England – Travel stories

The Abbey Gate (looking towards the town) that led into the monastery which was demolished by King Henry VIII

On Sunday we arrived in the town of Bury St. Edmunds about forty minutes from Cambridge. It’s a very old town that started with a legend about a wolf…

Church Gate leading to the monastery’s church which was also demolished

it was back in 869AD and Edmund was king of East Anglia. He was fighting against the Danish invaders when he was captured and decapitated. When his soldiers came looking for him his head was missing. When they finally found it, it was being protected by a wolf. The wolf allowed the soldiers to take King Edmund’s head and as soon as it came in contact with his body, it fused back on…

St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, within the walls of the monastery, built in 1964

Well yes of course, that story is hard to believe now but it made a big impression on the people of England back then and was very helpful to the monastery. Monasteries often bought the bones of people who were considered saints so they could promote pilgrimages and special days where they would collect much needed donations on their saint’s behalf.

This is one of the houses built with stones from the demolished monastery, the shape is a nod to the original church building

When Bury St. Edmunds Abbey was founded in 1020 they were lucky enough to get King Edmund’s bones. Because of the story of the fusing of his head he was considered a saint and the monastery became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England. The power of story.

The town has very kindly provided overnight parking for motorhomes so we parked up and went on a walk. First stop the Abbey Gardens just minutes away.

Bury St. Edmunds is well used to royalty

You will have heard of King Henry VIII and his six wives but did you also hear about his shutting down the monasteries? All the monasteries, in Ireland too, in the 1500’s. Most of them were demolished and the stone used to construct new buildings. This happened in Bury St. Edmunds and most of the abbey buildings are now just ruins but in spite of that, still beautiful.

It looks a bit like a lighthouse but this is the first listed road sign in England

There was a contemporary art exhibition in Moyse’s Hall museum in Bury St. Edmund’s this week. Including some original Banksy’s (wall still attached). By the time I walked out the door I was fired up. I would love to have the courage to make some truthful “ugly” art.

Summary: A good story can support a monastery. Art doesn’t have to be pretty. Query: What story would you like to tell with your street art?

Big Bird

(I often see huge birds as we drive along French roads and now British roads but I have never managed to get a picture – it took three drive-bys but I eventually got one picture of this bird of prey on a road in Buckinghamshire)

This has been a very busy trip with only small pockets of time to write. This pocket of time is very, very early. The rules would say it’s too early for a sane person on holiday to be awake. One could conclude I am either not awake, not on holidays or insane… or rules can be broken. We’re in Bath today. This will be our last stop before Swansea. We arrived yesterday about 6pm having instructed the sat nav. to stay off all toll roads, all motorways, all highways and to do so via Oxford. It duly obliged and although by the time we arrived in Bath we had been on the road for seven hours we had travelled through the most beautiful places.

Tea at Polly s

(Iced tea and green tea at Polly’s famous tea shop on Marlborough high street – notice I got two tea pots, one with tea and one with extra hot water – like like like)

Every English television program and every movie I have ever seen must have been set on these roads and I relived my childhood as we rode along. Black Beauty could have trotted up beside us at a crossroads and I would not have been surprised. The two guys from Brideshead Revisited may well have passed us on a straight stretch. I definitely heard the voice of the posh guy in Four Weddings and a Funeral when we stopped for tea on Marlborough high street – could it be the town in Birds of a Feather?

Bath Houses

(Bath is beautiful… we’ll be back)

The journey could not have been more different to the previous day when we instructed the sat nav. to take the shortest route, which turned out to be the A1 – a scary place full of big trucks and fast cars – but very efficient. On that day my knowledge of English geography grew exponentially. Not because we visited any of the places but because I was reading the road signs. We were on a mission to visit Bletchley Park where secret messages were decoded during World War II. There’s a museum of computing there also, because it turns out decoding led naturally to coding and so to computing.

Bath Church

(Didn’t realise it when I was taking the picture but between the wall in the foreground and the cathedral behind are the old Roman Baths, from which the city gets it’s name. Turns out the church owned the baths)

And all that gets me thinking about intention. I’m sitting on the bed in another lovely guest house at 5.30am because when we left Ireland last Thursday I intended to write every day of our trip. We found ourselves on the A1 because we intended to get to Bletchley Park in plenty of time to visit before it closed for the day. We travelled through my childhood television experiences because Denis loves to go round bends on the bike. We found ourselves in Bletchley Park because of all the old computers and strangely we also found ourselves together because of computers. We find ourselves in Bath because my friend, Nolene went there once two years ago on a pastry baking course and when she described Bath combined with pastry making, I was hooked and unconsciously setting my intention to be here.

Every place we find ourselves is because of an intention set, either consciously or unconsciously.

Where do you want to find yourself? Mairead.