Motoring to Reading

One of things I had really wanted to do on this trip was to visit the place I was born. I hadn't been back there since I was five. I only had sketchy recollections to rely on and now that both of my parents are dead, no one to ask.

Fortunately a lot of the driving route was on motorways so we made better speed. Reading, as you CBC radio listeners will know, is the distance reference point from which CBC says things in England are measured e.g. Watford is (_) miles from Reading. It is the first stop outside of metropolitan London. I have no idea how this tradition got started. Unfortunately for drivers new to the city it is very difficult to find your way around. There are many one way streets and on a Saturday afternoon it is very busy with shoppers. We did eventually find the hotel and later the parking lot where we could just leave the car and see the town on foot.



Town Hall - many buildings in this area use brick.

By happy coincidence again Laurie had booked a room in the Ibis hotel which was just down the street from the place I lived. The Ibis is ultra modern, pod-like rooms with two surfboard shaped planks fitted together like Lego with a boogey-board shaped top. The bathroom was a cylinder-shaped pod in the corner. It was quite a jarring contrast to the fussy Victorian style of the last hotel.

St. Laurence church

We went for a walk - just down the street was the Town Hall and St. Laurence church where I was christened and whose church bells I remember hearing on Sunday mornings from a very early age. We happened into a business where they were very helpful with solving the address numbering problem. (There isn't any logic to it.) The older chap there remembered a tailoring shop across the road. That location was similar to my recollection of a door that opened from the street to a steep set of stairs to the third floor where we lived.




Building with yellow doors was my dad's business

Forbury Gardens with ruins of Abbey behind

Canal boats

Porlock Weir

It was a long drive from the north coast of Cornwall - lots of it on narrow roads with roundabouts every four kilometres or so. Part of the way we drove through Exmoor National Park. I was hoping to get a glimpse of the famous Exmoor ponies that live wild here but they proved to be as illusive as the moose at home.

Porlock Weir Hotel and boats aground

Finally we arrived on the north coast of Somerset. This is directly across from the south coast of Wales. The weather has been alternately rainy, cold, cloudy, windy and sunny. Porlock Weir is a little fishing village at the end of the road.

 We had booked a room in a quirky old hotel not knowing that this was the weekend of the fundraising event for the Lifeboat Society. We did our bit to support the cause. T
here were 20 different craft beers a day plus 12 different ciders from which to choose. There was live music all day too.

We took a walk along the footpath that lead along the beach and by the marsh. Trees have died over the years due to the encroachment of the salt water.

St. Ives

We had the day here in St. Ives, free of driving but with a goal of locating my grandparents' graves. The Barnoon cemetery in St. Ives is huge and set on a hill overlooking Porthmeor beach. The headstones and grave markers are often elaborate and date back to the 18th century. I was pretty sure my grandfather was buried in this cemetery in 1957 but I had no idea about the location of my grandmother who died in 1985.

We did a look-through based on approximate age of surrounding markers but this could get tricky because a gravestone may have been originally erected for one person, then other relatives get tacked on afterwards. The later dates are often more obvious. On advise from locals that graves in the 1980s would be in Carbis Bay, we walked a couple of miles there. It is the next community along. We tried to be systematic in our search but unfortunately only military cemeteries seem to be laid out in an orderly fashion. After much marching about using the same general plan of looking for similar dates, we gave up.



Beach encampment for young family





Tate Gallery St. Ives

Riding on my father's shoulders here at Xmas
 I got drenched by a big wave





Sloop Inn, circa 1312

 
 


Porthminster Beach

We had the traditional Cornish lunch, a pasty and beer then we came back to the room for a rest. While Laurie noodled around on the internet I made another stab at searching for the graves.




After lunch we walked over to the Porthminster Beach where my grandmother had run the Porthvail Hotel for 40 years

Porthvail Hotel is now remodeled flats

 

Quite by happy coincidence Laurie booked our accommodation close to the cemetery. I spent another hour of marching around on uneven ground. I was calling it a day and walking back on the freshly cut path and there it was! I returned to the room for Laurie and the grave cleaning kit.

Robert Ashton b.15/11/1884  d.23/10/1957
Isobel Ashton b.27/04/1898  d. 23/01/1985

Driving the Breadth of England

We were driving today from Salisbury to St. Ives. It doesn't look that far on a map but it took all day. We couldn't do much of the route on the motorway so we were poking along on "A" roads and even "B" roads. It is very harrowing on these narrow roads, particularly with the constant roundabouts. The Sat-Nav (GPS) generally works well. It announces the roundabout and which turn off to take. It gives the names of the roads involved but in reality there are no signs for the road names. You have to align your lane position heading into the roundabout with the order of your exit. For example: left lane for the first or second turnoff, middle lane for the 3rd exit, right lane for the 4th exit. Or there may not be more than one lane and then it is bit of a free-for-all. This driving and decision making has to be done superfast and constantly. Sometimes the roundabouts come directly after one another as on the road to Exeter. We got stuck there in roundabout hell for a while.


To get a bit of a break I suggested we take a diversion to see the ruins of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table castle in Tintagel. Taking a break like this is a double edged sword (so to speak). It's nice to stop driving and walk around for a bit but the tiny roads make accessing the place a challenge.

Remaining stone wall of a room

By about 6:30 pm we made it to St. Ives. We even found parking on the side of the road near our lodgings which was a blessing because the roads are extremely narrow, congested and hilly and parking is almost non-existent.

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Old Stones

Winchester Cathedral

 

We are off to see Stonehenge today as we had only ever seen it from the highway. Winchester is on the route from Sussex to Salisbury so we decided to stop have a coffee and a tour. Winchester was the capital of England before London so it speaks to the importance of this part of the country. The cathedral here is very reminiscent of Westminster Abbey in London.






Jane Austen is buried here. She died at 43.

Statue in the Crypt. It floods regularly.

 When churches were built in this time they would have been a riot of colour. These are original tiles on the floor but the ceiling has been painted in the original manner.

 It was rainy and cold for our visit to Stonehenge.  There were also many tourists. People can't get close to the stones since the 70s but they are still impressive from a distance. A very enthusiastic ticket seller told us about the Overseas Visitor Pass from English Heritage. For a flat fee it gets you into zillions of sites for a period of time. We bought a 16 day one because we got to deduct the cost of our visit to Stonehenge.

Storrington, Fulking and Edburton

St. Andrews, Edburton

We started the day with a trip to Storrington to see if I was still able access funds that I have the HSBC bank there - success. We took a walk around the village and bought supplies for grave cleaning. Next we were off to St. Andrews in Edburton where Mom and Dad are buried.

Inside St. Andrews

The stone was not in as bad condition as the last time I cleaned it in 2008. At that time it must have been untouched for 22 years.

After our workbee we retired to the Shepard and Dog pub for a lager and snack.It is even more popular now than when my parents lived in Fulking, in the early '80s. It has become a destination pub, particularly for Sunday lunch.After we were revived we went for a                                                             ramble on the Downs.

Spring by pub where sheep were washed

Looking at Fulking from the Downs

Primrose Cottage where parents first lived on returning to England 

Septima Cottage parents' 2nd house

St. Nicholas, Bramber

                                                                         

Church wall & castle ruin

We ended the afternoon with a short walk up to Bramber Castle ruins, close to where we are staying.The Normans invaded England from France in 1066 a.d.  They set up defenses immediately and this area along with five others along this south coast were given to Norman noblemen.   William de Broase was charged to defend the river system and coast here. By 1073 a.d.he had a castle with a moat and a church - St. Nicholas. The church is the only surviving building. This little isle has had a string of unwanted immigrants but earlier the people didn't have a referendum at their disposal. Brexit is all over the news here.