Countryside of England and Scotland. Copyright 1997. Photo by Narayan Sengupta.
Written Dec. 1, 2001
For some reason, I don't have a travelogue of this trip. So here I am, almost four years later, writing about it just so that I have some record before I forget all of the details.
My traveling friend and I had discussed taking a trip to both England and France at the end of 1997. She's British, but has lived in the US for most of her life. Her Grandmother and some cousins live in Harrogate and she convinces me that it will make a nice gateway for seeing the central part of England and Scotland. We decided to go just before Christmas taking advantage of cheap ticket prices that I always seem to run across every year.
I don't remember the departure date anymore, so I had to look it up. We ended up spending eight or nine days in England and about six or seven in France. We left Atlanta on a Friday night (12/19/1997), left England on Sunday, Dec. 27th, and then came back to Atlanta on Sunday (Jan. 3, 1998).
Friday we flew from Atlanta to Manchester on Delta. We arrived on Saturday, converted some money, about 100 Pounds, and caught a train to Leeds and then another one on to Harrogate. It was freezing, gray, and very humid, bordering on rain. But I was back in merry old England after 12 or so years, and was thrilled to be there.
From the station in Harrogate, we took a cab to her Grandmother's house. It was a very nice, cozy two story detached bungalow that appears to be very common in England. The houses are all rather solid, made of brick and sit on rectangular lots which are brick-like in the regularity of their shape and size. Inside was impecably decorated with lovely wallpapers and photos of the family. Her Grandmother was a most gracious and kind hostess and I really enjoyed staying with her and hearing her stories. My own Grandmother had died six years earlier, so I got to just enjoy that certain je ne sais quoi that Grandmothers provide.
We spent a day or two in Harrogate, recouped from jet lag, and rekindled our love affair with fish and chips and haggis. Okay, I lied. I passed on the haggis - a large sausage type of dish with the marketing appeal of last year's deli meats, and thought that the fish and chips were going to give me a heart attack. But I must confess that they tasted really good, even if they floated in enough oil to lubricate the inner machinery of a battleship. By the way, there is nothing chip-like in fish and chips. They're just French fries! :) I don't know if it was simply because we were in England, and everything there seems to be wondeful, but they sure are good.
We spent the rest of Saturday shopping in the center of Harrogate since I forgot to bring anything more than a light sweater. Shopping in Harrogate introduced me to another British speciality: Marks & Spencers. Think Macy's and JC Penny's rolled into one. She was very patient, even enthusiastic, in helping me pick out a jacket. It took the better part of two or three hours and intimate knowledge of a good half-dozen stores. We ended up returning to where she had taken me to begin with: Marks & Spencers, and right back to the first jacket we had looked at. The red light ski jacket that we ended up picking out was, predicably, made in China.
Harrogate is an incredibly beautiful and charming little town. Though probably no one in the US has ever heard of it, unless they are British or have toured in central England, it is very well known in England, perhaps as much as Silicon Valley and such prey on our minds over here. I'm not sure how old the town is, but since it is south of Hadrian's Wall and is very well known for its natural spas and baths, I am guessing that it probably has roots going back to Roman times. But none of that Roman heritage showed in what I saw. Instead, we saw great Gothic and Renaissance and Tudor stone work, great sinewy parks that are at perfect harmony with the landscape rather than cut out from it, and obelisks and bell towers that reminded me of a 1/50th scale London. I enjoyed doing a quick pencil watercolor.
On day two, we went to the post office to get the car insurance taken care of. At the post office, and in fact, even upon arrival in England, I was amazed at the remarkable similarity that the language of the English bears to our own American language. Coincidence? It is almost as if the two languages sprang from some common font a few centuries ago. I felt that if only I could train myself to speak a little more rapidly, or was it slowly? - I forget now, I could probably make myself understood to the average Englishman. Trying to make myself understood to the average Englishwoman would certainly have garnered me a good kick under the table from my traveling companion. Anyway, her father had a comfortable champagne-colored four-door Peugeot 405 DL that he kept at her grandmother's for just these kinds of trips. I like the Peugeot 405. It got the European Car of the Year back in 1988 by the highest point total of all time. The suspension is supple, the handling sure-footed and the Pininfarina styling is very pretty for a four door sedan. The trapezoidal headlights originated by Peugeot are now copied on just about every single other car in the world. 110 horsepower is not all that thrilling, but it does the job and manages to consume expensive British gas parsimoniously, which is not a bad thing. But the thing just wouldn't start in spite of vitriolic verbal encouragement in English, American, and its native French too (just to be on the safe side). Luckily there was a very long down-hill road into town. So we used its gravity and ever-friendly passer-bys to help us jump start it. She broke a mirror backing the car out of the garage. It was rather disconcerting to be doing everything on the left side of the road. For once, I was glad that I wasn't driving.
It was this evening, I believe, that we got together with one of her childhood friends at a little pub quite literally up the street from her grandmother's house. Her friend showed up with her mother. I forget their names, but their last name was Vian. And her mother's father was Captain Philip Vian who attained considerable fame in the Altmark Incident. The Altmark was a German supply ship returning from the South Atlantic to Germany via Norwegian waters of the North Sea. It wasn't just any supply ship, but that used to supply the 16,000 ton (full load) pocket battleship Graf Spee. Graf Spee had been on a hunting spree hunting down British merchant ships. With her 28.5 knot speed, she was easily able to overhaul merchant ships. With her pair of three 280mm gun turrets, she was able to get them to surrender. Over a period of about three months, Graf Spee did a commendable job sinking nine merchantmen. But her commander Captain Hans Langsdorff was one of those exceptional gentlemen who was all too rare in World War II: his nine victims went to the bottom without a single British sailor being killed. Their crews totalled 299 officers and crew who were transferred to the Altmark. Vian was skippering the HMS Cossack, which was vectored in to Norwegian waters to intercept the Altmark. In the dark cold hours of the night of February 16, 1940, Vian's men boarded the Altmark, got embroiled in hand-to-hand fighting with the German crew, killed several of them and liberated all of the prisoners. Vian also later helped to hunt down the mighty German battleship Bismarck. Still later he became Commander-in-Chief of the British Home Fleet. Both Vian's daughter and granddaughter were charming, smart as hell and blessed with vivacious smiles. But as a historian, I was especially delighted to get to speak to his daughter. And as for me, I got to be charming back with my "exotic" American accent.
On the third morning, probably Monday by now, we went 10 miles north of Harrogate to the nearby town of Ripon to get the car checked out further. Getting there was easy. Just stay on Ripon Road until it turns into Harrogate Road. In either case it's A61. Ripon was a nice little town in which we could walk around, and so we did - mainly on Bondgate Green and then up Skellgarths. I am not sure what "Skell" means ("skull"?), but there were several other related road names: Water Skellgate, Skellbank, Low Skellgate, etc. It was fun going into the little British pubs or restaurants for food, and we did just that to pass the time while we waited to retreive the Peugeot.
Ripon Cathedral viewed from off of Bondgate Green with Ripon Canal in the foreground. Copyright 1997. Photo by Narayan Sengupta.
I have a pet theory that one can get a better feel for the evolution of older villages, towns and cities by looking at place names. Most communities - especially those that depended on trade - were located along navigable rivers. The rest were usually on hilltops and were defensive in nature. In either case, at the center of town was usually the church, or in the case of larger and/or more important cities, a cathedral. It made practical sense to locate the ecclesiastical center of town at the geographical center of town so keep weekly meetings with God's representatives within easy walking distance for the unwashed and vehicularly impaired masses. Like the fortified citadels hills, the river-bound communities also needed to be defended. In all cases, the inhabitants built walls that were often eventually upgraded to dirt-backed ramparts. In either case, the walls had defended gates with roads that passed through them. The roads were named after the corresponding gates. So Ripon's names like Skellgate, Westgate, Blossom Gate, Kirkgate, Allhallowgate, Stonebridgegate, St. Mary's Gate, Agnesgate, etc. should all triangulate toward a central point and at that central point should be the cathedral, or Minster, as they are often called in merry old England. The walls are often gone, victims to growing populations who needed room to expand. But in many cases, the roads that ran just inside the walls are often still there.
Eventually we got the car back. I don't remember what the car guys did, but the car kept on stalling the rest of the trip.
Monday, like every other day that we were in England, had about six hours of daylight. By 3 pm, it was getting a bit dark, so we started to head back, but decided to go to Bolton Abbey. This involved driving back toward Harrogate, but then turning right (west) before getting to the center of town. Bolton Abbey was along Skipton Road (A59) about 12 miles west of Harrogate. The property is vast and encompasses about 30,000 pastoral acres of lush green meadowland named, if I understand correctly, the Yorkshire Dales. The organically shaped plots of land witness land ownership patterns of generations past, before straight line surveying became de rigour. My father's an architect, so I have a great fascination with great buildings. But in England, for some reason, they have the world's greatest collection of ruined eclesiastical structures. I believe that it is as a result of the religious wars of about five or six hundred years ago. In any case, I still haven't gotten to the bottom of this mystery, and it gives me cause for further research once I return State-side. It is in structural limbo and looks like an unfinished cathedral - lacking main facade towers, flying buttresses or a transcept (the wings and towers and gates that usually extend out from the sides near the center). Bolton's Abbey has been partially restored meaning that one side has a roof on it. But the other side has neither a roof nor windows. So, from our parking point out by the visitors center, we walked seemingly forever in the dark through the meandering grounds of the abbey, watching out for errant mad sheep, and talking to cows.
We spent twenty minutes in the abbey itself and enjoyed practically having it all to ourselves which was rather romantic. I always wonder about the people who made these buildings. For how many hundreds or thousands of hours did the average worker put into such a project? How many of those who started the project ever saw it completed - be they the workers or the visionaries? What was it like for them to know that they would never see the building they started completed within their life times? What are the stories of those who have smoothed the paver stones with their footsteps? What were the happy stories of their lives? And what of the sadness of their hard, short lives? It was a nice quiet place to be pensive. The downside of being a tourist in the cold dark winter months as that it is cold and the days are short. It's also hard to take great photos. However, it is great for not being in a swamp of tourists. In any case, mindful of the pitch black that was outside, the freezing weather and the penchant of the car not to start, we decided to head back to Harrogate rather than chance getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Tuesday we went to my favorite building in all of England: Fountain's Abbey. It wasn't my favorite until she introduced it to me: in fact I had never even heard of it. What a marvelous structure! One approaches from the post-modern wood and glass visitor's center and the associated parking lot. From there, one walks on a paved walk for several hundred yards, not suspecting what is to come, because there is nothing to see... Nothing to see, that is, until the path and the contours of the land start to slope downward. And there, perhaps 200 feet below our original starting point, she stands proudly. Imagine a ruined cathedral, open to the sky in almost every single vault or chamber, its solitary main tower both crumbling and standing tall and proud at the same time. The abbey sits at the base of a meadow valley formed over the eons by the little creek that bisects it. Adjacent buildings tell of a time when the abbey wasn't just for the monks, but rather a mini-village with all kinds of supporting people who must have brought the entire place to life even in its isolated glory.
Fountains Abbey. Copyright 1997. Photo by Narayan Sengupta.
We walked around for an hour or more clicking snaps and admiring the architecture. Then, our superficial curiosity satisfied, we both started to sketch the building on our separate sketch pads. I sketch from top to bottom, capturing some detail along the way. This proves to be a big mistake, for now when I look up at the top of the building to fill in further detail and to start applying some color, I find that the top is no longer there, and is now buried in the fog which settles in more rapidly than can be imagined. I look at my watch; it is 3:15 or so. From there the sky quickly turns dark blue. Night time is settling quickly.
By the time we make it back through the visitor's center and to the car, it is 4:00 pm. The car doesn't start. For 10 minutes, we sit there, trying over and over to start it. And it just won't. Then finally I suggest something. I forget what, but it works, and we're off once again, hoping that we'll make it the 30 miles on country roads back to Harrogate without breaking down. But we do. A curb pops out of the dark night half-way back to Harrogate and pops the rear tire. We award three points to the curb for executing a successful mobility kill on the Peugeot. "Oh hell," I think to myself. This really can't be happening. We are literally in the middle of nowhere, except for a mechanic's garage we passed 100 feet back. We limp the car back. He is closed or just about to close, but with typically English hospitality, he cheerfully offers to help us and get us on our way. Everyone in England is so incredibly friendly! It's astounding. How did these people take over the world? I always thought that it was superior technology coupled with sheer audacity, but now I think that it was the charm!
Once again, I hope that we'll make it back the rest of the way without breaking down. This time we do. It was this evening, perhaps, that we had dinner with two of her friends: a charming couple whose name escapes me at the moment. Since we were in England, of course we went out for pizza, of course, at a trendy new Gen X restaurant they picked out. All I remember is that the food was good and that the overall color of the decor was a stark white. I have no idea what the name was, but it must have been near Hedley's Food & Wine Bar since there is a photo I took of the three of them on the sidewalk of Montpellier Parade right in front of it after we left. Her friends walked us out to the car later on just to make sure that it would start and that we would be able to make it home. Turns out we weren't able to start it, and we had to go back to their house after bidding them adieu to get some more help!
Wednesday the 23rd, we headed out to the west from Harrogate in the direction of York. This is the original York. Version 1.0. The one that preceeded New York. York is a beautiful city, but we did not see it. Instead we turned quickly to the north and headed about 50 miles north to Durham. To the east Durham is flanked by the Wear River. The Wear River loops around and through the city and the center of town sits commandingly on high bluffs in a loop of the Wear. In the center, above the town, is the cathedral and the castle, or where it once was. Durham has roots that go back to Norman times and probably much earlier. But the Norman influence is very strong here, for it is Durham that holds claim to the world's first Gothic cathedral. If it isn't the absolute first in the world, then it is the first in England.
The cathedral is quite large, distinctly English gothic on the outside, and general Gothic on the inside, at least as far as my memory serves me now four or five years after the fact. And it has very distinct circular interior pillars circumscribed by chevrons. Each column is unique, which is in and of itself unique, since cathedrals typically are rather uniform in their interior stonework.
We have so much to see. We leave the cathedral and walk back down across a bridge to get to our car. Continuing my quest for English food, she recommends that we pick up curry chicken sandwiches. I am not realy into Indian food, but she says that it is English and so I find myself enjoying it quite a bit. Food consumption in progress, she drives, while I film and navigate. We both eat on the way. The highways in England are odd: not only do they drive on the wrong side of the road, but they also appear to show a total disdain for the billboard industry. No doubt the British will soon see the error in their ways and rebel against those who have so wrongfully suppressed the billboard industry so that England too can be graced with tacky billboards atop garish giant poles. So from Durham we head further north along the A1 to Bamburgh Castle, an immense edifice that sits right on the coast and dominates a slice of the North Sea from there. But it is closed and we can't go in. We walk around about half of the perimeter and end up on the seaward side of the imposing castle. After several photo ops, we drive off again, heading north along the coast.
Bamburgh Castle. Copyright 1997. Photo by Narayan Sengupta.
I forget how long it took us, but it was starting to get a little dark when we arrived at Holy Isle (also known as the Holy Island of Lindisfarne). The drive from Bamburgh Castle was about 17 miles. Holy Isle is a bit like Mt. St. Michel, except that it is basically one solitary castle-like building on a very small hill on a very small lightly inhabited island. It is beautiful, and we had it to ourselves. There is a long causeway, perhaps two thirds of a mile, flanked to the right by a tiny harbor and a multi-colored pebble basin beach criss-crossed by funny looking sea-weed, and flanked to the left by a little stone wall. We park in the village on the land-side, and then walk out along the causeway to the building that sits by itself. The guard sheep leave us alone. And apparently they can't figure out the ultra complex gate that allows people to come and go with impunity. There is no one else there at all. We walk all around, me with my running commentary that has her in stiches and my mockumentary on the history of walls, which she records on video for posterity.
Top: Holy Isle. Bottom: Harbor adjacent to Holy Isle. Copyright 1997. Photo by Narayan Sengupta.
Then, in the dark, with small village lights and faint boat lights adding definition back to the detail that we were rapidly losing, we drove off to the north, yet again, to Berwick-upon-Tweed in search of a place to sleep. The drive was only about seven miles. Berwick (pronounced "Bear-ick") strddles both the Tweed River and the border of England and Scotland and sits just a few thousand feet away from the bitterly cold North Sea. Berwick is like Quebec City, though smaller with a population of about 11,000. But it is a walled town with its thick neat cut stone gates and ramparts still impressively intact.
We found a charming Bed & Breakfast. (Edit: I don't remember the name, but it might have been the Cara House - www.carahouse.co.uk). The lady of the house welcomed us, and set us up in a nice comfortable room on the ground floor. Her cat greeted us warmly and came right into the room. As I recall she was a tabby cat named Tabby. We headed out for dinner. Our B&B faced the outside of the wall. We walked into Marygate at the center of town, passing under the huge entrance in the wall and walked south. The street names reflect the military origins: Marygate, Castlegate, Walkergate, Parade. Other street names are equally practical: Churct Street, Chapel Street, Bridge Street, Silver Street, Oil Mill Lane, Hide Hill, Salty Port, Pudding Lane (yes, Pudding Lane) etc. The British have a very nice habit of placing a church in the center of town, but typically a bit isolated from the other buildings so that the church can be appreciated from many different angles. It is easy to see where our church design comes from based on the tall slender singular spires that form the bell tower and the shoe-box design of the rest of the church underneath. I admired the church while she checked out the chocolatier. It was very cold, so I rejoined her at the chocolatier. We went up for dinner at a little pub-like restaurant on Marygate. I had some kind of soup which was very good.
I would have liked to have had more time to explore Berwick, but we had a lot of things planned ahead of us. The next morning, we got on the A1 motorway and drove north again, this time crossing into Scotland. England and Scotland appear to scowl at each other over their common heritage and shared border. They are so proud of their differences that they field separate soccer (football) teams for the World Cup. How different are they? They are as different as we Georgians are from the people of the great state of Alabama. In other words, slightly different accent, but genetically the same. But to the Scots, the English are still the outsiders of sorts...
At the border... Copyright 1997. Photo by Narayan Sengupta.
The sign should probably read "Welcome to Scotland... Where it always looks like it is about to rain." The scenery of the rollling green and brown hills was majestic. The clouds were slightly ominous and added drama. I wanted to get out and hike in them. Or across them. Or make a documentary. Or something, anything, to connect with a place that was so beautiful without trying to be so. Forget the Italian Riviera... this is where James Bond movies should be shot.
We pulled off when we saw the blue sign welcoming us to Scotland. We got out of the car and she did a little jig. There was no passport control. Nonetheless, I wondered if this was required by law and started to do the same. We got back in our car. The view along the coast was stunning, and is probably very similar to the view of the California coast when driving on Highway 101 (or is it just Highway 1?). And once again, as it appeared to be getting dark, we arrived at our destination: Edinburgh. They pronounce it "Eh-dihn-buhrugh" by the way. Go figure! :) But it wasn't dark. It was only noon. We hopped on an open top red double-decker bus, drove all around the elegant city. We were bundled up to face the cold, but could have used another layer. At the center of town, visible from miles away and atop a black lava formed hill known as Castle Rock lies, not suprisingly, Edinburgh Castle. The castle is the most important one in Scotland and a national symbol. The Scots take great pride in the impossing edifice, and it only takes a superficial glance to understand why: it is big, solid looking and perhaps 1,000 feet above everything else next to it. Did I mention that it is big? The structure dates back to the 12th Century and it has been the site of many important events in Scotish History. We got off on Prince's Street (I kept hearing it as Princess Street) at the castle. We were going to tour, but I don't think that we did for I don't remember it. Instead, I remember her doing another silly jig to get me to laugh. "I'm dancing like a Scotish girl" she announced, and she did it right in front of the main gateway upon which is lettered "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" (no one attacks me with impunity). I laughed. The imperial guards scowling from the shadows didn't, but they did nothing. Her dance had indeed attacked Scotland with impunity. She had a joke. What do Bobbies in England say to criminals? Stop, or I'll yell stop again! Nonetheless, they failed to even do that to us.
Edinburgh Castle (from www.aboutbritain.com)
We walked down Prince's Street to get back on another red double decker, and found one. That took us back to our starting point: an underground-mall next to the visitor's center. We then spent the next few hours looking for boots. She was obsessed with a brand called Doc Martens. I had never heard of them. I am fashion unconscious. But now I know, and hear of them frequently. The drive out of Edinburgh is as breathtaking as the one coming in, and I was sad to leave. Our elapsed time, not counting shoe-shopping, at this, one of the world's great cities: about two hours.
We abandoned plans to visit Glascow. We were short on time. Instead, we headed south-west to a town named Galashiels. It's in the center of northern England/southern Scotland. We stopped at five or six places to see if they had rooms, and either they didn't or we thought that they were too small or two fully of family members, etc. Then we found one that looked like an elegant Victorian mansion (www.binniemyreguesthouse.co.uk). We stayed there in a terrific second floor room painted in a cheery yellow color with an impressively vaulted ceiling, wicker basket chairs and a modern shower. The host was a very warm and welcoming man who told us about his brother's trip to the US not too long ago. We had dinner in a restaurant in a small castle near the mansion.
The next day, (the 25th?), we headed south along A68 to Hadrian's Wall, which I had wanted to see for about 10 years since my Roman history class at Emory. The wall is exactly like it is described in history books: about 10 feet tall and six feet thick punctuated by square towers of dubious value every few hundred feet.
Temple of Mithras, near Hadrian's Wall. Copyright 1997. Photo by Narayan Sengupta.
That was more or less it... From Hadrian's Wall, we headed back to Harrogate. We spent time with her wonderful family, enjoyed Christmas and had planned to go to France on December 26th. But the 26th was Boxing Day. This could have been rather exciting for boxing fans. I am not one, but figured something special must be in the air for that day. In fact, Boxing Day is a national holiday when people all over England pack up in to boxes the Christmas gifts they did not like. Unbeknownst to either of us, trains don't run on Boxing Day. We had, however, non-refundable tickets on the Eurostar from London to Paris. However, our tickets were rebooked for free for the 27th and the next day we made it down to London and then under the Chunnel to France. We had a marvelous time and I can't wait to go back again.
Narayan Sengupta
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