Sunday, April 16, 2006

A peek in Bath

...it is set in a sheltered valley, surrounded by seven wooded hills and nourished by Britain's only natural hot springs, a natural haven!

Just a very brief walk around this city and din really explore much..will come back with more photos when i revisit this place next time. Quite like the streets cos there are many unique shops that attracted me - thus explain why I fail to wonder into those 'tourist sites'. A buzzling city pack full with people...
Which way?

Outside Roman Bath I think...

Balloons...lots & lots. Then the image of her floating away strike me,
guess too much of cartoon watching.





The Pulteney Bridge over River Avon with shop houses...if i'm not wrong there is only 3 in this world...one in Venice, one in Florence & one here...



The streets.
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Saturday, April 15, 2006

Lacock - the national trust village


Welcome to Lacock village! This village dates back to the 13th century and has many limewashed half-timbered and stone houses, was used as a location in the TV and film productions of Pride and Prejudice, Moll Flanders and Emma. The Abbey also featured in 2 of the recent Harry Potter films.

Pluck this from the web...

A little about Lacock: During the Middle Ages Lacock became a prosperous and thriving town through its wool industry. The village was well placed for communications, sited as it was on the 'cloth road' from London and the River Avon, which gave access to the sea at Avonmouth near Bristol. You can find no television aerials or other blatant signs of the modern world. I find myself being transported back several centuries in time as I walk through this relaxed village. ''The cottages are built of wonderful honey-toned Cotswold stone, and the whole village exudes an aura of charm and relaxed timelessness.'' Not everyone can live here...










House No.6 is Spiderman. Now you must be wondering whats all those figures appearing outside shops and houses for... there is a competition going on. Its the annual Scarecrow Trail, nearly 50 homemade scarecrows all on the theme of heroes and villains are waiting to be found. Spot & identify...


I found this - Wallace & Grommit. Nick Park from Aardman Studios in BRISTOL developed this film that won the Oscar Academy award. The council is thinking of making a statue of Wallace & Grommit to commemorate this...
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Thatched Cottages

 

Like the sight of the cottage above? Doesn't it looked like those we saw in the cartoons? Its called Thatched Cottages. I came across many while on my way to Lacock...
Thatched cottages and farm buildings were the norm in rural Britain for a millennium or more. Why the attraction to thatch? First of all, the building practices of bygone Britain ran to lightweight, irregular materials, such as wattle and daub walls, and cruck beams. These walls were simply not made to take much weight, and thatch was by far the lightest weight material available. The most commonly used in South England is wheat straw.
First the thatch is tied in bundles, then laid in an underlayer on the roof beams and pegged in place with rods made of hazel or withy.
Then an upper layer is laid over the first, and a final reinforcing layer added along the ridgeline. It is at the ridgeline that the individual thatcher leaves his personal "signature", a decorative feature of some kind that marks the job as his alone.
Sadly, due to better transportation, thatching is in a decline. Its not an easy job! But thatched cottages can fetch a price in the market.

Also came across white horses on the hills. What are they? As I've mention in the Stonehenge post underneath the land is chalk...rip off the turf and you can see white chalk. I'm not sure where is the location of the one I saw though but Wiltshire is without doubt the county of counties when it comes to white horses, with no less than nine laying within its boundaries, although only seven of these are now visible. The vast expanse of chalk downs, with their smooth, steep sides provide a number of ideal sites to exercise the art of turf cutting.
Don't really know whats the real story about how they emerge but one story I heard is...One day, a farmer fell for a horse design from an artist so he decided to cut it out on the hill. He paid £25 for someone to do it but eventually the person ran away with the money...£25 is alot in those days...then he got his mates to cut it for him which took quite a long time though...and ta-daa....Believe??

If you happen to come to this country, you'll realise there are many River Avon and they can mean different rivers. It is said that long time ago, when the Romans sat foot in England, being very methodological, they like to record down what they have seen. It just so happen that when they see river, they'll ask the villagers whats the name of it..and they'll reply 'Afon'. Thus, this is being recorded. Over the yrs, afon afon turn into Avon. But Afon actually means River in welsh..so river avon actually mean river river...haha.

Then I notice 'Enford' sign along the road and was told it meant duck crossing river.

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Stonehenge – The myths & legends.

Stonehenge is about 2 miles west of the town of Amesbury in Wiltshire and only 90 miles west of London. Salisbury Plain was a forest of towering pines and hazel woodland. Over centuries, the landscape changed to open chalked downland.

Stonehenge was built in 3 phases. First stage was a circle of timbers surrounded by a ditch and bank. The ditch would have been dug by hand using animal bones, deer antlers which were used as pick-axes to loosen the underlying chalk and then the shoulder blades of oxen or cattle were used as shovels to clear away the stones. Excavations of the ditch have recovered antlers that were left behind deliberately and it was by testing their age through radio carbon dating we now know that the first henge was built over 50 centuries ago, that is about 3,100 BC. Thats where the mystery begins. First stage built about 5,050 yrs ago, wooden post circle surrounded by a deep ditch and bank. Then about 4,500yrs ago – 2,500 BC and about 2,400 years before the Romans set foot in Britain, it was rebuilt. This time in stone, bluestones were used which are the smaller stones that you see in the picture. These came from the Prescelli Mountains in Pembroke, South Wales 245 miles (380km), dragged down to the sea, floated on huge rafts, brought up the Rive Avon, finally overland to where they are today. It was an amazing feat when you consider that each stone weighs about 5tons. It required unbelievable dedications from ancient man to bring these stones all the way from South Wales.

Before the second phase of Stonehenge was completed, work stopped and there was a period of abandonment. Then began a new bigger, even better Stonehenge, the one that we know today – this was approximately 4,300 yrs ago, about 2,300BC, the third and final stage of what we see now.

The bluestones were dug up and rearranged and this time even bigger stones were brought in from the Marlborough Downs, 20 miles (32km). These giant sandstones or Sarsen stones, as they are now called were hammered to size using balls of stone known as ‘mauls’. Each pair of stones was heaved upright and linked on the top by the lintels. To get the lintels to stay in place, the first wood working techniques were used. They made joints in stone, linking the lintels to stay in place, the first wood working techniques were used. They made joints in stone, linking the lintels in a circular manner using a tongue and groove joint, and subsequently the upright and lintel with a ball and socket joint or mortice and tenon. This was all cleverly designed on the alignment of the rising of the mid summer sun.

How did they get these stones to stand upright? The truth is nobody really  knows. It required sheer muscle power and hundreds of men to move one of these megaliths, the heaviest of them weighing probably about 45 tons, 7m high. Hundreds and thousands of people flock to this place to marvel this ‘amazing’ feat of engineering. I was a little disappointed when I arrived, perhaps I’ve painted myself a far better picture than what it is.

Stonehedge Stonehedge

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