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| Warwick: St. Mary's CatholicChurch: On his 21st birthday, JRR Tolkien wrote to Edith Bratt a declaration of his love and asked her to marry him. Edith replied saying that she had already agreed to marry another man, but that she had done so because she had believed Tolkien had forgotten her. The two met beneath a railway viaduct and renewed their love; Edith returned her engagement ring and announced that she was marrying Tolkien instead. Following their engagement Edith reluctantly announced that she was converting to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence. Her landlord, a staunch Protestant, was infuriated and evicted her as soon as she was able to find other lodgings. Edith and Ronald were married here in 1916. |
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| Warwick: Eastgate... part of what was the wall around the old city |
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| Warwick: Castle. Where would we be without castles? This one one was put up by William back in 1068 - part of the conquering thing. |
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| Stratford-upon-Avon: Bard's birthplace. This bloke tormented more high school English students down through the centuries than you can ever imagine! |
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| Stratford-upon-Avon: Will's early home |
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| .... and his backyard....
"All
the world's a stage,
And all the men
and women merely players.
They have their
exits and their entrances;
And one man in
his time plays many parts..."
"As You Like It", Act 2 scene 7
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Stratford-upon-Avon: Which one of these best fits?
"Can one desire too much of a good thing?". - (As You Like it: Act IV, Scene I).
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks". - (Hamlet: Act III, Scene II).
"A Big Mac! A Big Mac! My kingdom for a burger!". - (Richard:3 Act V, Scene IV).
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| Stratford-upon-Avon: Ye olde Lollie Shoppe |
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| Bath:
Aquae Sulis ("the
waters of Sulis") was a Roman temple and bathing complex.
The first shrine
at the site of the hot springs was built by Celts, and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans later identified with one of their Goddesses Minerva.
At the very heart of the site is
the Sacred Spring. Hot water at a temperature of 46°C rises here at
the rate of 1,170,000 litres every day and has been doing
this for thousands of years.
This natural phenomenon was was believed to be the work of the gods. In Roman times a great
Temple was built next to the Spring dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva, a
deity with healing powers.
The temple was constructed in 60-70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years. The mineral rich water from the Sacred Spring
supplied a magnificent bath-house which attracted visitors from across the
Roman Empire.
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| Bath: The Temple was dedicated to Minerva - the Roman goddess of wisdom and sponsor of arts, trade, and defence. Here she was known as 'Sulis- Minerva' - a conflation with the former Celtic goddess of the hot springs. |
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| Bath: This Gorgon was above the temple entrance. The Gorgons were mythical monstrous creatures covered with impenetrable scales, with hair of living snakes, hands made of brass, sharp fangs and a beard. They lived in the ultimate west, near the ocean, and guarded the entrance to the underworld.
A stone head or picture of a Gorgon was often placed or drawn on temples and graves to avert the dark forces of evil, but also on the shields of soldiers.
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| Bath: A model of what the huge site might have looked like. I found it interesting to think that a natural phenomenon; a hot spring bubbling mysteriously in a shimmer of hot mist would have been taken as a supernatural bridge to the world of the gods - A crack in the natural order through which the power and presence of the gods distilled on earth. And so from Celts to Romans a vast and impressive spiritual and therapeutic and social complex evolved that drew visitors from across the empire. And many hundreds of years later pilgrims still hedge their bets! |
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| ... Except now pilgrimage has become tourism and it's the proprietors not the priests who turn a profit! |
