The Clearing Shop: September 2005

I thought about writing down a full length travel diary, but that would be tiresome for both me and you. So, here are a great many photographs with captions. Bringing Pevsner into the twenty-first century.

Bowness-on-Solway. A quiet coastal town. I had taken the bus here from Carlisle. The only people i saw here were those in the pub, the few walkers who had taken the bus with me, and a father and son batting and bowling with a plastic cricket bat and ball.

A Bowness beverage dispenser.

The church in Bowness (St. Michael's). Norman.

The pub in Bowness, the King's Arms. The King being Edward I (the 'hammer of the Scots'), whose monument is some miles east of here. At the Arms I asked for a packet of crisps, the options: 'plain' or 'cheese'. No Five Spice & Orchid flavour on offer.

No ball games (no, not even cricket!)

The tower of this church was designed to withstand a storming. The region around Carlisle was border territory till the Act of Union at the beginning of the eighteenth-century. Raiding (especially cattle-raiding 'reiving') was common.

Tractor blocks the path.

I pitch the tent inside out. Teething problems. And have to start again.

Last Night of the Proms.

The War on Waste is waged on the campsite.

Cows block the path forward.

A fisherman in the River Eden which runs through Carlisle.

Carlisle Castle.

The so-called 'licking stones' which were supposedly worn smooth after being mined by the tongues of the thirsty Jacobite prisoners holed up here after the 1745 rebellion.

Calisle Cathedral and environs.

On the road again.

Me and the neighbours.

Old Brampton Church. A real treat. Most of it was taken down to build a new church in Brampton. It is not longer in use but is looked after. Key borrowed from next door.

Long memories (from Walton).

A Walton church.

Green and pleasant gradients.

An oasis in the heat. A self-service shop selling much needed vittels.

Views of Lanercost Priory and Church. The Augustin Priory was dissolved by Henry VIII but the church, exempt from the Henrician legislation, was maintained. Much of its stone comes from the wall itself.

Dacre memorial.

John Lee, whose family has old roots in the area (for example, he has relatives buried in Old Brampton churchyard - see above) gave me an enthusiastic tour of the church, priory and church hall.

This is the present church hall. There are pigments of wall painting on the walls which go back to the 1500s. The roof timbers were cut much earlier than that. This would have been a great hall for the Dacre family after the Dissolution. Now it serves the small local congregation and is ideal for line dancing.