The Old World in the new world

Man, it has been a long time since we last posted. Since right before we left the UK, actually. Now seven months on and comfortably ensconced back in Virginia, it is time to update this a little bit and keep The Old World open for business. If you still drop by for the occasional visit, please let me know in the comments below. We’re going to try and post a few things from the previous seven months sometime soon, and I would be curious to know if anyone still bothers checking this site.

Thanks!

JEE

Thames River Walk

This is kind of old news, something we did last month. It recently made #2 on H’s top ten list, but it was something I enjoyed so much I still wanted to post something about it. One of the pleasures of living where we do in Kew is easy access to the Thames River Path. This walkway is an English equivalent to a national trail, extending from the source of the Thames far in the west in rural England down to the river barriers, where it empties into the sea. We did our own little patch of it, walking from our flat in Kew four miles up the path to Richmond. This Richmond is “royal” Richmond, reputedly named after King Henry VII’s previous title (he was the Earl of Richmond before he became king), and had a royal palace there that is now largely demolished. In its day, however, it was one of the favored Tudor palaces, and the place where Queen Elizabeth died. This is one of the last surviving bits.

It was a lovely day with perfect walking weather, sunny and cool, and we had plenty of company along the trail. There are a number of sites to see along the way, which keeps the walk interesting. One of the first is Kew Palace, another of the royal palaces. It does not really live up to the usual grandeur of a palace in that is quite small and decidedly plain. It is not very big and not very fancy, but for those of you who remember the movie “The Madness of King George” the palace is where King George was confined for part of said madness.

Continuing up the path one walks along the side of Kew Botanical Gardens for quite a while, as it really is a massive place. We’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple of months in the Royal Botanical Gardens and have grown really fond of the place. About where the gardens run out, there is a new site on the opposite bank of the Thames that catches the eye.

This is Syon House, the early modern and long time home of the Dukes of Northumberland, once one of the most powerful peers of the realm. It was originally a monastery, famously founded by King Henry V. But with the dissolution of the monasteries during the Protestant Reformation, it passed into private hands, and the Northumberland family has owned it for four centuries. It’s a fun reminder of a period when the greatest nobles, and indeed the royals themselves, all had palaces on the river Thames. Not only for the scenery, but because the river was a far safer and faster way of coming and going from London.

One thing you might have just noticed with the above pictures is how low the Thames is here. This is not because of the terrible drought conditions in England, but because the Thames has severe high and low tides. You don’t really notice this as much in central London because it is regulated a bit, but you can see how drastically the river rises and falls. Its amazing to think that the ocean is leagues away, and it affects the Thames way up here. So here I am enjoying the Thames beach a little past Syon House…

and this is the same spot when we did the return walk after lunch, when the tide was quickly rising…

Notice where the tree is – I would’ve been in water thigh deep to have been in the same place, and there was probably another 20 feet of high tide to go!

After enjoying a mile or so of greenery and wildlife, we reached the outskirts of Richmond, our destination. We started probably about half a mile further down the trail from Kew Bridge and pier. Almost there!

With this Edwardian landmark, we had reached the end of our river walk in Richmond proper. (I wish I had some black and white film for this particular image).

But there was plenty to see in Richmond itself, which is a lovely (and posh) riverside town. We had lunch in an extremely popular riverside pub, the White Cross, site of another monastery once upon a time (England was lousy with ‘em).

After lunch at the pub, we turned around for the return walk home. Once we reached Kew, we turned in to the town for the final walk back to our flat, where we had one last treat on our riverside walk, a little slice of bucolic England right here in the London suburbs.

Kew still enjoys its “commons” or green, where the lovely late 17th c. parish church, St. Anne’s sits, and where the local cricket team still practices on weekend afternoons. We rested our aching feet for a while and watched the local side practice on a cool summer afternoon before returning home, a little tired, but very happy with our walk up the Thames River path.

-JEE

Yorkshire

I recently had the pleasure of accepting my first invitation as a seminar speaker, at a university up in Yorkshire. It was not the first time I had spoken to a group or given a conference paper, but it was the first time I had been invited to do so. It was a great experience, mostly for the chance to spend time with my good friend John, whom I met last summer at the Huntington Library. John is a professor at the university and was the one who invited me and then proceeded to give me the red carpet treatment. I must admit that it was strange but fun to be a guest of honor somewhere with people asking you questions, shaking your hand, buying you dinner etc. It was a blast. I think the paper went well too. There was definitely room for improvement, but I felt good about the paper, even if I got a bit nervous and my presentation was less than stellar.

But the real pleasure was not at the academy, but the chance to spend a long weekend with John, his wife Suzanne, and their two young daughters, who were delightful. It was just good old-fashioned fun to stay with a friend in a foreign country and savor some of the little differences. They live in a little village that H has already talked about, and it is a truly bucolic and splendid place. After a quick tour of the parish church, which looked at least 15th c. or older to untrained eye, we went to pick up his eldest daughter. An hour of kite-flying on the village green was next, followed by afternoon tea and biscuits (the sweet, not savory, kind). Was that civilized or what?

The next day was highlighted by a trip to Jervaulx Abbey. H talked about Jervaulx a little bit, but I wanted to highlight our trip there, as I was seriously impressed. Jervaulx is a ruined Cistercian abbey, and the Cistercians (who generally founded their abbeys in remote wasteland) picked a good spot, as it is still really remote. The best thing about it, however, was the setting. Some of the ruined abbeys in Yorkshire are in almost such good condition that you could slap a roof on them and put them back into service, but not Jervaulx.

Jervaulx enjoys several benefits that make it so striking compared to many of its sister houses. The fact that it is a little more ruined than most meant it was tourist free – there was only one other party of people there, and we rarely saw them as we wandered the grounds. But it was not so ruined that you did not know what it was – its remoteness saved it from being pillaged by local farmers and peasants who wanted cheap building materials in the 500 years since its destruction.

Finally, the owners really got the landscaping right. It sounds funny, but since Jervaulx Abbey is privately owned, the owners can do what they please with it. We explored the grounds by playing hide and seek with their seven year-old daughter, which wouldn’t be possible in a crowded, commercial place. In many cases private ownership is a potential nightmare, but the present owners got it just right. Romantics would be jealous, as there is a proper mix of ruins and flowers, mowing, and little touches, like benches to enjoy the landscape.

But maybe it was just the rainy, English afternoon that made it bucolic and perfect. While it was so wet that the sheep were lounging under the trees to stay dry, it could not have been any more atmospheric or enjoyable.

Top Ten Summer Outings in London

As promised, here is a list of our favorite summer outings in the Big Smoke. Thankfully, London no longer deserves that infamous title from its more industrial days. In fact, London is very much a city of open green spaces. In that sense, it puts New York City’s pride in Central Park into perspective, although I suppose it’s hardly a fair comparison, since London has roughly twice the area of New York City with around three million fewer inhabitants. Still, I love that you only have to wander around for fifteen minutes or so to find a nice green space.

Some of London’s best-known green spaces are its eight Royal parks, which consist of 5,000 acres, including Hyde Park, St. James Park, and Kensington Gardens in the city and Greenwich Park and Richmond Park in the suburbs. These parks don’t even include the larger, more natural open spaces in the suburbs, such as Hampstead Heath, which was a favorite residential area for artists and literary types (John Keats, Evelyn Waugh and HG Wells among them) in the past two centuries.

 

Of course, the space doesn’t have to be green to be fun. I’ve seen people plant themselves in lawn chairs on a fake lawn outside the Royal National Theatre on London’s South Bank, one of the city’s busiest pedestrian areas, looking as content as if they were lounging by the Mediterranean. In this case, it’s not the lure of an open green space at work but the lure of the River Thames.

 

Flowing through the heart of London, the Thames is the longest and most important river in England.  Many of the key events and buildings of London since its founding have been oriented around the Thames, earning it the name “Liquid History.” The Thames waterway was long the city’s major transportation network, offering a quicker and generally safer (i.e., less prone to attack) way of reaching one’s destination than traveling on roads. Since the early twentieth century, with the expansion of road networks, the river has declined in economic importance, but one still has the sense that this river is very much the heart of the city, its natural power and beauty a measure of and a safeguard against the destructive and ugly aspects of unchecked urbanization. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the river was so polluted with sewage and industrial waste that its waters were described as “dead,” but massive clean-up efforts have since restored its life and beauty.

 

So whether it’s the open heath, a pleasant green, or a majestic river, there are multiple ways to enjoy natural beauty in Europe’s largest city. Without further ado, here is our top-ten list:

 

10. Grabbing a lawn chair in Hyde Park

Hyde Park is probably the most famous of London’s parks, and it is much loved by locals. The large green down near the Serpentine Lake is the perfect place to stake out one of the lawn chairs scattered about and take a nap or read a book. Since this is London we’re talking about, the luxury of a lawn chair rental will cost you 2 quid for several hours, so if you’re feeling cheap, it’s equally satisfying to plop down for about five minutes of illicit sitting before meandering along.

 

9. Boat ride to Greenwich

A boat ride from Westminster Pier to Greenwich is one of the best ways to take in the long history of London, passing under its beautiful bridges and by some of its most magnificent structures, including St. Paul’s Cathedral and The Tower of London. If you’re lucky, you might even enjoy cheeky commentary in a cockney accent from a member of the boat’s crew. The walk through Greenwich Park to visit the Old Royal Naval Observatory is an added incentive for the journey.

 

 8. Walking across Millennium Bridge

This is London’s newest and most striking pedestrian bridge, connecting St. Paul’s Cathedral with the Tate Modern Art Museum. To the embarrassment of the engineer, during the bridge’s inauguration, the bridge swayed so severely under the weight of pedestrians that it caused a general panic, and likely, the stern disapproval of the Queen. It has since been stabilized, and the walk in either direction offers a spectacular view of the Thames and of either riverbank.

 

7. Tea at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens

You still have to drink it hot—yes, even in summer—but having tea with a scone, clotted cream and strawberry jam on the terrace outside this 18^th-century conservatory built by Queen Anne is a necessary exercise in true Victorian indulgence. Plus, if it’s raining, you can always duck into the conservatory and still enjoy the treats. It also seems a testament to the frankness of the English to call the tasty spread ‘clotted cream’ rather than attempting to hide the decadence behind a softer name—say “heaven on a scone.”

 

6. Biking in the East End

We took a bike tour of London’s East End, taking in the Docklands and the Financial District, and though I admit to being petrified at moments of either running over a pedestrian on Southbank (it was chastening to see a mother run to grab her toddler out of my terrifying bike path) or being run over myself by a bus, most of the experience was fun and exhilarating. It was also a great way to experience a side of the city that was new to us and, while riding alongside canals and docks, to get a better sense of life on the River Thames.

 

5. Picnicking in Kew Gardens

 

There are plenty of hidden spots for a picnic over the 300 acres that make up Kew’s Royal Botanical Gardens, which were in fact named as a World Heritage site several years ago. The gardens have become one of our favorite spots to spend a spontaneous afternoon in Kew. We’ve only had a picnic once, with a pair of friends, but it was amazing how pleasantly the two hours passed when spread out on a blanket with a small feast picked up at Borough Market in the midst of tall, majestic trees and a stunning variety beautiful plants. 

 

 

 

 4. Dodging pedestrians on Southbank

We’ve spent a lot of time on Southbank, and I always enjoy the pedestrian-only walk from Southwark to Westminster Bridge, looking out for oddball street performers, dodging pedestrians and just taking in the views over the Thames. It’s just an exhilarating place to enjoy the frenetic pace of life in London without having to worry about being run over by a double-decker bus (though London has caught on to the cause of confusion for the rest of the world and begun writing on the pavement whether to look left or right before crossing the street).

 

3. Wandering Hampstead Heath and stopping at the Spaniards afterwards

Hampstead Heath offers one of the best panoramic views of London from atop Parliament Hill. That alone was worth the trek, but it’s really a lovely place to get lost in (and we did in fact lose our bearings for awhile). It has several pretty ponds and, as you would expect, pretty open meadows, wooded areas and hidden gardens. If you wander up towards the West Meadow, there’s a lovely old pub called Spaniards Inn that’s probably our favorite in London. Its large, picturesque back garden made the perfect spot for lunch. Various stories have sprung up as to how the sixteenth-century inn got its name. In the more plausible versions, the Inn was either built as the country home of a Spanish ambassador or bought in the eighteenth century by a couple of Spanish proprietors who converted it into a pub. Whatever the reason, Spaniards Inn has been preserved with its low beamed ceilings and creaky floors.

 

 

2. Walking to Richmond on the Richmond river path

We are fortunate to live just five minutes from the nicest walking path along the River Thames. The Thames tow path follows much of the course of the river, beginning at its source in Gloucester and running through several rural counties before reaching London. Now that the weather is so nice, we’ve taken to regular jogging and walking on the path. One of our favorite excursions is the walk to Richmond from Kew. The journey allows you to take in the beauty of the Thames outside the heart of the city, to watch the rowing teams gliding gracefully down the river and to walk along the periphery of the gardens for a glimpse of its marshy, wild areas. Richmond itself is a beautiful town, and of course, it has a great riverside pub that is good for a break. Next time, we’re keen to find a little German outdoor riverside café only open during the summer that apparently has the best German offerings in London.

 

1. Scavenging in Borough Market

Frankly, visiting this large gourmet market would belong on a list of our all-time favorite things to do in London, regardless of the weather. We’ve been to Borough Market a number of times during our stay here. If you’ve been following this blog long enough to recall the post dedicated to chorizo, you will remember our excessive enthusiasm for the place. Since then, we have discovered other delights at Borough—including aromatic and rich Monmouth coffee with jersey cream, the most mouth-watering mozzarella di buffala we’ve ever had outside of Italy, perfectly ripe, locally-grown strawberries and some succulent lamb souvlaki. You can find most any international delicacies you can imagine here—it’s the culinary variety of London in microcosm. We’ve even come to appreciate the energy and occasional chaos of the place.  In case you’re wondering, the chorizo sandwich has yet to lose its appeal for J, who is willing to call it breakfast, first lunch or second lunch, depending on the time of day.

-HDE

 

 

An English Summer Solstice

Summer in London might be described as more of a mindset than a season. That’s not entirely true of course. It’s not really possible to conjure the mood of summertime when it’s cold and rainy, so the consistent presence of the sun clearly has a role. So perhaps I should say instead that like any season in England, summer arrives unpredictably and behaves erratically. You might hear the locals say something like “Last year, summer came in early May and lasted three weeks.” One thing readers in the southeastern or mid-Atlantic United States should appreciate is that you can generally rule out a consistent string of days in the 90s bracket. Generally, I said. On the whole, summer is a temperate affair here: temperature-wise, it might not seem that much different than spring, lingering pleasantly in the 60s and 70s with the occasional cold, rainy day that makes you want to light a fire or hot day that prompts you to pull out the electric fan. Apparently, the fan kept in the closet below the stairs in our building was bought at a yard sale for five quid (the orange hand-written price tag has been left on it by the purchaser, perhaps as a mark of pride). The reason for this bargain becomes clear when you set yourself in front of the fan at full speed and realize that you can’t actually feel any breeze coming off of it. You just trust that it’s circulating the air and generally cooling things down.

The days at this latitude have indeed become quite long—with sunrise at 4:30 a.m. and sunset at 9:30 p.m. However, the arrival of the summer solstice this past Saturday was admittedly anticlimactic. We spent it in Yorkshire visiting friends who live in a lovely little village of a couple hundred inhabitants called Nun Monkton. We woke on June 21st to a day of gusting winds, rain and cool temperatures. We had planned to visit the ruins of a former abbey called Jervaux and went out anyway, trudging around the beautiful ruins of the former Cistercian monastery in the rain and wet grass. The sheep in the surrounding pastures huddled beneath trees for shelter, bleating at passersby. We huddled in a café afterwards instead. When we returned home, our hosts brought us hot tea and started a coal fire, so that we could dry our cold, wet feet. We heard a number of jokes that day about the fine weather we were having for the longest day of the year. We commiserated and almost felt like locals. J even bought a traditional Herford cap in grey (if you know him, you’ll appreciate his color preference) to commemorate our day in the country and, more practically, to keep the rain off his head. It’s quite fetching.

 

That evening, I ventured out in the rain with our friend Suzanne to attend a girls-only Nun Monkton Summer Solstice Party. This party is apparently an annual event for the local women of the village, and since it is attended by many mothers, it has the benefit of allowing the women to have a night off without having to seek out a babysitter. We were to dine al fresco, presumably to enjoy a long summer’s night, so I admit that I felt hesitant to attend an outdoor party on a rainy night with gale-force winds. I had visions of women huddled under a tent together, trying to enjoy their finger foods and the local gossip without getting their heels stuck in the mud. So it came as a very pleasant surprise to find that our host, a brash but lively and welcoming woman named Ulrika, had set up a long, sturdy tent that was perfectly dry and protected from the rain and hung with pictures and lamps. The long table (set for 30 women) was set for a formal dinner and strewn with red roses.

 

As we arrived, Ulrika had us draw a number to determine our seat for the evening with the no doubt intended effect of forcing us to be brave socially. I found myself at the opposite end of the table from my friend in the good company of some local women and a German woman who had been practising medicine in Yorkshire for several years. Over the next SIX hours, we enjoyed a four-course dinner, wine, coffee, conversation and a series of humiliating pop quizzes provided by our host. In case you’re the kind of person who loves reading menus, ours included: spicy shrimp salad, goulash with sauerkraut (Ulrika was from the former East Germany), meringue with cream and strawberries drizzled with chocolate, and a plate of English cheeses.

 

This lengthy monologue was intended as a prelude to a list of our favorite summer outings in the Big Smoke, but it’s turned into some ruminations on the arrival of summer in England. So look for another post to follow soon with thoughts on the best ways to get outside when the sun is shining in London.

 

-HDE

More Moments

My apologies for the delay in posts folks. I meant to do this last weekend but then the sun was shining, and when the sun shines in England you take advantage of it, because it might not shine again for a week or two. Then I was going to do it this past weekend, and our internet was down. So I’m seizing the moment now!

I’m flattered that H thinks that her scholarly husband is somehow not as prone to nostalgia in and about this old world country that he studies for a living. I’m extremely nostalgic when it comes to the UK, although I’ve lived here long enough to no longer see it with rose-colored glasses. That said, I will spare you, dear reader, my cloying musings. Even better, I will share lots of pictures. I can’t hope to match H’s prose, but I’ll share some thoughts about my favorite images from our trip.

This is actually less of a favorite image than a favorite moment. Our first day in York we poked around the city, just taking in its many sights and lovely architecture. Then we stumbled across this, the medieval merchant adventurers guild. I doubly enjoyed it, as not only have I spent a lot of the last few months studying English merchants, but it was a beautiful 14th century building (yes, thats 100 years before Columbus stumbled across the Americas!) in a completely unexpected place.

This picture demonstrates another one of the pleasures of York – how the medieval cathedral bobs in and out of your sight as you move around the city. It absolutely dominates the skyline, but can be hidden by many of the more modern buildings. I liked this shot, as we just came around a corner and there it was, so close you could almost reach up and touch it. There was also a shop on the corner that was the York-something-or-other, but I managed to cut the “something-or-other” out of the frame, leaving a little visual clue in the corner of this picture.

I worked hard for this next shot, and it turned out well, though not quite as dramatically as I had hoped. I was hanging out the window of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) steam train, trying to get a picture of the engine as we went around a curve while it belched black smoke. The curve you could predict, the black smoke, not so much. I also had to be careful because (and this was the hard part) the afore-mentioned black smoke has lots of hot little cinders in it. I had a fine layer of ash on my shirt by the time I had completed this experiment.

I’m not really prone to taking cutesy animal pictures (unless they are of the noble German Shepherd), but this creature was, well, too cute. H and I took a quick hike through a ravine in the moors to see a waterfall, passing a number of pastures filled with sheep. It being spring, there were lots of lambs out and about. This particular lamb was quite near the fence and was very inquisitive. He tottered up to see what we were doing before his mother herded him away.

I was also pleased to see that dogs are considered part of the family for the NYMR. Inexpensive members at that!

The churchyard of the parish church in Burford, where we stayed in the Cotswolds, is one of the most bucolic I’ve ever seen. It was a place where the eye could soak in the beauty of God’s creation wherever it was cast. This shot is only a pale reflection of it too: the purple of the flowers, the verdant green of the plants, the pale gray of the medieval wall and the solitary ancient tombstone amidst all of it was far more striking than this picture could ever show.

I think God has a gentle sense of humor. I was struck by this grave and the little sign that said “reserved” planted in the ground next to it. Indeed. It was far more peaceful then some of the memento mori that were found within the church itself, yet it served the same purpose. I took several shots of this trying to get it without my shadow, but in the end having the shadow there underscores the humor and impact of the image that much the more.

This is a bit of a vanity shot, but bear with me here. I was dreading -dreading- driving during our vacation. Its not just the whole driving-on-the-left thing, although I was sweating that too. It’s that English roads were often laid out hundreds of years ago, for horses and carts, not cars. So careening around in the country you are often on one way streets, except that a tractor trailer may be coming in the opposite direction. Dreading, people. But you know what, I actually enjoyed it in the end. Mostly because of this car. Man, what a beauty. It was a complete surprise too. We had rented a Ford Mondeo, of all things, and they gave us the Benz instead at no extra charge. That kind woman working at the car rental place instantly turned one of the scariest parts of the trip into one of my favorites.

Those of you who have been following my “career” for a few years know that I received a masters degree in Reformation history. So I’m always fascinated by physical manifestations of the Reformation, both positively, and, as is often the case, negatively too. This was a pre-Reformation wall painting at Northleach parish church that had been whitewashed over in the 16th century and rediscovered by the Victorians. The plain cross gives the whitewashed medieval wall painting in this picture a pleasing focus in what would otherwise have been a dull picture, and an appropriate subtext too.

This was just an old BP advertising sign that caught my eye outside an automobile museum in Burton-on-the-water.

I close with a couple pictures of one of my most vivid memories, the scores of mustard fields around the Cotswolds. There were literally hundreds of them, and they never ceased to amaze me with the hundreds of acres of vibrant yellow flowers. No picture can do them justice, as sight of these broad yellow fields scattered across the green English plains is just one of those things you had to witness. Yep, no nostalgia for merry old England around here, folks.

JEE

The Moments You Remember

Some of you may have noticed some new photographs streaming in lately. If you’ve been patiently awaiting some explication of these photos, here it is. They were taken during a trip J and I made with my parents from London to Yorkshire to the Cotswolds to Oxford and back at the beginning of May. We had a wonderful time together and saw many impressive and beautiful sights along the way, which were even more glorious to behold during a ten-day stretch of clear, sunny days without a single spot of rain. One does not take this for granted in England.

However, I promise to refrain from giving a play by play of our adventures in England. Instead I thought I’d try to pick out some of those moments or images that my memory is likely to single out for preservation. There was a time when I deliberately avoided taking too many photographs, because I thought it would interfere with my ability to appreciate the moment fully. I’m far less rigid on this point now, since I’ve come to realize how quickly the stunning details of an experience fade in the mind’s eye. But there are those experiences and snapshots that remain clear and evocative years later, and I thought I’d try to describe a few of the ones that I believe fall into that category.

Days 1 and 2: York, Yorkshire Dales

1-Private Evensong in the Crypt of York Minster 

We began a tour of the Undercroft, Treasury and Crypt of York Minster just before Evensong. I will always remember the joy of exploring the layers of history that made up the foundations of the Minster while listening to the beautiful singing just overhead. The accoustics of the Undercroft and Crypt seemed to amplify the voices of the singers, particularly the high voices of the boys, over the sounds of the powerful organ, and it was soul-piercingly beautiful. My mother and I sat in silence for twenty minues in the crypt, just in front of one of the old Norman pillars of the cathedral, appreciating the sacred beauty of the moment.

2-The Moors, the sheep and the Australian Shepherds at Goathland

We took a charming old steam train through the North York Moors and eventually stopped off at a small town called Goathland (though I almost hate to mention it, apparently this was a station used during the filming of Harry Potter). We ambled down the road past pastures of black-faced sheep, looking out over the dales. Whenever we passed a local with a dog, it was without fail an Australian Shepherd. This was true sheep country. Since my parents have had a couple of sweet Australian Shepherds and J and I have thought about adopting one, it was fun to encounter so many of them and even to find them enshrined in one of the local church’s stained glass windows.

3-Bumping along the back roads of Yorkshire in a double-decker bus

We were on our way back from Pickering after our steam train experience, and it just seemed inviting to climb to the top level of the bus, which afforded good views of fields of cows and sheep and a chance to peek behind those notorious English hedges. As we were jostled along at surprisingly high speeds along a narrow road that was not the least bit smooth, I felt that at any moment inertia might get the better of us all. I thought I might lose my lunch, but it was pretty unforgettable.

Days 3 through 5: The Cotswolds (an area in Oxfordshire peppered with well-preserved medieval villages that reached their height during the fifteenth-century wool boom)

1-Staying at the Lamb Inn in Burford

The Lamb was such a charming, atmospheric inn, its original building dating from the fifteenth century. We may have had the smallest room in the inn, but it was also in the oldest part of the inn, which pleased us immensely. For a couple of history nerds, there’s just nothing like lounging about in bed or taking a shower while admiring the intricacies of the late medieval wood beams supporting your ceiling. The lounge and pub (with its flagstone bar) were also lovely, and Burford’s high street, lined with late-medieval buildings built from the honey-colored stone of the Cotswolds, was the perfect setting for an evening stroll.

2-Exploring the church at Northleach (one of the most impressive in the Cotswolds)

Of course, I was immediately impressed by the age and humble beauty of this church, built during the wool-boom of the fifteenth century. There were so many details to appreciate and explore, like the fifteenth-century brass memorials set into the floor, depicting the merchant benefactors of the church with sheep at their feet, a pre-Reformation pulpit in the shape of a goblet, and the contrast between the flat wooden roof of the Nave and the vaulted ceiling of the older Chancel. Yet what really enhanced the experience of exploring those details was the intimate feel of the church, lovingly preserved as a place of worship by the people of the parish. We even had a brief conversation with a local man of the church in his 80s, who had volunteered to show visitors around. He happily told us some stories from his experiences in the church and pointed out the acoustic advantage of the concave pillars in the Nave.  Depending on where one chose to sit on a given Sunday, the minister’s voice either would be distinct and clear or quiet and distant–ideal for dozing, he noted wryly.

Days 5 and 6-Oxford

1-Football on Christ Church Meadows

No, I didn’t play. And I don’t have a picture for you. But our first encounter with Christ Church College was standing outside its walls, looking out across the green meadows towards the Thames and watching students engaged in a game of football–English football, mind you. It was a quintessential Oxford moment.

2-Books!

We wandered into Blackwells bookshop (the main university bookshop with miles of books), and I’m sure we could have browsed for hours. There were so many affordable books. But we limited ourselves to an hour in the secondhand section on the third floor. I came away with a pretty, older edition of The Hobbit, and J came away with a handful of intriguing history books. Later on, J stopped into a small secondhand bookstore across from Christ Church College and picked us up a beautiful first edition of C.S. Lewis’s Surprised By Joy, the perfect memento of our time on Lewis’s old turf.

I suppose now that I’ve now committed these memories to writing, they’ve taken on a different character. Still, I hope they give you an idea of some of the moments that made a lasting impression. In the next day or so, J may comment on some of the things that stood out to him, so you’ll have the chance to see our journey through the eyes of another beholder, perhaps one who is a bit less prone to nostalgia.

-HDE 

Poor Padres

I’ve held back from talking about baseball yet for two reasons. 1) It’s still early in the season and there is a  lot of baseball yet to be played and 2) Most people aren’t dropping by The Old World to read about America’s Pastime. But I can no longer hold back – I need to vent. So feel free to stop reading if you don’t want to hear me talk about the Padres for several minutes. For the other two of you, here we go!

The Pads are in undeniably bad shape. They are 7-18 in their last 25 games, 8-10 at home, 8-18 on the road and 9-14 against other teams in the NL West. In short, they are playing terribly, not beating the teams they need to beat and losing at home as much as they lose on the road. They are already 11.5 games back, which is a significant hole any time of the year, and certainly not encouraging by mid-May (although I suppose its the only time of the year when being 11.5 back could be considered a surmountable obstacle). They are rated last in the “power ratings” for both Sports Illustrated and Baseball Prospectus. Having been blown out of the water by the Seattle Mariners yesterday, they are now the ignominious owners of the worst record in baseball.

My prescription? Break-up the Padres! Not a fire-sale, mind you, but reloading and rebuilding. They are not the worst team in baseball, but they are nowhere near what management predicted. The Padres relied a little too much on wish-casting this year, i.e. imposing their wishes on their forecasts. The deal to get Jim Edmonds has backfired, he’s done and has cost the Padre’s about $5.6m for that little experiment. The bullpen, which has been magic year after year, has finally turned back into a pumpkin. Kouzmanoff has not developed as they had hoped, and Hairston is not an everyday player. Giles and Hoffman are both clearly coming to the end of the line. Unfortunately the one guy most likely to retire – Greg Maddux – is the one player from the old guard who could still contribute for another couple of years. Adrian Gonzalez is the only batter who scares anyone, and pitchers aren’t even bothering to pitch to him since the rest of the Padres are so punchless.

I think management’s goal was to try to compete this year, let some of the high priced old-guys ride off into the sunset, and rebuild in 2009. Giles, Maddux, and Hoffman all come off the books this year. I think Giles will be done in SD, but I think they’ll somehow keep Hoffman around for the farewell tour. Obviously this plan has misfired, as the Pads have gone downhill faster than expected and the D-backs went nuclear sooner than expected. Thank goodness the Dodgers still don’t know payroll and roster management from a hole in the wall, ’cause with that much talent and payroll they should be fighting with the D-backs for first place.

But with the team’s implosion – and they are not going to recover this year enough to compete – I think they need to be the first team to raise the white flag and start the rebuilding process before anyone else. They have the nucleus for the next team already locked up for the forseeable future in Peavy, Chris Young, and Adrian Gonzalez. Anyone after that should be available. I love Khalil, but he’d but up great numbers anywhere else and has the most value. I’d like to see Kouz get moved while he still seems to have some value, and isn’t blocking Headley. Obviously a lot of the other guys are spare parts for a contending team, but they still have a lot of value to the right team.

The trade I’ve been contemplating is one with the Cubs, who have asked for Khalil several times, and keep jerking around Felix Pie and Ronny Cedeno. Khalil would be cost control for the Cubs and would put up great numbers in Wrigley while Pie and Cedeno would get full time jobs and the opportunity to sink or swim. Heaven knows the Pads could use a true CF. The Blue Jays are said to be interested in Khalil as well, but they have an even worse farm system than the Padres. I just hope they don’t make some lateral move. San Diego needs to place dynamite around the first and second floors and blast down to the foundations – this team is beyond a remodeling.

 

JEE

Careening through the Dordogne Valley and stopping off to smell the wisteria

Driving fast on narrow, curvy roads through lush pastures and fields of golden flowers without encountering another car for miles. Exploring a village built into a cliff. Wandering through narrow medieval lanes filled with lovely homes built from honey-colored stone and draped with wisteria. If you find any of these images appealing, you may want to consider a trip to southern France. I spent several days last week visiting with good friends in the Dordogne River Valley, and I have to admit that were it not for the language (which I just can’t manage to speak without applying a German accent and with amusing results), I would be dangerously close to becoming a francophile. Since I am married to a historian who still seems to take the Anglo-French rivalries of the early modern period seriously, well, I find myself at an important crossroads.

Not to sound trite, but the Dordogne Valley offers the kinds of landscapes and picturesque villages that have inspired artists. Throughout the trip, I found myself continually giving thanks to God for the beauty of His creation. We passed many of the narrow trees lining the roads that apparently were a favorite subject of Picasso’s during his time at a French asylum. Extra points go to the reader who will remind me of the name of these strangely tall, narrow trees dotting the French countryside based on this vague description. The houses in the area are built almost entirely of a honey-colored stone mined from quarries in the region. We passed a few of these quarries on our drives. And we visited a couple of lovely cathedrals that were influenced by the Romanesque rather than the Gothic style. That generally dates them to the early medieval period. A cathedral in the lovely town of Sarlat displayed a mix of both the Romanesque and Gothic styles, which gave rise to a bit of debate with Elisa. But in the end, we were both right and wandered happily over to a creperie.

We stayed at a small rural resort with simple cottages in Gavaudon, a couple hours southeast of Bordeaux, and so had the chance to eat some meals or read outside in a lovely field behind our cottage or take long walks through the surrounding pastures and woods. We started every day with a chocolate croissant (called a chocolatine in this area). The epitome of luxury, no?

One of the more evocative moments on the trip was when we climbed up the very steep stairs to the ramparts and then to the top of the keep of Gavaudon castle, now mostly in ruins. I had to feel my way through the dark for part of this climb. We were off the usual tourist track and alone at the castle and could fully experience the excitement and peril of exploring something really old.

Among the highlights of our trip was a visit to Rocomadour, a town dating from the 12th century and built into high cliffs for protection. It was a popular pilgrimage site, and some pilgrims would climb the hill on their knees, following the stages of the cross in the hopes of healing. We did this trek as well, though not on our knees, to reach the top of the cliff and walked out onto the defensive ramparts of the town for a spectacular view. Another highlight was our visit to the town of St. Emilion en route back to Bordeaux. The town is named for a saint who lived a hermitic life of prayer and meditation in one of the limestone caves in the town. The truly spectacular site awaiting a visitor to St. Emilion is the monolithic church that was literally carved out of the limestone by monks starting in the 9th century when the area was attacked by Saracens. It was completed over the next several centuries. It was astounding to stand in this beautiful church, entirely carved, not built, which because of some fear of collapse, was closed for ten years until it could be properly reinforced in 2005. I could go on. So many of the towns we visited (most of them medieval fortified towns called bastides) deserve lengthy description. Hopefully I can add some photographs soon.

Adding to the adventure of it all was the enthusiastic but deft driving of Edward. I almost wanted to use the word ‘crazy’ back there, but Edward insisted that he was not even close to pushing the reasonable limits of driving on narrow country lanes that barely have room for two vehicles. I’m such a girl, right? Imagining all the perils rather than all the fun obstacles to be overcome. Anyway, at times, it was pretty exhilarating, motoring along in our little Nissan micro, affectionately named “The Wart,” passing through fields, vineyards and villages and listening to the GPS gadget pronounce the names of French street names in an almost defiant British accent. This only added to the above-mentioned linguistic confusion I experienced.

Now I’m back in Kew, and it’s lush and pretty here too, if a bit rainier. Our downstairs neighbor has planted lots of bluebells and a little blue flower called glory of the snow in the back garden. A fat yellow tabby cat is hunting birds, rather unimaginatively I think, by sitting directly beneath the bird feeder. My parents will arrive in a couple days for a visit, and I find myself feeling very blessed indeed.

-HDE

More good, bad, and ugly.

After another couple of months in the archives, a second work post seemed in order, especially since I’ve been taking loads of digital pictures recently. The research continues to frustrate, but that is the way it goes sometimes. I’ve changed gears to looking at a lot more stuff very quickly, instead of fewer things in some depth. That is where digital pictures come in handy, although it is always easier to read these things on paper or parchment than on the computer screen. Ugh, at least both beat microfilm, which kills the eyes. Digital images are definitely better, but the plain old codex style book with paper is truly a wonderful technology in its own right and will not be going away anytime soon.

The sources I’ve been looking at the most are from High Court Admiralty (HCA), England’s top maritime court. It was a civil law court, unlike most of the rest of England’s judiciary, which was/is Common Law. But I’m not terribly interested in HCA’s forms and functions, but rather what it can tell me about relations with the Spanish on a day to day level, and legal records are one of the few places that such records still exist for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These days, however, it’s not telling me a whole lot. HCA is a notoriously difficult class of documents to use, primarily because it’s never been indexed or cataloged. So no one – including The National Archives itself – really knows what is in here. In the months I’ve been here I’ve never seen anyone else using them. And therein lies the attraction. Could be gold somewhere in all those dirty old documents. And when I mean dirty, I’m not joking.

Historians don’t usually get dirty in their line of work, which has its pluses and its minuses. But every once in a while I pull a box of documents that is simply covered in the dirt of the centuries, or just plain old coal soot, and it seems like no one else has even looked at them for forty or more years. At the end of the day I’ll look at the sleeves or the front of my shirt and they’ll be filthy.

I have to admit, the HCA documents occasionally make feel a little like one of the poor Christians in the Colosseum. When the gates go up, I’m not sure if a lion, a bear, or who knows what else is going to jump out. Or in this particular case, I don’t know whether I’m going to get a box the size of a television set.

Or a box where the documents spill out when you take the top off.

Or just a bunch of loose letters with no dates and no sorting.

Or perhaps just a bunch of documents that have been stuffed haphazardly in a box.

It’s the last ones that worry me the most, both as a historian and a PhD student. These documents are literally irreplaceable, even if they are quotidian bits and bobs of the early modern legal process, so you want to see them last forever. As a PhD student they are alarming because you’re just not sure what you’re supposed to do with them. I nearly wept when I finally fished these documents out of the box.

No, that is not some sort of wrapping paper. Those are small documents, wrapped inside large ones, with the largest ones getting mutilated in the process.

Large bits of these documents have simply been worn away, and you have to kind of guess what they might say, which is not an ideal situation! Sometimes they are wrapped up like this, and bound together, so you can’t even pull them apart to read them, but have to hold them down with weights and kind of peer into the document.

So there is a good reason historians tend to shy away from HCA documents. No one knows exactly what is in there, what they say, how they should be organized, if they are organized, etc. They’ll come Just as they were originally filed four centuries ago. I’m starting to think that those historians who do shy away from HCA are just plain ole smarter than me for it!