Cheddar Gorge - Atumn 2001

Cheddar Gorge

On Friday afternoon Bob and Jenny drove over after they got off from work and we all drove to Cheddar Gorge.  The drive from Shepton Mallet to Cheddar ran along the edge of the beautiful Mendip Hills.  The Mendips as they are called locally are so....so ENGLISH.  One of these days I want to visit Wookey Hole simply because I like the sound of the name.  With luck I think I will be able to manage that since it is not too far away from Bob and Jenny's home.  Along the way we also passed large lorries’ that looked just like dump trucks to me filled with apples.  This is cider making country along with cheese making.

While researching on the internet for facts about Cheddar gorge I read somewhere that "it is the Grand Canyon of Britain." That is one of the silliest statements I have ever read and shows beyond doubt that the writer had never even seen a picture of the Grand Canyon, much less visited there.  Cheddar Gorge is a unique and wonderful place and doesn't need to be compared with any other place in order to promote its self. I would say that it's an ancient place, but heck, everyplace on this planet is ancient, some are just more recently inhabited than others.  The area in and around Cheddar show signs of being inhabited for a long, long time.  Recent archaeological finds show that the area  has been occupied by man for 100,000 years.  The high cliffs that make up the gorge are dotted with caves in which evidence has been discovered that prehistoric and bronze age peoples once occupied them. A large building (possibly a villa) stood somewhere near the site of Cheddar church in Roman times, while many other Roman farms have been found in other parts of the parish, revealed by the spreads of pottery left after the ploughing of their long-abandoned sites. Other Roman finds in the village imply that Cheddar may have been a small settlement even this long ago, and Alfred The Great had a royal manor here. 


Alfred is, in my opinion the greatest king that Britain ever had, and the only English king ever to have "The Great" tacked onto the end of his name.  It amazes me that he is so little known and appreciated by present day Britains.  If asked about him, most people here will get a puzzled look on their faces and say "Oh, right, he's the fellow that burned the cakes, isn't he?"  That "fellow" single handedly yanked Britain out of the dark ages, defeated the Danes against all odds and by doing so created a national identity that survived in spite of the best efforts of William in 1066, and all he is remembered for is burning some stupid cake.  That's sad.  But my appreciation of the gorge was greatly enhanced by using my imagination to picture him and his band of Thanes riding through the area.

On the way into the village of Cheddar we stopped at several places where space had been made for just that purpose.  I want to say overlooks, but since that is obviously not the case I wonder if you could call them up looks?  At any rate Ann pointed out a small mini gorge in the side of one cliff with a large cleft rock.  She said that the story goes that the person who wrote Rock of Ages was hiking through this area and took among these rocks from a sudden rain storm and was inspired to by that stone to write the hymn.

The village of Cheddar is nestled down in the bottom of the gorge and from what I saw had no side streets.  There may have been some further down from where we stopped.  This is strip shopping if I ever saw it.  We started at the beginning of the village and started down the street to be bottom of a gradual incline where there was a junction of three roads with a large and ancient market cross in the middle. There were lots of gift shops, tat shops and shops that sold a wide variety of, what else, cheese.  They also had lots of locally made chutney and jams.  If I lived anywhere within striking distance of this place, I would spend a lot of money here.  Somehow we managed to misplace Ann and after about 20 minutes she caught up with us.  It seems she had spied a jewelry shop and on impulse went in and checked out the silver chains.  They had just what I had been looking for. Since we had gotten a late start it was beginning to get dark on us so Bob walked back up the hill to the car and then picked us up down at the bottom. <

The next morning we drove to Heathrow Airport where I discovered that my flights had been changed without my knowing it.  I was not going to be able to make my connection in Chicago. After much haggling the airline paid for me to stay overnight in a hotel and gave me my choice of whether I wanted to stay in London or Chicago.  I opted for Chicago which in retrospect was a bad choice.  Just hours before our plane landed is when they had someone get through security with some knives in his possession and security was absolutely wigging out.  But after a somewhat restless night I boarded a plane the next morning for St. Louis where I changed for one to Little Rock.  I was sad to leave but also glad to be home.  

Glastonbury, Autumn 2001

 Well, another fabulous trip is coming to a close.  I am down to my last few days I have in the UK.  What a wonderful time I have had. But I have saved the best until last.  On Wednesday evening Phil and Ann came over and "collected" me.  This is such a treat for me, as I think they are some of the nicest people I have ever met.

The view from the top was just awesome.  I was going to say breathtaking but I didn't have even so much as a puff to spare at that point so I will settle for awesome. I tried to imagine what it must have looked like when it was all swamp and islands but my imagination just wasn't up to it.  There were quite a few people up there just laying around either snoozing or reading.  Ann and I went over to the edge that faces toward her house and waved.  We had given Phil an estimate on about what time we thought we might be at the top and he was going to go upstairs with a pair of binoculars and look for us.  When we compared notes later, he said at the time he looked he couldn't see us. At the bottom of the hill was a curious looking cairn with the mileage to Wells on it and some Celtic symbols on it.  We never did figure out that the point of it was.

After we left the Tor we drove down toward Glastonbury and parked in one of the car parks and walked into the town centre.  Next stop was the Abby.  I am not sure what I expected, but I was quite surprised at what was there.  I think I had something more compact in mind.  The ruins cover all of 37 acres!  According to the guide book (I ALWAYS buy a guidebook) It is traditionally the first Christian sanctuary in Great Britain, visited, so legend has it, by Joseph of Arimathea and Saints David & Patrick. Many believe that the Holy Thorn tree that can be seen in the grounds originated from Joseph of Arimathea's staff and others are convinced that King Arthur was buried in the Abbey beside his lovely wife Queen Guinevere. We spent some time browsing in the gift shop and then set off to explore.

The first thing we came to was the ruins of the Lady Chapel.  This was the most intact site on the grounds.  We explored it rather thoroughly and then set off to find the spot where King Arthur is supposed to be buried.  We never found it but it hardly mattered.  We just wandered around enjoying the lovely day until a little inner voice started reminding us that it was lunch time. 



We had lunch in a great little vegetarian restaurant on the high street called The Rainbows End.  Out back there was a garden seating area where we enjoyed a delicious lunch.  Afterwards we shopped the High Street.  The tat shops, book shops and the Celtic jewelry shops.  Ann had three lovely silver pendents on chains of various sizes and I told her flat out that I wanted some just like hers.  So we went from a jewelry shop to jewelry shop looking for just the perfect little Celtic pendents.  I finally found just what I wanted except for the chains. 

My Glastonburry Pictures