Liberal Arts Blog — UK (Part Twelve) Somerset (Southwest) — Roman Baths, King Arthur, Glastonbury Abbey, Jane Austen, John Cleese
Liberal Arts Blog — Sunday is the Joy of Humor, Food, Travel, Practical Life Tips, and Miscellaneous Day
Today’s Topic: UK (Part Twelve) Somerset (southwest) — Roman Baths, King Arthur, Glastonbury Abbey, Jane Austen, John Cleese
Taunton, Massachusetts, a working class town in Bristol County, once known as “Silver City” was founded by immigrants from Taunton, England — the capital (“county town”) of Somerset whose more famous town is Bath, the site of Roman baths and the setting for two Jane Austen novels — “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion.” Austen lived in Bath from 1801 to 1806 and visited frequently. She is quite the local hero and an annual festival celebrates her. The social scene in Bath inspired her sarcasm.
Are you from Somerset? Have you been to Bath? studied there? Worked there? What do you know about Somerset and Bath that the rest of us might well not, but would delight to learn?
Did you know that legend has it that King Arthur and Queen Guinevere are buried in Glastonbury Abbey? that during World War II, Somerset was a base for some of the D-Day landings? and that John Cleese, the co-founder of Monty Python was born in Somerset?
Today a few more notes — geographic, historical, cultural.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
GEOGRAPHY: Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the southeast and Devon to the southwest
1. “The centre of Somerset is dominated by the Levels, a coastal plain and wetland.”
2. “The north-east contains part of the Cotswolds uplands and all of the Mendip Hills.”
3. “ The west contains the Quantock Hills and part of the Blackdown Hills, and most of Exmoor, a national park.”
NB: The Avon River flows through Bath and then Bristol. Other rivers include the Axe, the Brue, and Parrett, which drain the Levels.”
THE ROYAL CRESCENT AND THE ANNUAL JANE AUSTEN FESTIVAL INCLUDING THE REGENCY PARADE
1. The Royal Crescent was built between 1767 and 1774 and originally consisted of 30 townhouses.”
2. “An example of “rus in urbe” (the country in the city) with its views over the parkland opposite.”
3. The Annual Jane Austen Festival will take place this year between September 12th through 25th and is “the largest and longest running Jane Austen Festival in the world.”
NB: “The festival begins with our Regency Costumed Promenade, which has been filling the streets of Bath with over 1000 people in Regency dress since 2004 and holds the Guinness World Record for “Largest gathering of people dressed in Regency costumes.” Full of bonnets, soldiers, and drummers the backdrop of Georgian Bath transports visitors back to the time of Jane Austen.”
ROMAN BATHS “THERMAE” CONSTRUCTED FOR PUBLIC BATHING BETWEEN 60 AND 78 AD -
1. The settlement was dedicated to the Goddess Minerva and called “Aquae Sulis.”
2. The structure above the columns is a reconstruction.
3. 1.3 million tourists a year.
NB: Below is the Pulteney Bridge over the Riven Avon in Bath — built in Palladian by Scottish architect Robert Adam (1728–1792)
GLASTONBURY ABBEY — The tombs of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were allegedly discovered there in 1191 — do you believe in ghosts?
1. “Christian legends have claimed that the abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea in the 1st century.”
2. “ The abbey was founded in the 8th century and enlarged in the 10th. It was destroyed by a major fire in 1184, but subsequently rebuilt and by the 14th century was one of the richest and most powerful monasteries in England.”
3. “The abbey was suppressed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII of England.”
NB: “The last abbot, Richard Whiting (Whyting), was hanged, drawn, and quartered as a traitor on Glastonbury Tor in 1539.” In general, a tor is a rocky outcrop, in this case a rounded hill. See below. Think Calvary, but more bucolic.
To be continued.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Baths_(Bath)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Abbey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Somerset
Jane Austen’s Bath & Austen 250
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Anything miscellaneous to share? Best trip you ever took in your life? Practical life tips? Random facts? Jokes?
Or, what is the best cartoon you have seen lately? or in the last 10 years? or the last 50?
Or what is your favorite holiday food? Main course? Dessert?
Fondest food memories? Favorite foods to eat or prepare?
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your mind a memory that might otherwise disappear. Or to think more deeply about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
