Today is going to be a thrill ride into the English countryside. Really. I’d booked myself on a countryside tour with Mad Max Tours and was pretty excited about it. If it hadn’t been for my cold, now in it’s 5th or 6th day, I’d have been much more enthused. We are heading for Glastonbury, Cotswolds, & Stonehenge! Yea!
The company uses a minibus which seats 16. I’m to meet the bus just a couple hundred yards from the hostel, but first, I walked over to the Avon to try to get a nice picture of the tour boat I was on the day before. Unfortunately, the boat wasn’t there this early in the morning. And I don’t know where they hide. I didn’t see any of the big tour boats moored anywhere along the river when I took the tour yesterday.
This V shaped water step is for water retainment. It’s function is to back up water so it’s deep enough in this area for boats. The slack water on the left fronts the weir gate and the tour boat parks there along the wall in the slack water. When the Avon is in flood, they open that gate to let excess water run off. It’s a fairly modern fix, even though the metal works of the gate look aged. The Romans had to raise part of the baths at one point because of the recurrent floods, so flooding was an ongoing problem for thousands of years in this area. I’m a little curious about why the Romans, famed for their excellent water engineering skills, didn’t do something extraordinary about the flooding to protect the baths. Perhaps they did, but the evidence has been destroyed.
Water works like this helped maintain a constant volume of water flow so that the downstream water wheels, used for powering industry, had consistent power. There were a few water wheels in this upper portion of the river as well but the damming slowed the flow upstream from here, making the downstream section a better choice for siting a water wheel. I didn’t visit any mills but I believe there were several in Bath downstream from here during medieval times.
I had enough time to get a better shot of the Grand Parade. I am disappointed that I can’t find a history of it. I’m pretty sure that the tour boat guide told us it had been built for women only, and may have been built atop a Roman walkway. The story was fascinating, but that’s all I remember about it. I did find this info on the Parade Gardens. I’ve included the link here because of the excellent photos of the area. The Gardens are just beyond the buildings in this shot, that tree there peeking up on the left is actually in the gardens. And just beyond that is the Abbey Hotel where I would meet the tour bus.
Well, enough of that. I returned to the Mad Max meeting place in front of Abbey Hotel and soon boarded the bus. This tour is highly recommended by several travel networks, I was hoping it would be as interesting as the hype suggested.
Because of my recurrent cough, I imposed on the driver to let me ride shotgun, and he obliged. So I had a front seat view all during the trip. The van was comfortable and had a few empty seats, the tour is mature so you never feel rushed, the guide is knowledgeable, and with the weather cooperating, off we went. Leaving the sunshine filled valley of Bath upon Avon and climbing into the hills, around 45 minutes after our departure, we ran into this. Glad I’d brought my jacket.
First stop, almost an hour and a half from Bath, is the archeology site of Stonehenge. There is a large recently built visitors center, with explanatory videos, dioramas, maps and such. Also a coffee shop, souvenirs of course, and food. And it had started to rain. During a break in the rain, I climbed onto one of the mini-trams that cart us up the hill the 1.5 miles the center is from the actual site. This picture is from the start of the path after the tram dropped us off.
In the old days, just a few years ago, you could walk right into the site. No longer. Now the closest you can get to it is on a paved path that encircles the site proper. This is as close as I could get. 
You can see from the people in this next shot how large those stones actually are. I was on one of the outer trails that take tourists to other ancient sites of interest nearby. All having to do with Stonehenge mind you.
I did take some telephoto shots. Didn’t turn out too bad.
If you’ve watched any science shows, say, NOVA on PBS, or have read National Geographic much, you’ll know of the extraordinary finds archeologists have been making over the last 50 years in and around Stonehenge. It’s a rich site. This is the main reason people are now herded around the site rather then left to their own meanderings. The site is now known to be huge. HUGE I tell ya……HUGE! 
Anywho, after that tour, we’re off across the Salisbury Plain heading I knew not where at this point. Lookie here, driving on the wrong side of the road, on purpose. Crazy.
Passed through a tiny village on the way. That’s older than the USA.
Whooohooo. The sun suddenly shows up. See that white patch on the hillside way off in the distance? We’re going over there.
Ah ha! And we’re fairly close. Here’s the deal with these. They are scattered all over the English countryside around here and they represent a pagan charm to ward off bad luck. Or should bring good luck. They are always found near a village, and it became a ‘thing’ for the richest members of a community to commission these things on a hillside near town where people could see it easily and feel comforted while they went about their miserable lives far, far removed from the rich lifestyle the people that paid for the artwork enjoyed. If the rich weren’t quick enough about having one made, the townsfolk would be sure to ‘cajole’ them a bit with nasty tricks on their person or property. Cool, huh?
Huh. Wonder why my pictures, while time stamped and presented in sequence, seem out of order? Ah, who cares. The van driver stopped at a turnout so we tourists could get our pictures of the horse. We did see others on the hillsides. He told us that this horse would have been very difficult for the artist to get right because of the slope of the hill. And I’m thinking that he didn’t get it right. Close though.
Off in the distance on the left side of the road are some ancient rocks, stood up by the ancients for some unknown reason.
Then further on, we come across these sentinels. See that berm there? That is an ancient earthwork. Millions of cubic yards of dirt moved here to create it.
And then we enter Avebury, famous for it’s stone circles. This little village is inside those man made earthworks. 
After parking, we wander around a little. It’s really amazing the amount of human effort that went into the construction of these berms and ditches. And then the effort to erect multi-ton rocks in a large circle. 
And here’s a medieval church. This one (or one like it) was built because the village was growing, and as the church got richer and richer it got noticed by church hierarchy off in London. So one of the church big shots came to visit and was appalled by the pagan stone circles standing around the village and so ordered them destroyed. Whereby the townspeople toppled and buried them. Where they could, they broke them up and used them for building. Centuries later, in the 1700’s, a scientist rediscovered them and started unburying and re-erecting them. For science. Under one of the giant stones, they found the body of a medieval worker who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and was fully and fatally crushed when a stone toppled on top of him. Good a place as any for a grave so they left him under the stone. 
Sometime during this trip, either before or after the visit to Avebury, we passed right by Silbury Hill. It’s huge, older than Stonehenge and is a total mystery. Why did people come together in this remote area 4800 years ago, devote millions of man hours to move millions of tons of dirt, to build a fake hill?
Whatever it is, it’s still there. And here we pass through another quaint village.
And here’s where we had lunch a village or two down the road…place is as old as the hills. Established 1361.
Then we came upon this old village that is famous, to me at least, for they have 3 really old pubs all within walking distance. This is Cotswold village, voted the prettiest village in England.
This building is like 600 hundred years old. And people live there still! Gah!
An old barn on the walking tour. Note the building technique.
Lookie there, indoor toilet.
As we left this village, our guide pointed out the many homes alongside the roadway that have thatched roofs. Since the village is and has been a tourist destination for a couple hundred years, owners and recent buyers of these homes must promise to install ONLY thatched roofs to maintain the ambiance of the village.
I think it’s very silly because anyone who knows history knows that thatching roofs in England, because of the climate, only went on for 20 years or so, several centuries ago. Before they shifted to readily available slate roofs (this village is just 20 miles from a quarry). Here’s a shot of what many of the homes in this village looked like: Thatched Home.
You can imagine the reasons they didn’t last long I’m sure. Bug infestation, animal habitation (thatched roofs is where the expression, “Raining cats and dogs” comes from because those animals would not be allowed in the house and so would take up residence in the thatch for warmth), continuous leaking, susceptible to winds, collapse due to snow, short life (5-10 years), continuous smell of mold, and the biggie, fire danger. It’s no wonder they only lasted 20 odd years as a primary roofing method. Newer methods alleviate most of the problems of old, but they still aren’t a very good roofing method.
But many people, even up to this day, found the looks of the thatched roof charming on a country home so it’s lasted down through the centuries. Which ever agency it is in England that deals with this anachronism, they insist that the roof be replaced every twenty years or more often as condition requires, and that only qualified professionals work on them. They do ‘look’ pretty cool from a distance, and our guide told us that they are open inside the houses. You look up to your ceiling, and you see the underside of your thatched roofing. Which is strapped in bundles around 2 feet in diameter on some homes, others have it spread out and attached to lath sticks. After we had traveled a little into the countryside we came upon an old barn, ugly, with rusted corrugated steel sides. But it too had a thatched roof. Recently replaced. I asked the guide and yes, thatch was required on that barn too.
A few miles on, we came back to the village in Lacock, Suffolk and parked for a bit. This is the building where most of the scene’s of one of the Harry Potter movies was shot. It’s the 13th-century Lacock Abbey, 13 miles east of Bath. I’m looking through a wrought iron gate and fence that surrounded the entire property. We’re on a schedule and I choose not to buy tickets for a tour. The village is seeing a resurgence of tourism because of that movie.
After a while there, we headed on just a few miles to another village, Castle Combe, with a claim to fame that it’s a really old wool processing and dyeing area. Built in the 1600’s. The streets are very steep as the village is built in a canyon with a strong river flowing right through it. The steepness gives the water head, which gives it more power for the paddlewheels to use while dipped into it’s flow that powers machinery. Cool, huh?
Oh, lookie here at the antique limo. Turns out, there’s a wedding today. So we got to enjoy some lively times hanging around the wedding party and observing the happy bride and the ‘I’m OK with this’ groom. Couldn’t go to the wedding proper of course, but still, fun watching it all play out.
Up in the picture above, in the 15th through 17th centuries were hundreds of wool weavers living and working in those houses and apartments who made much of the fashionable clothes used nearby and beyond. And below is the main wool dyeing building. Had to be below the village so the excess dye spilled off wouldn’t tint any raw wool soaked in the river upstream.
You can see how steep the road is as I was holding the camera level.
And here is where most of the wool and yarn was bought and sold over the centuries. This thing was built in 1655.
There’s the old church where the wedding was just held. Smelled funny. I did wander inside but again, like the other church I went into today, no pictures allowed.
And that’s it. We all piled back into the van, and just 20 minutes later we were back in downtown Bath. It’s that close. Boy, what a great touristy thing to do. As we rolled down a street inside Bath, we passed a building blackened by soot. And next to it another one where you could see the cleaning that had been done. Our guide told us that the nearly black building was left as an example of what it was once like here. Bath for a couple centuries had nothing but coal stoves for heating. Then oil furnaces. As a result of the atmospheric inversion they get all the time, this city would have been a horror to live in just a few decades ago because of the soot laden air. Thick as soup most of the year. Since it was declared a world heritage site in 1985, residents have been required to clean up the air, and the buildings. Now that I knew this fact, I started noticing all the cleaning marks on buildings all over town. Neat.
I enjoyed the entire day, but my cold was making me feel a little yuk by the time we got back. I wandered back to the hostel, had a small dinner, a few beers, watched some rugby on the tellie, surfed the web, then off to bed. Yawn. That’s all for today.