The UK is Adorable

Bruton, UK - We spent a week wandering around (mostly) Somerset, in the UK. After hearing the details of my trip and seeing various photos, my mother told me that, "Not all of the UK is cute." To which I said and still say, "Prove it."

Manors

We visited several countryside manors in Somerset including Lytes Cary, Montacute Barrington Court, and Stourhead. These were the spectacular homes and gardens of Britain's aristocracy or landed gentry that were turned over to the National Trust as the wealth and power of these families diminished over the years. 

Centuries ago, when the families were spending more freely on their estates, they built spectacular gardens and follies. Follies are (as my mother put it) big garden gnomes. More specifically (as Wikipedia put it), they are buildings constructed primarily for decoration, but suggest through their appearance some other purpose, or are of such extravagant appearance that they transcend the range of usual garden buildings. These included, for example, Greco-Roman temples that no one ever worshiped in but looked bloody delightful and multistory brick towers from which no one ever set a watch, but looked simply smashing atop a hill.

Hannah was taken with the gardens at these manors, since it was basically Instagram gold and because it lived up to all of her Jane Austen-inspired fantasies of British countryside splendor. Hannah now has lots of new ideas for our California garden.

Cute Villages

The British countryside is dotted with some very cute villages. These villages are typically small, with a few meandering streets lined with centuries old stone homes and shops and a church somewhere near the center of town. The homes frequently come with small but immaculately maintained gardens. Usually, there's a stream wandering through the town, underneath picturesque stone bridges, emitting a modest gurgle as it sloshes over the stones in the riverbed, and invariably contributing to the immense pleasantness. Some of our favorite villages were Bruton, Corfe, and Castle Combe.

For all their idyllic charm, these villages aren't the most practical places to live. Getting to them requires navigating narrow country lanes (more on that later) and the shops tend to be galleries or purveyors craft goods and not, say, a supermarket. In other words, these are sort of like the follies of towns.

Corfe Castle

We visited a castle ruin in southern England near the coast called (you guessed it!) Corfe Castle. The castle was of some importance in the middle ages and the renaissance and you can tell: it sits atop a prominent hill overlooking the surrounding countryside and the remaining bits which haven't crumbled are impressive, rising several stories into the air. The castle was destroyed during the English Civil War in the 17th century.

The castle was a refuge for the troubled English monarch, King John. History has not been kind to John, since he is widely known as Bad King John (which sounds like the kind of descriptor we could use for a recent President). John's reputation is so bad that no English king has been named John since. Anyway, this was supposedly his favorite castle, perhaps because its dungeons had ample room for his many political prisoners. 

Bath

Bath is lovely city in southwestern England. It's named after its Baths, which have existed in some form for millennia owing to a geothermic spring located here. The Romans were the first to build baths here and the Roman baths are a big draw for visitors, like me and Hannah. The tour of the baths is quite informative and rather comprehensive. The audio guide splurges on superlatives that typically end with "in the UK." As in, "the largest Roman Baths...in the UK."

Fast forward a few hundred years: Beau Nash, a - according to Wikipedia - "celebrated dandy", was a sort of social kingmaker in 18th century Bath. He's famous for breaking down some of the stuffy social hierarchy and bringing (wealthy) people from the lower social strata into prominent events. 

Nash was also an inveterate womanizer and gambler. He moved in with a mistress, Juliana Popjoy when gambling nearly bankrupted him. Upon their separation, she was so distraught that she moved out of her home to live in a hollowed out tree, where she remained until her death. 

Cheddar Gorge

We hiked up and along the ridge overlooking Cheddar Gorge. Cheddar Gorge is itself quite pretty and it affords wonderful views of the surrounding countryside. In 1903, the oldest human remains were in the UK found here. The unfortunately named Cheddar Man is estimated to be 9,000 years old.

Hauser and Wirth

Hauser and Wirth is a lovely gallery on the outskirts of Bruton, the town where we were staying. When we visited, they had an exhibit on Henry Moore, a sculptor. 

Hannah was taken with the large gardens in the back of the gallery, which were as nice or nicer as those we visited at the abovementioned manor houses, though it was sadly devoid of follies.

Stonehenge 

We visited Stonehenge, which was spectacular. The audio guide provided an explanation of how the stones got there and how they were erected, and it served its purpose in making me more amazed. These were not local stones, as I had assumed; they were brought in from Wales. People tugged these things over many miles on sleds and then - at enormous bodily risk - set some of them upright and then - at even greater bodily risk - mounted some of them on top of others. This was done in the stone age, as in, in an era that predated (on Britain, at least) metal and all its many benefits. 

I also didn't realize that Stonehenge was more than just the stones. It's a vast complex of burial mounds and ditches that extends for miles. It's all very impressive.

Driving

They drive on the wrong side of the road here and it's disconcerting when you're used to driving on the correct side of the road and then you come here and have to do it all wrong. Also, the inside of the car is a mess: your gear lever is on your left, for God's sake, and have you ever tried to fiddle with the radio or A/C with your left hand? I mostly got used to it by the time we left, but still found myself looking the wrong way when I approached intersections from time to time. 

Also, the countryside is littered with one lane roads that accommodate two-way traffic. To make things more insane, the roads are often lined with tall, thick hedges on both sides, so there's literally no place to pull over and no way to see around turns. We had several encounters with oncoming traffic that required us to reverse down the road some distance to the nearest driveway so we could let the other driver pass. What I'm saying is, British road engineers are far from tip top.

Hannah was surprisingly comfortable with the roadways but strangely anxious about the status of our fuel tank. How much gas do we have? Can we make it that far? Should we get gas? Where do we get gas? These were questions I was asked on a routine basis. The car, for its part, had considerable range and made it until the last day without a refill. At this point, Hannah's anxiety had reached crisis levels since the car was now indicating we had (only) 120 miles of range remaining and really, who could say whether we'd find a gas station in the next 120 miles on the highway back to London?