Heat Wave
One doesn't get so many heat waves in England, so it's too bad I've got one. Three days so far, pretty sweltering. I wear the same thing every day -- the one outfit which best confronts heat (I wasn't really planning for heat waves, alas) and then I wash it out every night and then in the morning I put it back on.
Today I'm headed off for Cambridge and who knows how I'll get on the net. Probably at the library over at the Lion Yard. We'll see.
But I'm pretty sure that you're at the end of the blog orgy you've had lately -- an entry every day! What a bonanza! Those times are coming to an end.
Yesterday, it being Sunday and all, I went for a long walk -- ended up being about three hours, I think. I went out to the Eleanor Cross, then went out to the ruined abbey, and and sat on the lawn and watched horse riding classes and ate my lunch.
Now. The Eleanor Cross is one of the last three surviving Eleanor Crosses, built by Edward I at the 12 places his wife Eleanor's funeral cortege rested on the way from Lincolnshire to Westminster. There's no actual cross on it anymore, of course -- that got whacked off by, I'd guess, the Puritans* -- but it's quite imposing. (Charing Cross, in London, was the site of another cross, though the original doesn't survive, just the name,)
Delapre Abbey had been touted to me by a taxi driver, who got onto the subject cause he was taking me out to the record office, which is now out at Wooton Hall, but used to be at Delapre Abbey. And now the Abbey's been deserted, and vandals have done it grave damage and set it on fire, and the Whole Problem is due to the preservation efforts, cause if people hadn't fought the sale of Delapre Abbey to private developers who wanted to make it into apartments, then it'd be safe, but as it is now it's ruined and it's a Disgrace. A real Disgrace.
So this abbey survived Henry VIII and then the 20th century vandals and preservationists got it? Is that what you're telling me? I asked.
Yes. And it's a Disgrace.
Well, this sounded not quite entirely true to me -- I mean, for one thing, abbeys didn't survive Henry VIII unless they were Peterborough, for instance, and got turned into a diocesan seat so as to break up Lincoln -- so I wanted to go see for myself.
Well, it did NOT survive Henry VIII -- there are still bits and pieces of the abbey left, but it got destroyed just like every other abbey. Then these bits and pieces got used, over the course of many generations, in the making of other buildings. Now it's boarded up and getting derelict -- that part's true.
So, there's your history for the day. I'm going to try and reach Cambridge before the thunderstorms hit.
*******************************
*Actually, I'm told it got hit by lightening. A likely story. I blame the Puritans. There were a lot around here.
**Ok, here's an extra treat, just for WOXOF -- "hampton" means "home town," from the Anglo-Saxon. The "sex" part of place-names such as Essex, Sussex, Middlesex means "saxon." So those are the places the Saxons took over. the East Saxons, the South Saxons. The Middle Saxons. (You're welcome. This is what all that stuff I read is for.)
Today I'm headed off for Cambridge and who knows how I'll get on the net. Probably at the library over at the Lion Yard. We'll see.
But I'm pretty sure that you're at the end of the blog orgy you've had lately -- an entry every day! What a bonanza! Those times are coming to an end.
Yesterday, it being Sunday and all, I went for a long walk -- ended up being about three hours, I think. I went out to the Eleanor Cross, then went out to the ruined abbey, and and sat on the lawn and watched horse riding classes and ate my lunch.
Now. The Eleanor Cross is one of the last three surviving Eleanor Crosses, built by Edward I at the 12 places his wife Eleanor's funeral cortege rested on the way from Lincolnshire to Westminster. There's no actual cross on it anymore, of course -- that got whacked off by, I'd guess, the Puritans* -- but it's quite imposing. (Charing Cross, in London, was the site of another cross, though the original doesn't survive, just the name,)
Delapre Abbey had been touted to me by a taxi driver, who got onto the subject cause he was taking me out to the record office, which is now out at Wooton Hall, but used to be at Delapre Abbey. And now the Abbey's been deserted, and vandals have done it grave damage and set it on fire, and the Whole Problem is due to the preservation efforts, cause if people hadn't fought the sale of Delapre Abbey to private developers who wanted to make it into apartments, then it'd be safe, but as it is now it's ruined and it's a Disgrace. A real Disgrace.
So this abbey survived Henry VIII and then the 20th century vandals and preservationists got it? Is that what you're telling me? I asked.
Yes. And it's a Disgrace.
Well, this sounded not quite entirely true to me -- I mean, for one thing, abbeys didn't survive Henry VIII unless they were Peterborough, for instance, and got turned into a diocesan seat so as to break up Lincoln -- so I wanted to go see for myself.
Well, it did NOT survive Henry VIII -- there are still bits and pieces of the abbey left, but it got destroyed just like every other abbey. Then these bits and pieces got used, over the course of many generations, in the making of other buildings. Now it's boarded up and getting derelict -- that part's true.
So, there's your history for the day. I'm going to try and reach Cambridge before the thunderstorms hit.
*******************************
*Actually, I'm told it got hit by lightening. A likely story. I blame the Puritans. There were a lot around here.
**Ok, here's an extra treat, just for WOXOF -- "hampton" means "home town," from the Anglo-Saxon. The "sex" part of place-names such as Essex, Sussex, Middlesex means "saxon." So those are the places the Saxons took over. the East Saxons, the South Saxons. The Middle Saxons. (You're welcome. This is what all that stuff I read is for.)
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