in the UK at 47-48 degrees C.
The Roman Baths themselves are below the modern street level. There are four main features: the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and the Museum holding finds from Roman Bath. The buildings above street level date from the 19th century. The temple was constructed in 60-70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years. During the Roman occupation of Britain, and possibly on the instructions of Emperor Claudius, engineers drove oak piles to provide a stable foundation into the mud and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead. In the second century it was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted building, and included the caldarium (hot bath), tepidarium (warm bath), and frigidarium (cold bath). After the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the first decade of the fifth century, these fell into disrepair and were eventually lost due to silting up, and flooding. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests the original Roman baths were destroyed in the 6th century.
The baths have been modified on several occasions, including the 12th century when John of Tours built a curative bath over the King's Spring reservoir and the 16th century when the city corporation built a new bath (Queen's Bath) to the south of the Spring. The spring is now housed in eighteenth century buildings. Visitors drank the waters in the Grand Pump Room, a neo-classical salon which remains in use, both for taking the waters and for social functions. In 1810 the Hot Springs failed and William Smith opened up the Hot Bath Spring to the bottom, where he found that the spring had not failed but had flowed into a new channel. Smith restored the water to its original course and the Baths filled in less time than formerly. There was so much to see but unfortunately no place to swim at the baths. The pictures can share what there is to see, but nothing will replace an actual visit.
As we headed out of the baths we stopped at the Grand Pump Room to have a glass of water. This warm mineral water with the expected smell was not exactly what I had expected, but it was drinkable. We were a bit concerned as we read the sign that indicated that originally those who drank this water in volume were disappointed to learn there were no facilities for “when the water starts to work”. We had no reactions from the water I am happy to note.
We left the Bath to do a bit of walking around the city. We headed over to the river and checked out the Pulteney Bridge which is a bridge that crosses the River Avon. It was completed in 1773. The bridge was designed by Robert Adam, whose working drawings are preserved in the Sir John Soane's Museum, and is one of only four bridges in the world with shops (mostly coffee shops now) across the full span on both sides. Shops on the bridge include a flower shop, antique map shop, and juice bar.
We headed back to the bus as scheduled to head back to the city. On the way back we hit the rush hour traffic heading towards London. What a joy that was and I was glad I was not driving. It did mean that we were a bit late getting back into the city so we decided to stay downtown and have dinner. After dinner we headed back to the hotel, both very tired from a very long day, and glad we had taken the tour. The country side was beautiful and the sites interesting. Tomorrow we will plan on taking it a bit easier.
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