Tuesday
We had our first field trip out of
the city; we made our own pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. It is the seat of the Church of
England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is in charge of the whole Church,
second only to the Queen. It is
still a working church, but membership is extremely small, although it does
apparently pack out on Christmas and Easter. The Cathedral is the famous one
that Chaucer writes about in his Canterbury
Tales that millions made trips to in order to see the shrine to Thomas a
Becket, who was murdered at the Cathedral by henchman of the king. The king was frustrated with Thomas
because he would not support capital punishment. Immediately, Thomas was revered as a martyr, and his shrine
was believed to have healing capabilities. T. S. Eliot wrote a famous play about the event called Murder in the Cathedral.
The Cathedral was exactly what I
imagined: It was beautiful and overwhelmingly grand. Inside I felt like a tiny ant milling about under the huge
arches. We saw where Thomas was
murdered, but King Henry VII destroyed his shrine during the Protestant
Reformation. The Protestants also
destroyed most of the medieval stained glass and the statues of the saints,
which was too bad. The few that
were left are gorgeous. The
Protestants did not destroy the statue of the patron saint of travelers, since
they were traveling around “de-idolizing” the churches. I found that to be a bit of an ironic
detail.
After seeing the Cathedral, we
wandered into the town for lunch.
I was a bit disappointed by the town; it was completely
commercialized. I was expecting
just the Cathedral and a few houses with thatched roofs. Instead, it was extremely
touristy. Still, the Cathedral was
beautiful and well-worth seeing.
Then we ventured to Dover. Our first stop was Dover Castle, which
is located on the beautiful White Dover Cliffs. The Medieval Castle had some furniture in it to give a feel
for how the Castle used to look.
We also went into the Medieval-era underground tunnels that British
soldiers later used to hide out from Napoleon. The highlight was sitting on the cliffs facing the
Channel. This entire trip we have
been blessed with beautiful weather, and Tuesday was no exception. Standing at the top of the Castle, with
my hair blowing in the sea breeze, I could almost imagine knights coming
through the gate.
Afterwards, we made a quick trip
down to the rocky beach to see the famous beach that Matthew Arnold immortalized
in his poem “Dover Beach”. Dr.
Ryken read aloud the poem as we settled into the pebbles. It was amazing to sit there and see
what Arnold saw as he wrote the poem.
Here is the first stanza:
“The sea is calm tonight
The tide is full, the moon lies
fair
Upon the straits; on the French
coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of
England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the
tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the
night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the
moon-blanched land,
Listen! You hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw
back, and fling,
At their return, up the high
strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again
begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.”
On the way home, we saw from the
coach “The Shakespeare Cliff” where King Lear was to have stood as he
contemplated jumping. Overall, Dover was beautiful. It was a quaint seaside town and was untouched by
commercialism.
Once we returned to London, we made
one last pilgrimage for the day. A
few of us on the trip are fans of the British television show Sherlock. We went to where they film the street front on Gower Street
(they don’t use Baker Street because of the Sherlock Museum.) In addition, we saw the famous Speedy’s
restaurant where Sherlock and Watson often sit and eat and muse about their current
case. We were hoping to order a “Sherlock
Wrap”, but unfortunately Speedy’s only serves lunch. Hopefully, we will make it over to Speedy’s again!
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