Procrastination and kites

I have two exams left, but after finishing my essays, I decided that I was due for a bit of procrastination and needed to re-emerge from my room/the library. So, I headed over the hill to Stanmer Park for the kite festival. It was very cold and windy which I guess isn't too bad of weather for a kite festival. There were lots of pretty kites but I didn't actually buy or fly any. Instead a few of us sat and watched the choreographed kite flying for over an hour before we gave into the cold and headed back to campus.


Sunday, I went to a strange play/opera, El Gallo by the Mexican theater group Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes, that was part of the Brighton Festival. It was somewhat absurdist and all sung in a made-up language but quite enjoyable. It was also pretty entertaining to hear the reactions of the mainly white-haired British audience. On my way back to the bus stop, I ran into a crowd of people surrounding guys dressed up in period clothes serving mini gin and tonics. It was some kind of advertising/publicity for a gin company I think. They had a train car filled with odd curiosities that you could go into though. Just another strange and interesting evening in Brighton.

Why no blogs lately?

Papers. Papers and exams are why. I thought I'd just share some of the experience.

the sticky notes on the poster are my to do lists

This is back when I had only checked out 25ish books. At the peak I had 33 threatening to collapse on top of me as I slept.

Winchester: things Austen and Arthur

I'm crazy (I certainly don't have to write two 3,500 word essays and have massive amounts of studying to do for exams or anything) I decided to go to Winchester on Monday since I don't have Monday classes. See the lengths I'll go to to use up my remaining britrail pass days before June? Actually, I had been thinking about going to Winchester and figured it was an excellent way to procrastinate and completely blow off work. Who are we kidding, us visiting students aren't actually here to study anyway. :) So, at 8:20 on a Monday I was off to Winchester, the most complex and longest train trip I have taken by myself yet (because other people actually do have classes Monday, who'd thunk it). What attracted me to Winchester in the first place were two things: Jane Austen and the Rounds table. So, first thing in Winchester, I headed to the Cathedral to visit Jane Austen. Well, her bones anyway. Austen wrote most f her work at Chawton and lived there for the final years of her life (1809-1817). When she her illness confined her to her bed in May 1817, she and her sister Cassandra moved to Winchester and rented just the first floor of a house it town. They moved in order to be close to a doctor in the area so that Jane could take the cure everyday. The doctor apparently wasn't that great though because not long after in July, Jane Austen died. It is still not clear what she died from but it may have been Addison's disease or tuberculosis. Through some clerical connections, Austen was subsequently buried in Winchester Cathedral. Her marker in the cathedral floor notably makes no mention of her as a novelist. Nearby however are a plaque and a stained glass window which commemorate her.

Jane Austen window

plaque

actual marker

Winchester Cathedral itself is lovely. The Norman Cathedral was begun in 1079 to replace the nearby original Cathedral, Old Minster (founded 648). The shrine of Saint Swithun and a number of mortuary chests were moved from Old Minster to Winchester Cathedral. St. Swithun (800-862) was a bishop of Winchester and now is the patron saint of the Cathedral. My favorite fact about him courtesy of the BBC website is that there is a legend that if it rains on Saint Swithin's feast day, the rain will continue for 40 more days (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/saints/swithin.shtml). The Saint's shrine includes what the Winchester Cathedral brochure refers to as a "Holy Hole" which pilgrims used to crawl through to be close to the bones of Saint Swithun. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be done today and it was blocked off. So, I did not get to huddle as close to St. Swithun as possible. The mortuary chests moved from Old Mister contain:

Cynegils, King of Wessex (611-643)
Cenwalh, King of Wessex (643-672)
Egbert of Wessex, King of Wessex (802-839)
Ethelwulf, King of Wessex (839-856)
Eadred, King of England (946-955)
Eadwig, King of England and later Wessex (955-959)
Cnut, King of England (1016–1035) and also of Denmark and Norway
Emma of Normandy, Wife of Cnut and also Ethelred II of England
William II 'Rufus', King of England (1087–1100)

big historical events at the Cathedral include
Coronation of Henry the Young King and his queen, Marguerite (1172)
Second coronation of Richard I of England (1194) --don't ask me why this is the second
Marriage of King Henry IV of England and Joanna of Navarre (1403) --remember them from Canterbury?
Marriage of Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain (1554)
The quire in the Cathedral is also pretty awesome. Its one of the oldest medieval quires in England to survive substantially unaltered and the carvings are wonderful. Also I sat in it, but more about that later.

mortuary chests



Holy Hole

Medieval tiles

cool stained glass rebuilt in 1660 after the English Civil War, made up of broken bits of medieval glass

After the cathedral and a nice cream tea at the Cathedral Cafe, I headed off to the Great Hall. The great hall is all that's left of Winchester Castle besides some ruined foundation-y bits. This isn't that surprising given that Winchester Castle is really quite old. William the Conqueror began to build it in 1067 just 6 months after the Battle of Hastings. That's right, it goes right back to the first Normans. The great hall of course is newer, built by Henry III between 1222 and 1235. at the time it was one of the largest and finest Halls in England and was much more open and bright than the previous style. The Great Hall has mainly served as a legal and administrative center and so had been host to all kinds of administrative center-y historical doing including the trail of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603. I learned at the Tower that Raleigh was arrested and imprisoned several times. In the 1603 incident he was tried for treason for for his alleged involvement in the Main Plot against King James I. This resulted in him being held in the tower until 1616. The Great Hall is also cool because of the Round table. The Table his been dated to the 13th or early 14th century which in case this is unclear is not at all Arthurian times. It is 18 feet in diameter (why does the English brochure list this in feet?) and was originally a standing table with 12 legs and a center support. It was first hung on the wall around 1348 which makes no sense to me because it was not painted until 1516 n Henry VIII's time. Indeed the picture of King Arthur on the table is said to look suspiciously like the young Henry VIII.

Great Hall

heraldic windows put in in the 19th century

the tree thing on the wall has the names of the parliamentary representatives of Hampshire from the earliest times. Added in the 19th century

Round Table

Great Hall garden

descending to bits of old ruined Castle. OMG!

medieval west gate

After the Great Hall, I caught an afternoon walking tour of Winchester. We went by some old mills and the river (the river Itchen), old bits of Roman wall, less old bits of 13th century wall, and Winchester College (founded in 1382 by the ten bishop of Winchester and today on par with schools like Eton). We also went by Wolvesey Castle, which is now ruined but was erected by the Bishop, Henry of Blois (younger brother of King Stephen) around 1130. Bits from the Castle were used to build the newer bishop's palace next door in 1684, most of which has been subsequently knocked down due to poor foundations.

Guildhall

Wolvesey

Then we went by Jane Austen's house. For a couple months. Just the first floor. Its a private residence now so there's not much to see but I feel sorry for the owners who must have people look in or knock o the door pretty frequently. I was with tour group so no, I did not try to creepily peek in the windows. But i might have otherwise. The tour was great and it was good to get some information about the history of the town. which of course is very very old since Winchester was the capital Wessex (basically Saxon England) and Norman England too for a bit.

In front of Jane Austen's house

Winchester Pilgrim's school headmaster's house on the Cathedral grounds. It's great because the left has three floor, the center two and the right has four.

The tour went by the two places that were left on my list to see, so at first I was at a loss for what to do with the couple hours or so that I had left in Winchester. However one of the women on the tour mentioned that there was an evensong service at the Catherdral that evening. So, I had a bite to eat and poked around a couple little churches nearby. One was on top of oe of the old city gates which I just thoguht was cool and one, St. Lawrence, either was or is on the sit of the chapel of William the Conquerors Royal palcae.

St. Lawrence

These people were playing bluegrass. I heard them singing something about the bayou.
King Alfred the Great

After this, I headed to evensong at Winchester cathedral. Just the 12 men of the choir were singing but it was amazing. There was hardly anyone there, maybe 10 to 14 people and we sat in the completely awesome old quire. and listened to the choir. It was so worth just barely missing the 6:25 train and having to wait for the 7:18 one. it was just super cool. But after evensong it was time to head bac back to Brighton and my gaint pile of work. And thanks to certin perosn, whose name starts with J and ends with -an, I had a silly Winchester Catherdral song stuck in my head for half of the good 2.5 hour trip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2AwpuBF89E&feature=related

A Canterbury (and Leeds) tale

Thankfully, this Saturday our weekend trip departed somewhat later than last week so I only had to roll out of bed at around 7:30, which is still rather difficult on a Saturday morning. My flatmates all question my sanity for voluntarily no, even paying to wake up early on the weekends, but this trip was pretty nice. Fist we went to Canterbury Cathedral, which I had already been to with the parental unit, so I'm sure you're probably all heard all about it. When my parents and I visited Canterbury, the place was being overtaken by school groups of french teenagers who would all troop through the place without audio-guides or seemingly any information about the place at all. This weekend, I became one of those french teens, except not french or actually a teen. Two coachloads of us were dropped at Canterbury Cathedral without an prior info on Canterbury cathedral and no guides. Here are the basics on the Cathedral. Canterbury Cathedral's history goes back to 597 AD but the current building dates from 1070. . Of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England. The current Archbishop is 104th in the line of succession from the original founder, Augustine. Canterbury Cathedral is big in part because its the site of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, that's why all of Chaucer's pilgrims were heading here anyway. But, while looking around the cathedral, I was astonished to find that Kelly hadn't even heard of Thomas Becket. So just in case it isn't as common knowledge as in thought, here's the story. Back in 1162, Henry II made is friend and Chancellor, Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury thinking that Becket would remain loyal to him and Henry would essentially be able to control the church. This didn't pan out. The formerly worldly Becket became a super religious ascetic. Henry II and Becket had a number of political clashes over stuff like the jurisdiction of secular courts over English clergymen. In 1170, when Henry II had some other bishops crown his son, Henry the Young King, Becket upset because crowning was the privileged of the bishop of Canterbury. So what's an angry Archbishop to do? Becket started excommunicating the other bishops. Henry II finally was fed up and said something like "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" (there are lots of versions of what was actually said). Some knights interpreted this as a command and though 'oh, oh me!' and then proceeded to break into the cathedral and kill Becket during Vespers. So, Becket became a martyr and was eventually canonized while Henry II had do to penance. Canterbury became a big spot for pilgrimage because of Thomas Becket. But the Becket shrine is no longer in Canterbury. Instead you can see several places that the shrine used to be. This is all thanks to yet another King Henry. In 1538 while Henry VIII was getting rid of all the monasteries following the establishment of the Church of England (including the monastery at Canterbury), he also destroyed the shrine and Becket's body, going so far as to order that all mention of his name be obliterated (remember those very rare Becket Windows in Oxford?) because he just couldn't let someone who famously defied a fellow King Henry be a popular saint. Anyway, a candle in Canterbury now marks the place whee the shrine once was.

entrance to the Cathedral grounds

on the floor where Becket was killed

Where the shrine used to be


King Henry IV and Queen Joan of Navarre

Hanging out with the Black Prince (Edward, eldest son of Edward II, d.1376). We hit it off right away.

looking out of the Chapter-house into the Cloister
Chapter house

After the Cathedral, we just had time to grab lunch and walk around the town a little before the next stage of our trip. It was about an hour drive to Leeds castle and as we walked up the long driveway from the parking lot to the entrance of the grounds it was misting on us. As we went through the ticket booth it started to rain full out on us. Luckily, the path to the castle was lined with trees and by the time we reached the end of the covered area, it had stopped raining. Just in time! Leeds Castle is beautiful and surrounded by huge grounds and gardens. This is the first Castle/estate that I've been too outside of a city and man can I safely say now that I wanna live somewhere like this.
The grounds around the castle were lovely. There were roses and other flowers everywhere. Our student-guide-person recommend we go tot he maze first so we wouldn't end up stuck there right before the coach was leaving. It wasn't a particularly big or difficult maze but it was fun. Lady Bailie loved birds, so not only is the entire castle filled with prints of birds, there is an aviary on the grounds. Swans, ducks, geese and peacocks also wander around the grounds. The peacocks seems to particularly like to hang out around the restaurants and snack stands.

Arg! I'm lost in the maze!

But most of all the Castle, which stands on an island is just really rally pretty. The castle dates back to 1119, though a manor has stood on the site from the 9th century. The castle has been the dower of several queens beginning with Eleanor of Castile, the wife of King Edward I, around 1278. The Castle was also home to Queens Isabella, Philippa of Hainhault (wife of Edward III), Joan of Navarre, Catherine de Valois and Catherine of Aragon. In addition, Queen Elizabeth I was imprisoned here for a while before her coronation. The last private owner of the Castle, Lady Baillie, bought in in 1926 and most of the castle is decorated as it was in her day. The whole place looked rather 1940's-ish and made me feel like I could be in an Agatha Christie novel. It was so pretty and after the brief of rain turned it turned out be a fairly nice day so I was reluctant to leave. Although I'd already been to Canterbury it was nice to look around the town some and Leeds castle was great! So, I guess the only question left is how do I buy my own castle?

The square bit on the right is the oldest section of the Castle which existed in Queen Eleanor of Castile's day
Someone was having their wedding at the Castle. When we toured the building the dinning room was all set up for the reception.

old shoes in the Castle

Hanging out in a ruined bit of castle