Trip to England, Part 10: Gargoyles, Grotesques, and Grimaces, Oh My!

Many of those ancient and imposing piles of brick and stone and terracotta over there in the UK are wildly embellished with all manner of creatures as well as human faces. Quite a few of them stare menacingly while others gaze benignly. Plenty of them seem self-absorbed or gaze off at something we can't see. And a few make me think of Bill the Cat, with eyeballs rotating in two directions at once and tongue lolling crazily.

This lion growling from a flint-studded surface is part of St. James' Church, a 14th-century church in Dengie next door to a house where my husband's maternal grandparents once lived. It's a lovely, serene spot, with roses tumbling out of their beds and over walls in the churchyard.

If St. James's embodies all the charm and serenity of a small village church, the great cathedral in Wells is the ultimate in splendor and awe.

 

(I love how Wells Cathedral's website declares boldly that it is "Perhaps the most beautiful of the great English cathedrals." That demurring little "perhaps"...so polite, so self-effacing, so British! If it were here in the states, it would be advertised as "the most beautiful in the world." And would probably have advertising on it.)

Wells Cathedral dates back to 1175 A.D. and is heavily populated with statues and images of saints, angels, and the like. Enigmatic people ponder unseen horizons...

 

 ...while others nobly endure 900-plus years of having a grinning predator of some sort breathing in their hair.

This grumpy little Seussian creature glowers randomly from a graceful wall:

The beautiful Chapter Room, with its vaulted ceiling made of luminescent, pearly stone, is incongruously pocked with faces that grin and gurn. This fellow seems to be mocking some stately decision made by the canons at a long-ago meeting.

Our favorite stony stares, however, belonged to the creatures that crouch on, crawl over, and climb up the walls of the Natural History Museum in London. This stunning building, which dates back to 1881, was praised as "the animal’s Westminster Abbey" when it opened, and is still lauded as a cathedral to Nature. (Though not everybody hanging around in 1881 was disposed to praise it; one curmudgeon harrumphed that the building was "ornamented – if so it may be termed – both externally and internally with incorrect and grotesque representations of animals."
 

Along its western wall perch existing species; the eastern wall boasts extinct creatures, such as this marvelous pterodactyl who looks like he just stepped out of a 1950s-era roadside dinosaur park in Utah:

He keeps company with the Great Paleotherium, who sounds as if he should be worshipped. He has a rather hawkish look about him, but apparently a Great Paleotherium was nothing more than an early hoofed mammal, a sort of small, rubber-nosed horse.

Neither one seems to have anything to fear from the carved creatures cavorting nearby: a fairly fierce fish...

...and a lizard with a hearty appetite:

Indoors, the bestiary's a bit more well behaved. There are animals  everywhere you look, tucked atop columns and in beds of terracotta leaves and blossoms.

All told, 78 monkeys clamber up the arches in the Central Hall.

I can't help but think this ladder of monkeys winks a bit at the ladder of angels ascending to heaven--the "Jacob's Ladder" theme--such as the ones stretching up the front of Bath Abbey:

The Abbey, the Pump Room, and the Roman Baths dominate Bath Abbey Square. But from some viewpoints in the Baths, you can glimpse carved animals that look like ones you might see on a carousel from the late 1800s:

An amused lioness...

...a grumpy donkey...

..and a satisfied bear.

Trip to England, Part 9: Steps and Stairs

Timeworn feet, Glastonbury Abbey

I have not yet been to visit the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, but I recall reading about its opening and have never forgotten the author writing about the impact that the exhibit of shoes (what one Yiddish poet calls "the last witnesses") has on visitors to this institution.

The museum director herself, in a 2010 article, notes that the shoes "are iconic symbols of the Holocaust since they are personal and each represents an innocent life."

Once one starts thinking about shoes, and feet, as symbols of both human individuality and a universal bond between all humans, past and present, suddenly crowds of associations patter, dance, and stomp through one's mind: the milestone of  Baby's first steps and the enshrining of them in bronze, old silk slippers in a chrysalis of tissue paper, a heavy pair of men's dress shoes in a closet bearing silent testimony to the father who once carefully polished them and kept them in shape with shoe trees.

For some reason we frequently found ourselves noticing evidence of the passage of feet on this summer's trip to England--humble, mute evidence of the many lives that came before us. Maybe it was because we were literally following in their footsteps as we climbed stairs and followed paths. Or the attention to detail even in carving feet in sculptures created by artists' hands long ago. Or perhaps it was our own blisters, weary arches, and stones in shoes that goaded us into noticing.

Steps, ruins of Glastonbury Abbey

Medieval floor tiles, accessible under wooden lid, Glastonbury Abbey

Worn steps to Chapter House (built 1306), Wells Cathedral

Unhappy man removing splinter on column in Wells Cathedral

Worn step in  temple precinct of the Goddess Sulis Minerva, Roman Baths

King's Bath with steps situated for visitors "taking the waters" at Bath so they could descend from the Pump Room level right into the water; the water level reached to the top of the orange staining on the walls until 1979, when removal of a pool floor caused the water level to drop. This tub of sulfurous hot water was open for bathing up until the 1930s (the ancient Romans didn't bathe in it as it was the Sacred Spring, source of the water for the baths, though they did toss offerings into it).

The looooong staircase in the Marshall Wade House, built around 1720, a National Trust house we stayed in that was right next door to Bath Abbey and looked out on the square that included the Roman Baths

(And before stepping away from the computer for the day...)

...we did also spot the flatfish known as a sole on the shore in Bradwell-on-Sea.

Trip to England, Part 8: Pathways

A lazy post as summer winds down and balmy evenings with a glass of wine in hand encourage the mind to wander down all sorts of paths.

The Northwest has any number of excellent paths and trails, some easy and many grueling, but unless you live in the country you pretty much have to drive to them or otherwise seek them out. And "No Trespassing" signs abound, even on beaches (except in beautiful Oregon, where the state had the wisdom long ago to ensure that the ocean shores would always be accessible to everybody--no matter what walk of life you come from, you can still walk by the sea).

What I love about England is how you can go out for a stroll in a town and happen across a public-footpath sign that beckons you to veer from your intended purpose and go for a tramp across a field.

And we usually did.

Truly, who could resist the urging of this sign?

Footpath, Burnham-on-Crouch

This particular path led first through a field of rapeseed and then opened up as it meandered through a  sward with views of the harbor.

Turning around and going the other way leads into a woodland.

Complete with bunnies.

Other well-trodden paths:

Chalk path, Avebury

Avebury Stone Avenue, a processional path 4,600 years ago

Path on Glastonbury Tor leading to 600+-year-old St. Michael's Tower

There is, of course, a path back down.

Path to St. Peter's on the Wall (654 AD), Bradwell-on-Sea

Path once led to 3rd-century Roman fort of Othona

Trip to England, Part 7: Horse Heaven

Whenever we go on a trip, two of the three people in our little family start off by scheming ways of shoehorning horses into the itinerary. (Hint: Both of these people lack a Y chromosome.)

This habit goes back a long way. My benevolent parents always tried to match up our interests with activities on trips, so there was often a chance for me to sit on some sighing pony and trudge in a circle or go on a trail ride.

As an adult, my first trip with my future husband took us down the eastern seaboard to Chincoteague, where we visited the wild ponies of Assateague Island, whom legend says are the descendants of ponies that struggled to land long ago when a Spanish galleon wrecked offshore.

When we got to Ocracoke Island, a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina, and learned that this location also boasted wild ponies whom legend says are the descendants of ponies that struggled to land long ago when a Spanish galleon wrecked offshore, it was difficult to convince him that I wasn't actually selecting destinations solely on their supply of wild ponies whom legend says (see above).

But this time the horses were out of the gate before we even cracked open the first guidebook. As luck would have it, my brother-in-law's right-hand-man, a wonderful fellow who is a jack of all trades and master of them all, was partnered with a woman who runs a beautiful stable that's home to, oh, merely about 90 horses or so--most of them boarders but some of them belonging to the stable's riding school.

Not only that, but they love teenagers--and so my daughter had an open invitation to ride there and groom, muck out, and generally indulge in all things horsy whenever she wanted. To top it off, the place was right next door to where we were staying.

Giddy-up!

A busy schedule prevented me from grabbing any real-horse experiences for myself, but England offered plenty of equine opportunities even without saddling up.

For starters, we weren't there 24 hours before we met this strapping fellow, who I think is a Gypsy Vanner, gazing down on us from a field above my sister-in-law's daycare facility. Not sure if he gives sensitive children nightmares.

Two days later we took up residence in a lovely dwelling right next door to these two characters: a pair of Falabella ponies, a bay stallion named Jimmy and a leopard-spotted gelding named Zog. Here they're relaxing after a hard morning's work grazing.

Real horses were scarcer in London (I had hoped to catch the Horse Guards parade but it was not to be), but there were stone and bronze horses ancient and new to spare.  Such as Pyrois, Eos, Aethon, and Phlegon, the four horses of the Greek sun god Helios, taking a break from their job of hauling the sun across the sky to stampede through Piccadilly Circus (this one is...oh, take your pick):

Equally plunging, snorty, and fiery are the horses hauling the chariot of British tribal queen Boadicea, someone who didn't take any guff from the ancient Romans. This statue guards an area near Westminster Pier in London.

In a city heavily populated by statues of noble steeds bearing commanding figures on their backs, it was fun to spot this fellow, officially known as "Powerless Structures, Fig 101," perched on a stand in Trafalgar Square that was once meant to support one of those horse-and-rider memorials. The statue was never put up, however, and so other artworks rotate into place on the stand instead.

The British Museum is likewise packed with horses, with and without riders or chariots. The head below is one of a team that pulled moon goddess Selene's chariot. It's a favorite of ours because we photographed our daughter next to it when she was 6, and she beamed at it as if it were her own pony. At age 14, however, she posed reluctantly, several feet away, with half-lidded eyes and a smirk. The horse's expression, of course, has not changed since the days of ancient Greece.

Prancing across a vast hall in the same museum is this marble horse and rider from ancient Rome. Apparently marble heroes on horseback weren't a common sight in Roman times, so this duo is a rarity.

The British Museum also had a special exhibit about horses in place, called "The Horse from Arabia to Royal Ascot," stuffed with paintings and other artifacts from equine history. A wonderful bonus to this stroll through horse history was that I enjoyed it in the company of an author/bookseller who writes one of my favorite blogs, Books, Mud, and Compost. And Horses.

Oddly, although one could snap photos of horsy bits and bobs all over the museum, it was forbidden to take pictures in this special exhibit, much to my dismay. Likewise, you couldn't take pictures in the exhibit "Animal Inside Out" at London's Natural History Museum, which featured a stunning horse's head that appears woven from the slender threads of its capillaries--a blood-red mirror image of the head of Selene's horse. So I had to swipe this image from the exhibit's web page.

The most amazing horse's head, however, was one we glimpsed from the top deck of a bus as we whooshed past the Marble Arch. I would've loved to have been on foot and taken a picture of this 30-foot sculpture, which was created by sculptor Nic Fiddian and is called Marwari Horse at Water.(Image source here.)

But the best horsies of all were the ones we had a picnic with in their paddock. Well, we didn't set out to have a picnic in their paddock; we were just having a picnic, and the ponies,  Jimmy and Zog, invited themselves. As did a small flock of sheep and two dogs. The dogs begged for tidbits only with their eyes, and the sheep kept their distance, but the ponies were plenty assertive in their efforts to eat anything on the table, including hamburgers and sausages.

Trip to England, Part 6: A Charm of Finches

Finches are familiar feathered friends in Seattle, what with house finches frequenting the feeder and the American goldfinch posing as the state bird of Washington. They're part of a big family that includes about 136 species of finch, of which I managed to see, oh, a whopping four while in England. And one of them wasn't even a true finch.

What I lacked in quantity of finches, though, was made up for in quality because I met one of the finest finches going: the European goldfinch, a beautiful bird with a thrilling, trilling song that's more melodious than the squeaky whistles and sparrowlike chirps of the American goldfinch's song. When I first heard one belting out a tune from atop a TV aerial in Wells, I could understand why this pretty bird was once captured in droves for the caged-bird trade (a practice that is fortunately now banned).

The second finch I encountered was practically posing for greeting cards: He was perched on a lichen-dappled ledge on a wall in the garden of the Bishop's Palace in Wells, happily warbling away. He was quite a cheeky little fellow, too, turning around to face and study me with the same intensity I was directing toward him.

Like their American cousins, European goldfinches are nearly complete vegetarians, living on seeds and berries and displaying a strong preference for thistle seeds.

While researching this species, I found a diagram showing how this little bird was just as clever as a raven when it came to retrieving food on the end of a line. Alaskan ravens wowed people when they demonstrated that they could pull up a fishing line from a hole in the ice by tugging on the line, then stepping on the drawn-up portion to keep it in place before reaching down and pulling up more of the line until it finally landed the fish. European goldfinches in captivity demonstrated that they can use the same technique to pull up a string and retrieve a treat tied to its end.

Later, I learned that one of the many nicknames for the European goldfinch is "Draw-water." Such a puzzling name; I didn't think I'd ever figure out its origin. But then I came across a brief reference that linked it to a trick taught to captive goldfinches: drawing their own water from a cup using a thimble on a chain.

It has many other colorful  nicknames, as well. In various places it's known as a goldspink, thistle finch, King Harry, red-cap, proud tailor, fool's coat, sheriff's man, sweet William, and flame-of-the-wood.

As for the other species: a pair of greenfinches appeared conveniently close up, perching on a grill right outside the window, but inconveniently when my camera was not handy, so the only picture I got was of a distant greenfinch on a wire.

While walking to the ancient chapel of St. Peter's-on-the-Wall in Bradwell-on-Sea, along a Roman road that has been trodden by warriors and pilgrims for hundreds of years (and birders in more recent ones), I spotted a chaffinch.

This is the finch that isn't a finch--it appears it was once lumped in with the finches, much like Darwin's famous finches (which aren't finches), but is actually, per one bird book, "a link between the insectivorous songbirds and the more specialized [true] finches."

Now it has its own family, one that includes another common English bird of garden and hedgerow, the brambling.




On that same walk, in reverse, this little bird presented itself, and I can only assume it's the female of a finch (true or false) although it could be a sparrow of some sort.

Technically this kind of small, dusky bird is called an LBJ, or "little brown job," in the United States. But I was tired after the walking and exploring and beachcombing in between spotting the chaffinch and this bird, so I decided I was finished with finches (bad birder).