A weekend in the West Country: Salisbury and Sherbourne Castle
It’s been quite a while since I blogged about visiting places, the parasites I picked up in China put paid to any time spent away from home for a while. But this weekend has been spent enjoying the autumnal colours in various places around Salisbury, Wiltshire.
If you’re interested, being greedy I managed to pick up not just one parasite but 2 different types. Strongyloidiases and Giardises. I could put links in here but if you saw how horrible they are you might not want to shake my hand ever again. (Honestly they’re all dead and gone now).
The first one was picked up by walking through mud on the banks of the Li River wearing flip flops (so no protection from the Strongylodes getting into my blood stream via my foot) and the Giardia by washing my feet in water running off a paddy field into the river then inadvertently touching my mouth, nose or eyes. Thus causing the Exotic and Transferable Diseases Consultant much joy!! He’d not come across a patient in this country with both parasites before. He was so excited about it he called a colleague into our consultation. He was so chuffed he’d found a specimen (i.e. Me) he almost made me feel better about being a ‘specimen’ by announcing that I must have been “really poorly”. Quite frankly I feel that his comment so under represents what I’ve been through, all a can compare it to is someone saying child birth causes a little discomfort!!!
Anyway, I’m on the mend and off to Australia next week. So we thought we’d have a few days away, I’m still working a three day a week staged return to work so we went off late after work on Thursday, having said good bye to my boss and wishing him well for his retirement and then we drove down to Salisbury for three days.
We stayed at a hotel called The Old Mill. Parts of it dates back to 14th Century and the ‘extension’ is from 1600’s. Our room was in the top floor, up the three flights of very steep, rickety stairs.
This is a lovely hotel with the mill stream running through what is now the restaurant and lovely flint exterior walls, it’s only a 10 minute walk to the centre of Salisbury. The view from our room was stunning.
The Cathedral didn’t disappoint, it wasn’t the largest we’ve been too but thankfully it hasn’t been ‘updated’ too much by the Victorians. It purports to having the oldest working clock in England but photographs are prohibited throughout the Catherdral so I can’t show you. But I think the clock in Wells Cathedral is more spectacular.
A really fascinating tour, our guide was so enthusiastic. She is a published author and confesses she is obsessed with the Tudors. Margaret Scand is her name and you can find her two biographies on-line.
Salisbury town is a mixture of old and new, with the usual shops and coffee houses. We took ourselves off to the theatre in the evening to see a comedy called Frankenstein. I know, it’s not normally a comedy but this was ok.
The following day we went to Sherborne Castle, built in 1594 by Sir Walter Raleigh, he was leased the land by Queen Elizabeth I and he built a new lodge in the grounds of the old ruined castle which had been built in the 12th century. It is an unusual design of a central main hall with four keeps running off each corner.
Unfortunately poor Walter didn’t get to enjoy his new lodge for long as he was accused of treason and thrown into the tower and as it was only leased the Crown could do what it liked and in 1617 King James I sold it to Sir John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol. In the 1620s, the Digby family added four wings to the house in an architectural style similar to the original, retaining the original corner towers. You can still see where the ‘old’ and ‘new’ parts of the house end and start. Again we were not allowed to take any photos inside.
Henry, the 7th Lord, created Earl Digby, laid out the present castle gardens, including the 1753 lake designed by Capability Brown, which separates the old and new castles.
In all it was a very enjoyable weekend.
