Taunton, briefly back to Alvechurch, Avalon Marshes & Salisbury

Taunton town centre 

Taunton didn’t have much to offer it’s true, but it wasn’t a bad day out, we had a lovely Indian meal at the Mattancherry and a good walk (Relive video of route with photos: click here). Wednesday we suddenly found ourselves third in line to have Ted looked at, at Vanbitz, didn’t bode well. Phew, the other two were handovers from yesterday’s installations and Ted was soon in the workshop. It was as Brian suspected, a hungry mouse had chewed a wire, so rewire it all or just bypass the gas locker? Just bypass the gas locker and we’ll be on our way. That’ll be £72 then, they pretended they’d done it within the hour, and were actually pleasant people. We even managed to sell them the pipe holding magnet we’d bought for testing the contacts for £5, which meant the large magnet cost us something like 32p!

Two Roe deer potter past at Avalon Marshes

Whizz up the motorway, and into Redditch for my glasses. I so wanted to put them on and see clearly, but sadly not. Back in on Thursday then, re-measured, back to the first set of measurements, which I’m not particularly happy about, but she has also changed the sort of varifocal to the sort I currently have. So, fingers crossed, tomorrow will be third time lucky.... Mum and I then pottered happily about Redditch for the gifts to go into two charity shoeboxes. Our financial advisor had sent round an email saying that for every shoebox donated by clients or staff, they would match with another. Mum has been knitting hats and scarves for just such boxes so it seemed the perfect opportunity to do something good for Christmas.

Fabulous lunch at The Packhorse

We whipped the boxes over to Leamington on Friday morning before getting back into Ted and heading south again. Not far from where we came from, Mark, near Burnham on sea. Strange campsite, all seasonal caravans, except for two touring pitchers, so we did feel a bit outnumbered, not that many of them were occupied as the site actually closes after this weekend (Coombe Cider Farm location: 51°13'29.5"N 2°54'46.5"W). We had a nice enough stay, but I’m not sure why you’d want your caravan there all the time. Saturday was the milder but greyer of the two days, so we cycled, instead of walking, off to the Avalon nature reserves (see Relive video with photos: click here). We went and hid in the hides, and disturbed serious people with binoculars. The first hide was looking at lots of widgeon, lots of duck like things. They were all having a good time, making lots of silly noises, so we liked them. We were recommended the next hide for possible otter sightings, so off we went. Apparently he’d just seen one in the water when we arrived, but no more sign. Oh well, the roe deer that pottered by did their best to make up for it. We decided, at this point, if we were quick we could make it back to the Packhorse in Mark a pub with an interesting looking menu and good reviews. It was well worth the effort, my crab stuffed fish fillets on a bed of samphire with crayfish and asparagus in a cream sauce was absolutely delicious!

Burnham-on-Sea seafront

Sunday it was cold, as expected, but clear blue sky so we couldn’t stay in. We again headed off on the bikes towards some more nature reserves, until we passed a sign to Burnham on sea. I suggested a change of plan, so off we went to the seaside. Not that we saw the sea, it was out. A long way out, but the mud was very attractive....not. We chained the bikes up outside the tourist information who kindly said they’d put our helmets in the office and suggested a walk along the promenade, through the park and back via the town. Sounded like a plan (see Relive video with photos: click here).

Our campsite in Salisbury with Old Sarum beyond

Monday we finally got to Salisbury. The site is just by Old Sarum, an historic hill fort, and site of the original cathedral (campsite location: 51°05'07.7"N 1°48'05.5"W). Perfect little outing having just arrived (see Relive video with photos: click here). Tuesday, pleasant two mile walk along the river into Salisbury where it was market day. Early Thai lunch at the Giggling Squid before heading to the Cathedral where we were just in time for a free tour, though we’d had to pay to get in. Worth it though, good tour, amazing font, and interesting chat with two of the stonemasons repairing the building. At this point it was getting really cold so we headed back just in time to go back up to Old Sarum for sunset. I declined, and Brian decided tea and cake was more attractive, and we didn’t miss much! See Relive video with photos: click here

View of Salisbury from Old Sarum

Back into Salisbury today for a demonstration of the oldest working church clock in the country, dating from 1386. No face or hands, but it does ring the bells on the hour, when they let it. All levers and pulleys and very interesting. Well worth the effort, and our tickets from yesterday last a year! A walk around Salisbury to see the cathedral from afar, and interesting buildings in the city. We like Salisbury. See Relive video with photos: click here

So third time lucky on the glasses tomorrow? Keep everything crossed!

The outline of the old cathedral in the old iron age hill fort at Old Sarum. It was once part of a thriving community, but was abandoned and demolished in the 1200's once the new cathedral was started. Lack of water supply was one of the main reasons, the River Avon runs through the 'new' Salisbury 

Jackie on the edge of an excavated section of the old cathedral

This shows the inner bank and trench that protected the castle built by William the Conqueror in about 1089. The bridge is modern but was the original access to the inner castle

This was one of the noticeboards and shows an artists impression of what the inner castle may have looked like. The inset shows an impression of local land-owners paying tribute to the new Norman king, William the Conqueror, who had the castle built on the old iron age fort as his new Royal Castle

We were on our way to the Cathedral but stopped off here, at St Thomas' Church and here, above the arch, known as the Chancel Arch, is the Doom painting. It's the largest in England and was painted in about 1475. It was whitewashed over during the Reformation and remained hidden until the 19th century.

Finally we arrived at the amazing Salisbury Cathedral with a spire the highest in England and the third highest in Europe

It's beautifully constructed and was originally highly decorated, much like many Roman Catholic churches we have seen in Europe, but at the Reformation everything was whitewashed over as the power of the church diminished and it's riches were removed and sold off by Henry VIII

This is a modern addition, it's the font and has four small waterfalls at each corner. Perfectly aligned so they all fall at the same volume

And this is an original bit, it's the original clock mechanism that operated the bell that told the town folk the time of day. It is believed to be the oldest working clock in the country, having been dated to 1386, but it never had a clock. In those days people couldn't read a clock and had no use for minutes and seconds, they were only interested in the number of chimes which told them the time of day: seven bells was the time they started work, five bells the time they finished (for example). The right hand side is controlled by a horizontally moving pendulum moving back and forth that engages with a toothed wheel and rotates one full revolution per hour. A pin in the toothed wheel eventually lifts a lever once per hour, the lever  is connected to a shat at the back that has another lever on the left and releases a separate drum with a rope and weight, which starts to revolve. Pins in that wheel operate another lever which pulls on a rope leading up to the bell chime. The wheel on the extreme left has notches in it at increasing gaps that a lever engages in to stop the wheel. The different spacings allow an increased number of chimes to occur before stopping, so we get one chime through to twelve. It's simple yet very clever. It worked from 1386 until about 1880 when it was taken out of service and replaced with a Victorian mechanism. It was refurbished 40 or so years ago and brought back into service, but it isn't left running permanently now, only for demonstrations like we saw today

This is the outside of the cathedral at the base of the tower and you can see these flying buttresses. The tower and spire were built nearly 100 years after the original construction of the cathedral, but the original construction wasn't designed to support such a massive weight. When construction of the tower was under way the pillars inside started to deform, so these buttresses were added to give sufficient strength. Inside you can still see the deformed pillars, but we are told it is safe! It has been here for seven hundred years, so we suppose it's OK!

We then took a walk across fields to this Old Mill as we'd been told you get an excellent view of the cathedral across field and one John Constable painted. I decided to try to recreate his famous painting...

Here's our effort...

And here's John Constables. I guess I didn't do a very good job! Here's the credit for this photo: By John Constable - The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=149396