Roman villa

Chedworth Roman Villa. There were at least 17 other Roman villas within ten miles of Chedworth, but tnis is the best preserved. The Victorian building is a hunting lodge erected by the lord who discovered the site in the 1800s.

The National Trust have done a lot of work including building climate controlled structures over a large section so that visitors can see the amazing mosaic tiled floors and to prevent the weather from damaging them. There are even more mosaics hidden under the turf outside.

The villa probably looked something like this and was probably a large farm and luxury house. The owners were very wealthy and important. They lived in the top section and bottom left wing was for their servants.

They had two bathing sections, one for women and one for men, both with warm, hot and cold baths. You can see part of the under floor heating system here.

Have a guess what these three items are. They are based on things found during excavations here.

A bowl of large snail shells. The Romans brought these large snails, about two inches in diameter, with them to England, and their descendants  still live in the area.

The gold metal thing is a strigl, used by your slave to scrape olive oil and skin flakes off your body before you went into the bath water. Women then used the oil/skin flakes as a hair gel!

The stick with a wad of wool on the end is the toilet paper. They used it to wipe themselves, washed it in water, then dipped it in vinegar to disinfect it for the next person to use.

Here is something nicer - a selection of mosaic patterns. The tiles are not painted. They are made from different stone for the different colours. Some of the tiles are only about 1cm square. Amazingly intricate.

Almost full circle

It has been seven weeks since I left home and our travels have now brought us almost back to our starting point. We have stayed for two nights in Witney on the edge of the Cotswolds. This gave us  the chance to sight by car instead of one foot.

We had a very nice lunch in the sweet little Cotswold village of Bourton-on-the-water, along with thousands of other tourists.

It really is on the water. A shallow, man altered stream called Windrush River runs politely through the middle of town, traversed by five low stone bridges.

The water is only six incbes deep. Ducks were swimming and childen were playing in it.

There were a lot of people but we didn't realize how many there were until we hit the traffic jams at the next two villages enroute to Sezincote house and garden. The villages caused the traffic to bottleneck when it slowed down at the villages snd it backed up and crawled, stopping and starting,  for a couple of miles into the villages on both sides. The Cotswolds are beautiful but I would not want to live here. There are way too many people doing what we were doing.

Sezincote was hard to find due to lack of signage compared to other attractions, and I think the people who own it are a bit eccentric. The woman at the gate was shocked that we hadn't seen their signs.  This India inspired house was built in the 1790s, but there has been a house here called  Sezincote since the Doomsday Book. It has since belonged to a few different families. The current owners are responsible for its renovation and redecoration in the second half of the 20th century. We did a house tour guided by an old woman (much older than me!) She took us through the entrance and staircase, two majestic bedrooms, a drawing room and dining room. No photographs were allowed, unfortunately. The house consists of the main building with a wing of accommodation rooms on the other side and an orangery on this side here they have a tea room.

Even the head gardener's cottage is huge snd ornate. It is attached to the farm buildings, still in use. There is a clock in the tower over the stables that still chimes every quarter hour.

We had a good wander through the lovely gardens. Indian inspired statues on bridges, beside ponds and in grottos dug into the hillside.

Afternoon tea view from the orangery.

Looking through the window of the "Tent room" which is on the end of the accommodation wing. Apparently the original owner liked to sleep here. It only has one door leading out onto the garden.

Many lives - a day walk tour

Up above Hebden Bridge, on the edge of the moors, lies an "untouched by modernity" village called Heptonstall. It is so peacecul with its narrow cobblestone streets, and hidden away location. You can drive to it, but we walked, up a steep path. We spent an hour or more wandering through the market square,

 past the old houses,

 through the grave yard where we found Sylvia Plath's grave,

In another church yard we found the oldest continually used Methodist church in the world,  a rare hexagonal church dating back to 1764. 

 Then we had a really truly delcicious lunch in one of the local pubs. I love the words on the wall, which is exactly what we were doing.

 To walk off lunch we headed across paddocks, down through woods, to the bottom of the valley and along the Hebden Water river to an area called Hardcastle Crags and an old mill.

 Gibson Mill was built in the 1800s, spinning and weaving cotton, which became unprofitable by the turn of the century, so the owners converted it into an entertainment venue with boats on the mill pond, accomodation in the old mill worker's cottages, a restaurant with seperate first class and second class dining, roller skating  and dancing. They had over 500,000 guests each year. That lasted until the 1950s. It was no longer attracting visitors. When the last of the Gibson owners died in 1956, he left the mill to the National Trust who have restored it and now operate it as an example of sustainable technology. It generates its own power from solar panels and two water driven turbines, uses biomass for heating and engages in numerous other sustainable practices. They have a cafe, museum, nature teaching room and small shop. This is the new life for a building that has seen many changes in its life.

Another of its previous enterprising owner's money making schemes was a toll to cross the bridge.

Looking for Heathcliffe

Back in merry old England now and gradually  making our way down south - two days in south Yorkshire. We are staying in Hebden Bridge, a former mill and weaving town which is experiencing a bit of a creative resurgence and has a lovely community spirit.

A 20 minute drive took us up out of the valley, over the moors and down into another valley to Haworth, the home of the Bronte family. This is the parsonage where they grew up and wrote their classic stories such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and others. It is now the Bronte Museum, very interesting displays.

The church where their father served as minister. Sad story - When Rev. Patrick Bronte died at the age of 84, he had outlived his wife and all of his six children.

The front of the church is right beside The Black Bull, where the sisters' brother Bramwell spent a lot of time.

 The narrow main street is very steep!

A clever sign ln one of tbe cafe shops.

Bye bye

Goodbye bonnie Scotland.

We chose Edinburgh for our final Scottish day and she turned on typical Scottish weather, not cold but damp and dull.

We cheered ourselves up by visiting the old Royal Yacht Britannia, where the Queen said she could relax better than anywhere else as she could achieve more privacy on board the ship than anywhere else. It is moored beside a huge shopping mall (ugh) that you have to find your way through to board the ship.

The Queen's bedroom. I like her understated style.

 Wombat tennis - no kidding! This is an odd looking wombat that the officers used instead of a ball to play a form of tennis in their mess room. Poor thing usually ended up stuck in the fan.

Later in the afternoon the rain actually stopped. Went for a walk into the centre of Edinburgh. This view is from the top of Calton Hill.

There is a collection of odd monuments on top of the hill, including an incomplete copy of the Parthenon. It was built to commemorate the soldiers who fought in the Napoleonic War, but they ran out of money in 1829 and it was never completed.

Edinburgh is not my favourite city- I think it is cramped and dirty looking, but I have to give it some credit for erecting this huge and elaborate monument in the park in the middle of the city, to a writer, Sir Walter Scott.

As we were driving out of the Edinburgh area the next morning we made a spur of the moment stop at Rosslyn Chapel. (Remember the best selling book and movie - The Davinci Code?)

It is an unusual building, built in 1446 for the family of the earl of Rosslyn, it has survived while the castle has not. It covered inside and outside with the most ornate and varied carvings. It is hard to describe, and I was not permitted to take photos inside. Go to www.rosslynchapel.com and you should find some photos of the interior. Apart from carvings of Biblical messages, there are dragons and flowers etc but also a number of plants such as aloe vera and a type of corn that were not known in Europe at that time, ie they are from the Americas which were not discovered until aftee the chapel was built. There are numerous stories about the carvings and their symbolic meanings. Fascinating place.

Another interesting feature is William, a black and white cat who lives in the village, and comes to sleep on the chapel pews every day. He has been coming for about 12 years. Needless to say he gets hundreds of pats every day.

A bit of pain

Why have I taken a photo of a dentist's card?

Well, what else do you do on a rainy day in Orkney? About a month ago now, when we were walking the Cotswolds, in the aptly named village of Painswick, I bit into a bread roll and broke a chunk off one of my back teeth! The sharp edge was annoying for awhile and I did try to get into a dentist in Wales, but they were too busy. I got used to the feel of the broken tooth. But this week, while eating a piece of soft cheese a large peice of the filling from that tooth broke off. DARN - now I really did need to go to a dentist. The lovely gentle female dentist replaced my filling in a hour for a very reasonable price.

Tomorrow we leave Orkney. After 4 weeks of staying one week in each location, we now have one week staying in 4 different locations as we work our way from the far north of the UK, to the far south.

Older than the pyramids

Orkney is seriously ancient. It has been inhabited for at least 6,500 years and has the remains of human buildings to prove it.

We knew, before we came, about some of the major neolithic sites, such as Maes Howe, a chambered burial tomb from 2800 bc, which we did a tour of where they take you inside through a low tunnel. It is all stone walls inside, with later Viking graffiti!

But we did  not know that there are many other similar tombs here. Some are not uncovered and just look like grassy mounds in a paddock. Others you can crawl into without payment or supervision.

This is the Ness of Brodgar which is a village and worship site, currently being excavated on an ongoing basis. We did a tour with one of the lead archaeologists that was very interesting. I found that I got a lot more out of these places with a guided tour. I would not really have known what I was looking at otherwise, nor would I have fully comprehended just how old these buildings are - 3,300 bc.

Here is one of the information panels to help you out just a little.

Literally just down the road, is the farming village of Skara Brae - 3000 bc, older than the pyramids.

Each house has a stone dresser opposite the door, a central hearth, built in stone beds that would have been filled with heather and grass and animal skins for warmth and comfort, and a little room off the side connected to an underground drainage system aka sewerage and indoor toilets!

Each house was connected to the others via passage ways, some covered.

Entering the replica house, surprisingly spacious inside.

You have heard of Stone Henge in the south of England. Well, it is quite possible that the stone circle movement (whatever it was, they will never be entirely certain) actually started in Orkney. There are several circles here, some more complete than others.

The Ring of Brodgar - 104 metres wide - second largest circle in Britain.

 The Stones of Stennis, all that is left of a slightly smaller but still large circle.

Travel forward a few thousand years to Viking era - circa 600 to 1200 ad. The Broch of Gurness - a Viking settlement.

 Sheryl contemplating life as a Viking, in the main tower residence of the village.

 The remains of another Viking settlement, the Brough of Birsay, which was a monastry and village on an island. It is believed that Magnus, of the St Magnus Catherdal was brought up here.

 Remains of a circular church from the Viking period.

One of the tour guides told us that most of the Viking archeaology and history is not visible as it is still being lived on top of, many of the farms  are still being worked  on the same locations.

But there is a published and translated history of the Viking era called The Orkneyinga Saga, written between 1192 and 1206, that tells the story of the conquest of Orkney by Norway and its powerful Earls.