Weekend Wanderings

John and I had a chance to sneak away for a long weekend and explore some of this beautiful country.  We drove south from Oxford to Bournemouth, and then east along the Jurassic coast to Lyme Regis. From there we headed north to the Cheddar Gorge, then on to Stonehenge, and Salisbury.  Some of the highlights:

Cheddar Gorge famous for it's cheese, caves, and 9000-year-old Cheddar Man. This is where cheddar cheese gets its name.

Stonehenge in late afternoon

Visitors are no longer allowed to walk among the stones. 

Salisbury Cathedral -- built from 1220 to 1258 -- with the tallest spire in England

Salisbury Cathedral is where one of three remaining intact copies of the  Magna Carta is kept.  

The Salisbury Cathedral clock is a large iron-framed clock without a dial located in the aisle of Salisbury Cathedral. Supposedly dating from about 1386, it is claimed to be the oldest working clock in the world.

Some of these banners are over 800 years old

Salisbury has five rivers that run through the city.

Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name in the English county of Dorset

Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates back to the 11th century.

Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset. Lyme’s harbor wall known as "The Cobb", features in Jane Austen's novel Persuasion, and in the film and novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman, by local writer John Fowles

This is one of the beaches where Mary Anning found her Jurassic age marine fossils. We hunted for fossils too but only found some in the shops.

Standing where Meryl Streep stood 

The Cobb -- also featured in Jane Austin's book Persuasion 

Lyme Regis Beach

I read a book about Lyme Regis last year that I thoroughly enjoyed:  Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. It is the story of Mary Anning, the now renowned fossil collector, and her friendship with a lesser known collector, Elizabeth Philpot. It highlights the impossible difficulties facing a woman trying to have her work and views recognized by the scientific establishment in the early 19th century. It also highlights the added challenge of reconciling the evidence of the fossils with the Biblical account of life on earth that was interpreted so literally in the early 1800's.

I love these "fossil" lamps!