Our first weekend in England, our program took us on a trip to some landmark places—Stonehenge, Salisbury and Lacock. I was terribly excited to see “Stonehenge, Salisbury and Lacock” labeled on our week schedule—we were already going on a trip! So wonderful, especially because I do not quite understand the train schedules yet.
To keep stereotypes alive, we traveled in a double-decker bus—and it had its merits, for it gave us terrific views of Bath as we traveled down London Road (literally, the road to London), past fields of grazing sheep, and into the green countryside.
Our first destination was the world-famous Stonehenge. I had been forwarded by my British friends that is literally a pile of rocks in a field. And the Brits weren’t kidding when they made that statement—because that’s exactly what it was! The bus ride was a short trip (about an hour) and I was just sitting there reading excerpts of Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolfo when all of a sudden, Jonathon (the director)crackled on to the intercom, jerking me out of my concentration by syaing, “Annnd there it is, just out the window!” And there it was. The fields were so green (all that rain!) and the stone were so…not that big. Surprisingly, despite what I’d been told by so many somewhat-reliable sources, I thought they’d be massive. Football field massive. They were a lot smaller and less impressive than all the storybooks made them out to be. But still—it was Stonehenge. How many times had I seen the pictures, watched the movies, heard them referenced in pop culture and literature combined?
It looked so (almost) cheery outside, and I practically danced out of the bus, before wham! The wind smacked me in the face, and it was just freezing! Seriously, the wind was strong enough to suck up a small child! As we made our way over to the Stones, we passed a sign that said “Caution: High Winds” that had been bolted down, and it gave us a chuckle.
Up closer, the Stones were a lot bigger. Suddenly, I began to appreciate the amount of sheer effort it took some pretty determined ancients to chisel and move those stones so many miles away with minimal technologies.
Andrew Butterworth (an eccentric but awesome history buff who is also the internship coordinator…) gave us a quick history of the place but owing to the cold, the really loud winds, and just distraction in general, this is what I remember:
-the smaller stones were from Wales, 250 miles away, the bigger stones added hundreds of years later from 20 miles away
-Julius Caesar thought it was built by druids
-scientists recently found a wooden henge buried a few miles away
-over the years, stones have gone missing because people stole them to use in various buildings
-the first Stonehenge tourist came from Switzerland 300+ years ago
Salisbury:
I don’t know what I was expecting, but every time I thought about Salisbury, I thought of Salisbury, Maryland. Salisbury, England was a lot prettier than the American version! The city was quite nice, and pretty and everything. We were quite captivated with the canal cutting through the city—it was filled with swans (actually native to here!) and so everyone whipped out their cameras. My friends and I were also somewhat fascinated with a submerged shopping cart that was in the middle of the canal with a bird perched on the handle. Strange, but interesting.
The Cathedral was gorgeous—of course! It would have been nice enough alone, but Andrew Butterworth’s talk again made it more meaningful! We even saw the Magna Carta and I impressed everyone with my knowledge of the history on the English language learned from linguistics class last year, as well as history of the time it was written, especially about King John and his family.
Lacock, our last destination, is an adorable English village in which Harry Potter, Jane Austen, and several other famous and not so famous movies have been filmed.
The reason for this is because not much has changed since medieval times. They paved the roads, they added cars, they put up some aluminum signs (enough to count on two hands…), and they people there got over their intense fear of bathing at some point a couple hundred years ago. Other than that, it was practically medieval, and in literally 10 minutes, you could turn this place into a Medieval village lookalike.
Some of the features of Lacock are:
-A small brig for putting excessively drunk people into until they sober up
-Genuine, thatched roofs
-a ford (road that goes through a river) about 30 meters long that cars have to drive through to get to the other side of the village
-Adorable, medieval cottages lining the narrow, cobblestoned streets
-Authentic medieval smells, including authentic horse poop on the streets
…and lots more .
We finished up the evening at the George Inn—the oldest working pub in England. The food was great, (I had a veggie pie-type meal) which was accompanied by a pub quiz, something the Brits are rather fond of. Our team only missed one question—and it was math related. Oh well.
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