Life in Old England.

Were there really knights and ladies? Yes, there were. This is The Black Prince who fought for the freedom of his country and lost his life in a battle. I believe this is his real armor.
Here is another monument to a knight who fought for his land and people. It is in a cathedral.
Many people in the middle ages could not read. The churches had beautiful paintings and frescoes showing stories from the Bible. They were all painted over during the English Civil War, but some of them are carefully being restored.
Here is the center of one of the great cathedrals built very early in English history. How would you feel walking up an aisle like this? Like a little bug on the floor of a great big house?
This is a very early music manuscript. So those of you who play instruments can see how the music looked you would have been playing off way back then.
People, usually the religious people, because they learned to read and write, could write beautiful documents. These were written on the skins of animals. The writing is tiny and beautiful. We saw one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta, dating from before 1100 AD. We were not allowed to take any pictures because light destroys the copies. In it, King John (the selfish, evil prince in the Disney Robin Hood) had to give rights to the common people. It was the first time a king had to give up any rights to the people.
If you got into a fight or someone wanted to kill you, you could go to a cathedral and use this great big knocker. Then you could be safe there until your case went to court or you left the country to live someone else.
If you had lived at Old Wick Castle, this would have been the view out your windows. People had to defend themselves from Vikings, from the English soldiers, and from bands of robbers. This castle is protected on every side by deep gulleys.
The holes in the walls were where the floor boards were built into the castle. Old Wick is a tall, thin ruin on a point of land that sticks out into the North Sea.
This is the view of the other side of Old Wick Castle. When the tide is in, the castle is well protected by water and by cliffs. It would have been a safe place to live. Later the family moved into a new castle and this one was left just the way it was.
The Romans taught the British and Scots how to build beautiful arched bridges. This one still holds up a road. The towns all had walls around them and gates that closed at night. This is part of a city wall.
The very old town of Norwich was built on mounds of earth built up to protect the people. There were walls of earth and later of stone all around so that their knights and fighters could protect their families from the enemies who wanted to kill them and take away whatever they had. This was a hard time to live in.

Stonehenge is also Neolithic.

This is the Salisbury Plain in Southern England. Stonehenge is the most famous of the mounds and rocks there, but there are many others. Scientists think the mounds were built first and the stones added later, but nobody is sure. The whole plain is dotted with mounds.
I am going to take you on a walking tour around Stonehenge. I left people in some of these pictures so you can see how huge the stones actually are. The stones are some distance behind the people, so the people are actually smaller and the stones bigger.
Stonehenge was a complete circle with stones over the top, which would have made a ring. It is amazing that so many of the top stones are still up.
There are flat stones in the area, too. Some are top stones that have fallen. There was a ring of smaller stones around the outside, too. The stones are set so that the months and seasons can be read by the position of the rising sun through the archways and where the shadows fall.
See the small guide stones through the center space? There was a whole aisle of these to lead people to the circle. Now people are allowed in the circle only a couple of times a year for religious purposes. This way it keeps out people who would try to knock down the stones just for the fun of it. Those people are called vandals. No smart person wants to vandalize such an important place.
There are several different types of stone used in Stonehenge. These large stones were cut from a quarry a long way away. Scientists are still trying to figure out how the stones were moved. The ring of smaller stones came from a place much closer.
Look how carefully fitted the flat top stones are when they are in place. You could hardly put a pocket knife into the crack.
We are walking around the circle and seeing it from the opposite side of the one where we came in. Look at the background and see other stones far away.
The tall stone with the knob on the top is in front of what they think is an altar for prayers and sacrifices. They do not think these people did human sacrifices. All ancient peoples did animal sacrifices to God, much like the Hebrews did in the Old Testament.
Notice the long section of stone ring, which shows up very well from this angle.
Now I am standing on the other side behind the section of ring in the last picture.
We were here on an overcast day, so there are no long shadows. The short, squatty stone in front is one of the outer ring of marker stones. There was also a deep ditch all around Stonehenge, which shows up clearly in this picture.
There were once a pair of "leaning stones" marking the path to Stonehenge. This one is still in place. Imagine trying to put up a stone like this and keep it from falling down! It must be dug very deeply into the ground.
You can imagine how the ring looked when it was all up, thousands of years ago. These people were amazing in their science. They did not leave writings, so we do not know how they did it, but their measurements, knowledge of astronomy, of stoneworking, and of nature, remain a marvel to us all.


Stonehenge is a very busy place and popular for tourists. Look in the gap between the stones and see a far distant stone linine up with the space. Imagine the sun coming up right there and sending rays of light right between the stones. Then everyone would know, for example, that the frosts were over and that it was safe to plant crops. Stonehenge was a calendar that never had to be change, could not be lost or stolen, and would give them knowledge they needed.

Early Christianity in England

This is "The Round Church" which is like one in Jerusalem which the Crusaders saw in the 1000s. It is still standing in Cambridge, England. The minister here knows everything about religious history in England. He helped us very much to find things we wanted to see. The round church is very old, small, and interesting inside.

This Norman church was built at Stokesay right after 1060 AD. The windows are small, the church is not high like cathedrals. It is one of the best old churches we saw. Everyone wanted to be buried by the church when they died, so the grounds are full of tombstones all tilting this way and that. Remember Harry's visits to graveyards in some of the books? They might have looked like this.

In very old times, when many people could not read and write, the walls of churches were painted and frescoed (paint mixed in plaster) with many scenes from the Bible. These were all painted over during the English Civil War. Some people then did not believe you should make paintings of the Bible or Christ. This church also had the Ten Commandments on the wall. These were not painted over. Next to the Ten Commandments you can see something that was painted over but still shows through.

Benches in old churches had high ends and sides. Each family would rent their own bench, or "pew." They could have their name put on it if they wanted. The pews had beautiful wood carvings on them.

This is a beautiful, sort of spooky old church in Glen Coe. There was a horrible killing at Glen Coe and the whole place still feels gloomy and sad, but this is a beautiful stone church. Notice the bell tower up at the top with the bell hanging in it. People are still buried around this church. We saw some new tombstones and some very old ones.

Here is an organ in the Norman Church at Stokesay. It was not built in 1160, but it is still very old. I wish I could have played on it, but no one was there to give me permission. It is up in the back of the church, not in the front like in our churches. Many very old churches have the organ in a loft in the back like this one. The loft is over the front door where people come in.

In the middle ages, people who wanted to have the Priesthood had to go live in a monastery and study for many years before they could get the Priesthood. This is Fountains Abbey. It is a World Heritage site. Once it was a very great abbey with hundreds of "monks." You could join an abbey when you were a boy and would spend your whole life here. These are doors into some of the bedroom wing of the abbey.

Here we are inside the bedroom wing. It was a big dormitory where everyone had cots to sleep on. They kept their robes, their sandals, and a lantern by their beds. Seven times a day and night they would go into the church and sing the praises to God. Sometimes this would be in the dark.

This is the ground floor. It was all built with Roman arches. The arches held up the floor above it where there were study rooms and meeting rooms. Most of the monasteries were destroyed during the Civil War. But parts of this one are still standing. That is why it is such a great place to visit. You can see more of what it looked like.

This was once the beautiful cathedral of the monastery. Between the big pillars are aisles for people to walk. In the middle people sat or stood or knelt down and heard the service. The roof and windows are gone, but the arches and pillars were too tough to knock down.

Here is the bell tower of Fountains Abbey. It was against monastery rules to spend money on things like bell towers when there were poor people to feed and sick people to help. But some of the church leaders didn't believe in following rules. This tower was built on the side of the church because they could not find another place where the ground was hard enough to hold up such a heavy tower.

Look at the beautiful arch in the doorway of the bell tower. The builders always did their best work when they were building things for God. The monastery owned many farms. They raised sheep and sold the wool. They feed the hungry and poor people. When the Black Plague came, so many people died that the monastery could not do all it had done before. Nearly half the people in Europe died during the Black Plague in the 1300s. People thought God sent the plague to tell them to repent. But it was rats off ships that spread the plague around. People in those days did not know about keeping things clean or washing their hands before they ate, so they got more diseases. Doctors did not have good medicines to use on bad diseases. Today people can still get plague, but not very many die from it.

This abbey was called Fountains because there were waterfalls and lakes nearby. But workmen were fixing the lakes and waterfalls, so we could not get good pictures of them.

I am really glad that young men in our church can get the Priesthood when they are 12 and still live at home with their families. The monasteries became family for the boys who went there. Some of them were taught to read and write and went to school at the monasteries. Monasteries had great libraries and kept learning alive during the Dark Ages. England had a tradition of sending children to boarding schools, where they lived during the school year like at Hogwarts, and only went home for Christmas, Easter and summer vacation. In America families needed their children at home to help with farm work or work in their businesses, so they built schools in the neighborhoods close to home. So our school system is quite different from this one.

The Romans Were Here!

The Romans were great builders. They weren't the first builders, but they put up things that are still working. Hadrian's Wall was to keep the bad guys out. It went from one side of England to the other. Today people hike along the wall. These parts were dug out of the ground. English people took away the rocks after the Romans left and used them to build houses, barns, and other things. These stones were under the ground until they were dug out. The wall was a nice place to live and work, except when you had to fight. Romans even brought their families to live here. Some of them were Christians and built little churches.

If you came to the town of Chester's Fort from across the river, you would have seen a whole town full of buildings. The part nearest to the river is the bath house. It had cool, warm and hot sections. They heated the water under the floors. Romans liked to be clean. They also knew about water pipes, drains and sewers. Their toilets didn't flush, but they took away the gunk.

This is a hand mill to grind wheat. All the pieces were still there. There was a bottom stone, a top stone, and a handle to go around the top stone so you could grind. Everyone ground wheat to make bread, rolls, and other good things to eat.

Here is a tunnel from one room to another that is still standing.

Maybe these arches had statues in them. Maybe they were "lockers" where people could change their clothes to go into the baths. They are very pretty.

Here is where warm air passed under the floors. England is a cold country in the winter. The Romans did not freeze. They just warmed up the place.

Here is a drain hole where water could come out. All of their buildings had ways for the water not to flood them out.

The Romans built two different bridges at Chester's Fort. They have found remains from both of them. This poster tells you about the first bridge, which was small, and the second bridge, which had much bigger, longer arches.

See the round stone on the end of this long column? It was made to fit into a hole in the top bridge piece. There is a sign that shows how they used pulleys to lift the top piece and line up the hole. I know they built wooden arch supports when they built bridges. But if they had any wizards around, I'll bet they also knew an easier way of lifting a piece into place. Having a wizard around can save lots of work. But you already knew this from your Muggle Studies class.

After about 300 AD the Romans went back to Rome with their army. Some of them stayed with their families and joined the local people. If they served their 25 years with the army, they could go where they wanted. Soldiers became citizens of Rome. Citizens had lots of rights, just like citizens of the United States do today. People who were not citizens could be put in jail and not have any rights to protect them. Citizens got to speak to a judge first. Being a citizen was a very good thing to be.

You might want to check out a library book about Hadrian's Wall. This is only one of the forts. There were a lot of them.

Very Olde England

Does this look like the country of giants? Is this Hagrid's secret hangout? This World Heritage site was formed by lava from a volcano. It went into the ocean and when it cooled, it cracked into thousands of columns. You can see the end of the old volcano on the hill above here. Columns in the water turn dark. Ones above the level of high tide are lighter in color.
The tops of the columns look like this when you are standing on them. We walked all over this great pile.
The gap in the columns is made by Muggles, who wanted to build the road. But we could walk all around the Giant's Causeway because of the road the Muggles built.
Look! Water can actually flow uphill! In this smuggler's cove, nature plays a trick on your eyes. The rock tilts down. The water is flat. But it does not look like that way.
This seal near the Duncansby Stacks in far northern Scotland was enjoying the warm sun and was not bothered by tourists in the boat. This shot was taken with a telephoto lens, though.
Here we are going into some caves near the Duncansby Stacks. Our boat took us right into the caves, where thousands of birds nest. The green is mold. White is dung from birds. Red and black are the colors of the rocks.
The stone at the north tip of Scotland is Caithness Granite and is extremely hard. But the power of the North Sea is harder, and it has worn the caves, inlets, stacks and arches. This is a beautiful area to visit. Even in August it was cold, but amazingly beautiful.
Duncansby Stacks area from above. The ocean has worn these deep inlets for miles along the coast. Early settlers also built forts between the inlets to protect them from Vikings and other fierce enemies.
Ancient people honored their dead royalty by building stone cairns for their graves. These were carefully placed so they could be giant calendars. When the sun shone right down the walkway, they knew it was spring and time to plant their crops. This is one of the Clava Cairns.
Remember the adventure Frodo Baggins and his friends had when they got lost in the fog on the barrow downs? These are standing stones which I am behind. They are also part of the giant calendar and mark the position of sunrise.
This chart tells you about the Clava Cairns and what they were for.
Cairns had passageways in them so people could visit their dead and bring gifts. If you turn your head with your right ear down, you can see one of the passageways. We crawled in. It was muddy and dark but very interesting. These people could do amazing things with stones.
The Grey Cairns of Camster are in the far north of Scotland. They are very large grave mounds with many passages going into them. Look how carefully the stones are placed. These were built as long ago as the pyramids of Egypt were built.
This is the narrow end of one of the long Camster cairns. Notice how carefully the stones were laid. Do you think people did it with muscle, or might they have used wands to move such large objects? Think of your Muggle Studies class and imagine how they did it.

Early peoples built round towers so they could keep watch for their enemies and also for the weather. This is a modern tower built in the old style. A few complete towers with caps exist in Ireland, but we did not find any in Scotland.

Notice the black clouds. You never, never go anywhere in Great Britain without having a raincoat and an umbrella where they are easy to get to. In three weeks we did not have one completely sunny day. But we knew how to get dry easily (it's magic!).

The next posting will be about the Romans and the things they built.