Glastonbury - A "Tor" Guide...

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you!

Sorry it's been so long. I had been planning to write another entry about the town of Glastonbury describing some of the characters we observed. Indeed, I have written it. Several times - that's what too k the time. It's just that every time I read it back it comes over as either patronising or snarky or both. Since I don't want to be either of those things it would appear that the second instalment of our excursion down Glastonbury High Street will have to be postponed indefinately.

A little bit of Hobbiton.

Instead, let me take you on a walk up Glastonbury Tor, that iconic hill that rises from the flat plain around the town and dominates the skyline for miles around.

The Tor is, without question, beautiful. Green and lush, with an enigmatic tower at its peak. You can, should you be feeling energetic, walk up from the town - there are signs and everything. Alternatively you can do what I did and catch the "Tor Bus", operated by Mendip Community Transport from its stop in the Abbey car-park. This little bus will take you most of the way up the hill, dropping you at the closest point the road gets to the summit for the modest sum of three quid - or a quid fifty if you're under sixteen or seven fifty if you're a family of two adults and two children. It saves a lot of time and even more effort. And I'm lazy.

Don't be fooled though. Even if you cheat and catch the bus you still have a steep climb ahead of you. regrettably if you have mobility problems or use a wheelchair this climb is probably not for you. Everybody else? Make sure you're wearing decent shoes and get yourself up there - trust me, the climb is worth it. Steep, yes. Utterly knackering, yes. But worth it.

This was quite late in the day -  just look how busy it is!

As you can see from the picture above, the side of the hill is terraced - a remnant of early farming - and the path to the summit winds its merry way along those terraces, Impatient walkers might be tempted to take a more direct route, but you really shouldn't. For a start - and I don't care how fit you think you are - the path is leg crampingly, energy sappingly steep. Eschewing the path and taking the direct route would be harder still. Seriously, you're on holiday.

Besides, the National Trust, who look after the site, implore you not to do so. Climbing the Tor is a hugely popular endeavour - it's something that the vast majority of tourists want to do. The damage that a few hundred thousand visiting feet could do in terms of erosion doesn't bear thinking about - and it should be remembered that this iconic little hill is more than just a tourist attraction. It is also an ancient site that probably still has a lot of archaeology to turn up. Having seen many ancient sites half destroyed by the gentle footsteps of over keen tourists, I was pleased to see most people did indeed stick to the path.

A tower of tourists on a Tor.

The pinnacle of the Tor is dominated by the restored fifteenth century grey stone ediface of St. Michael's Tower - the surviving remnant of the hill's long service as a site of Christian worship, a heritage which reaches back as far as medieval times.

The first church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275 - which I guess can only be regarded as unfortunate - and it's replacement, of which the tower was a part, survived until the dissolution of the monastaries.

As ruined church towers go (there's no roof, doors or window panes) it's actually pretty unremarkable, although as a result of the significance of the location it does merit a Grade 1 listing - and there's no question that it adds a certain character tow what would otherwise be a small isolated hilltop with nothing to recommend it but the view. (About which, more later...)

The history of human occupation of this hill goes back much further though. The terracing may well be neolithic - neolithic stone tools have certainly been found there, and there is evidence that there was a late Roman fort in the fifth century.

It's plainer from the other side...

Everything else is pretty much speculation. There's no evidence that I'm aware of for any kind of pre-Christian ritual use, but as the only high point for literally miles around it makes sense to me that ancient peoples would have used it for something.

Perhaps it was agricultural - the terracing is certainly suggestive of that, just as it is reminiscent of the terracing of the hill forts that dot the South West. The hill would certainly have been a strong defensive position in the past, back when this region of he Somerset Levels - known as the "Somerset Meadows" - was significantly wetter and the Tor was more of an island than a hill.

Who knows? Perhaps they just went up to look at the view. Because the view is spectacular! This is, frankly somewhat unsurprising. We're from Yorkshire, a country with more than a few hills, so from our point of view the Tor isn't especially high.

It is however the only naturally sticky up thing in what is basically a pancake flat landscape. There is nothing at all to get in the way. The result is this:

The landscape just sort of rolls away forever...

Doesn't matter which direction...

It's just endless.

And it's beautiful.

Of course, from a "Tourist Attraction" perspective, it's a good job that the view is so spectacular because there's not a lot else to do once you've struggled up to the summit. Did I mention it was steep?

It's really steep.

I sat for some time drinking in the view, and then began to "people watch" a little bit. It seems to me that there were three categories of people on the summit of the Tor that day. The first, and by far the largest was the "general tourist". People like me who were in the area on holiday and had climbed the Tor primarily because they were interested in seeing the view and because it's one of the things you do when you're in Glastonbury. This group covered all ages, from little kids to senior citizens. We were mostly a relaxed crowd, some in shorts and sandals, some in wind proof jackets and walking boots. All reaching the top with comments along the lines of "Blimey, that was steep", "What a view!", and of course "I'm knackered!".

Then there were the quiet, contemplative types. Mostly in their twenties, mostly wearing nepalese shirts and baggy cotton trousers. All keeping themselves to themselves and either gazing out at the view or just sort of meditating. I remember in particular one guy sitting in a green sleeping bag in the shelter of one of the tower's buttresses. His hand rested on a gallon bottle of scrumpy, a (thankfully unplayed) digeridoo propped up beside him, calm grey eyes taking in everything around him. These were people who had made the ascent in search of something. Perhaps spiritual enlightenment, perhaps themselves. Who knows? Whatever it was, I hope they found it.

The final, and thankfully smallest, group was made up of people who would like to think of themselves as belonging to the quiet, contemplative types. Again, mostly twenty somethings they differed from the contemplatives in several ways. Most noticeably they were anything but quiet. At some point they'd read a book, or at least the blurb on the back of a book, with the word "spiritual" in the title and celtic knotwork on the cover, and they wanted everyone to know about it. They were embodied by a girl dressed in beige cotton trousers, strappy leather sandals and a cream granddad shirt that looked to be made of rough silk.

She ran a perfectly manicured hand through her long auburn hair, the many bangles adorning her wrist jangling like the shop bell at Harrods. "You see, the thing is," she fixed her slightly embarrassed friend with a serious stare, "I don't feel I really have to go to India now, because, it's like, in me." She gave those auburn curls a well practised toss. "I mean, I've just, like, absorbed so much spiritually," she paused and gazed sightlessly towards the horizon, an expression of studied serenity on her exquisitely made up visage, "I just feel I need to stay, y'know rooted".

The man in the green sleeping bag took a long,l slow swig of scrumpy and rolled his eyes before leaning back against the stonework of the tower and directing his thoughts to less irritating things.

I wandered out of earshot, gazed back out at the view and was rewarded with a flypast.

This was one of three Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters that spent rather a long time dancing around the hill. I presume that they were on a training sortie from the Royal Naval Airstation at Yeovilton about thirteen miles to the south. As I may have mentioned before I'm something of an aircraft enthusiast and random encounters with aircraft like this are one of the real joys of travelling for me.

This was a genuinely exciting encounter for me. At the time I was standing at the top of the Tor in the summer of 2015 the Wildcat had only just entered front line service with the Navy. Designed to operate from frigates and destroyers the Wildcat is a multi-role aircraft designed for troop transport, casualty evacuation, anti ship operations, anti submarine operations and frankly, whatever else needs to be done. Watching them was rather fun - and just for the record, we'll be visiting Yeovilton in a future post.

For me though, time was up.

The shadows were beginning to lengthen and I needed to get back to the 'van.

So, that's it from the Snail for 2015.

I hope you've had a good year, and that wherever your travels take you in 2016, the road is smooth and unfettered by jams.

It would be wrong of me to sign off, however, without mentioning the flooding in the North of England and in Scotland. Floods have hit many of the places we have visited with the Road Snail. Killin and Stonehaven in Scotland, and of course huge swathes of Cumbria - as well as Yorkshire, where the Snail is based.

If you're going away in a caravan or motorhome in 2016, go and visit some of these places. They're open for business, and frankly it's your business they need. The places that have been most seriously hit are largely tourist economies. Go and support them. We'll see you there.

Shakespeare in the Dog House!

Sorry. I just can't resist a punning title. In fact, this has little to do with Shakespeare, and nothing  to do with dog houses - real or metaphorical.

In fact, what I want to talk about this time is the visit we made to St. Dogmael's Abbey during our recent foray into South Wales. Sorry it's taken so long to post - six weeks or so since the last instalment - but for some reason I found this difficult to write. It was such an unusual place I found it hard to commit the experience to words with any kind of accuracy. I'm still not sure I've done it justice, but there's a limit to how long you can spend on something, even in the persuit of perfection!

The wonderful hidden gem of a place sits about a mile to the west of Cardigan, on the opposite side of the river Teifi (it's a Welsh name, and so is pronounced Tey-vi). It's one of those places, not hard to find, but easy enough to miss if you don't know it's there. Don't make that mistake. If your travels take you to the Cardigan area this is one little gem you absolutely don't want to miss!

The Abbey whose ruins can be seen today has Norman foundations, but just how long the site had been a place of Christian Worship at that point is unclear. Certainly there is a charter from the twelfth century which refers to "the ancient church of St Dogfael", suggesting that it had been used by Christians for some considerable time before the conquest.

St Dogmael - or "Dogfael", medievel spelling seems to have been more or less optional - himself is believed to have been doing his thing in the sixth century. That of course puts him in that portion of history after the departure of the Romans from these shores that some are pleased to call the "dark ages". Modern archaeologists and historians will tell you that the dark ages were in fact anything but dark, the problem is the scarcity of any kind of documentation from the period. We know very little for certain about what went on in the  sixth century, and St Dogmael is no exception.

The guide book* tells us that the saint was the son of a man called "Ithel ap Ceredig ap Cunedda Weledig". Apparently this would mean he was descended from the founder of the royal family of Gwynned. It is also claimed that he was the cousin of St. David - which in Wales is a pretty good claim to fame! Anyway - suffice to say there's deep history there, but as I said, the ruins you can see today are Norman in origin, and a fine set of ruins they are.

Not perhaps as big and imposing as the famed ruins at Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, but still an interesting example of a smaller monastic house.

Looking through this window you can see the churchyard of the adjacent parish church - which of course means that a part of the site at least is still in use for its original purpose after at least 1,400 years. That's rather impressive when you think about it...

Enough of the walls and foundations are visible for you to get a sense of what the abbey would have been like in its heyday, before Henry VIII's break from Rome and subsequent dissolution of the monastaries pretty much brought an end to the monastic way of life not just here, but more or less everywhere else on this sceptered isle.

Since then the Abbey buildings have served the local community in the way ruins and disused buildings have always done - as an aesthetic feature and a handy quarry. I'd be highly surprised if several of the local houses didn't contain stone originally cut and dressed for the abbey. It's fitting really. Monastic houses were supposed to serve the community** so it seems reasonable that the place continued to do so long after the monks were gone.

These days the ruins are a picturesque place to visit, but also a pleasant backdrop. The day we were there was intended to be the opening night of an outdoor production of Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest. 

This is why there were folding seats under a blue tarpaulin and a bunch of pretend masts and sails about the place when we were there.

Of course, we were there during the diluvian summer of 2015, so the little tents housing the production's technical equipment were filled with people looking at weather reports and trying to decide whether they'd need to cancel the performance. So far as recall the skies remained clear, so I presume the performances went ahead, although I haven't been able to find a single review online, so I can't be sure...

There is more to this little gem than just the Abbey, however. Pulling in to the little car park our attention was first taken by the old mill pond which sits adjacent. It's not very big, surrounded by large trees which offered some dappled shade against the surprisingly strong sun - this being one of the few days on our Welsh trip we'd actually seen the thing. It was very pretty indeed, and offered a home to some of the most remarkable ducks we've ever seen.

I'm no poultry expert, and have no idea what breed they might have been, but they were much bigger than your average millpond mallard, and the same sort of iridescent rainbow of "black" plumage one might normally associate with a starling's wing.

They were quite the attraction, with many other visitors pausing to watch them waddle lazily about before settling down on the sparse grass verge between the road and the water.

We watched them for a while, before making our way into The Coach House Visitor Centre. In many ways this is a hidden gem attached to the hidden gem. You can actually get to the Abbey without going through The Coach House, but I can't imagine why you would.

Partly housed in (astonishingly enough) an old coach house, and partially in a modern extension, the Coach House Visitor Centre is part cafe, part information centre, part art gallery, part museum, part craft shop, you might expect the whole to become a disorganised mishmash. But far from it.

The cafe section occupies the new extension, with the art gracing the walls. A neat little information section takes up a corner at one end of the extension, with a museum featuring ancient stones from the Abbey in the ground floor of the old coach house.

Given that we left the Abbey ruins at around lunch o'clock, we decided to try the cafe out for size. It's fully licensed, and although I was driving Mrs Snail very much enjoyed a bottle of the locally brewed lager. Indeed, she enjoyed it so much that I bought a few bottles of the various local brews to take away - because I hate being left out!

The food was simple - it's a cafe, not a restaurant, after all - but well presented. We both opted for cheese and ham panninis, which were served with a salad garnish and were pretty good. The service was swift and pleasant and the atmosphere was laid back and convivial. We very much enjoyed the place and should we ever be in the area again (and given that it's not that far from Grandma Snail's*** house, we will be) we'll certainly be popping in for coffee and a bite to eat.

It's a fascinating little corner of Cardigan, and I'd argue strongly that no visit to South Wales would be complete without dropping in.



*A very reasonably priced publication I should say - for a mere £2.95 it gives detailed information about the Abbey and it's history, as well as the Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber we explored in the last post and Cilgerran Castle, about which more next week. Back over the border English Heritage would have made three separate guidebooks and charged four quid for each of them! Just another brilliant thing about Wales...

** They often didn't - quite the opposite in fact, but that was the original intention...

***Yes, I know I said I wouldn't call her that, but right now I'm in Yorkshire and she's in Wales. Besides, she is a Grandma, so I figure I'll risk it...

Ironing a few things out.

Here at Snail Towers we love a bit of history - and we particularly love the older stuff - the Mesolithic through to the Iron Age. One of the first things we did on arriving in South Wales was head off to discover what the area had to offer. There was a pretty obvious first port of call - the famed Pentre Ifan burial chamber which sits atop a hill in the heart of the Pembrokeshire National Park. Of course, we did have to find it first - and that was not an entirely stright forward proposition.  

You see, our Neolithic ancestors were pretty sophisticated whne it came to balancing rocks on top of each other - as anyone who has ever seen Stone Henge will happily attest. They were, however, less than thoughtful in their choice of location for their stone circles and burial chambers. For every Stonehenge and Silbury Hill (handily located by the side of the A303 and A4 respectively) there's a Twelve Apostles, a hefty walk from the road across Ilkley Moor, or Pentre Ifan - which is, I grant you, only a very short walk from the road, but finding the right bit of the road or even finding right road, well. That was more difficult...

I'm sure there is a perfectly straightforward route from the main road, through the series of single track lanes that take you up to the top of the hill to the monument. It's probably beautifully signposted.

All I'm saying is that we didn't find it - and I have to say we weren't the only ones. Having failed to find a brown sign pointing us off the main road, we struck off in what we hoped was the right direction armed with a map and Mrs Snail's famed sense of direction. On reflection, the map was a mistake. Mrs Snail's sense of direction is legendary - which is a good job, because I could get lost in my own living room. She can direct us to a place we've never been before without ever looking at a map - honestly, it's practically a super-power.

On reflection therefore, letting her have the map might have been a mistake. Mrs Snail is not good with maps.

I have to say, the fashion in Wales  - which is also big in the West Country - for having twisty turny single track roads with mahoosive hedges towering up on either side preventing you from getting your bearings doesn't help much. Frankly it's a pain in the arse, and it makes it really really hard to get your bearings.

As a result we found ourselves driving along seemingly endless corridors of green leaved walls with almost no reference points.

Eventually we came to a "T" junction. There were no signs to tell us which way to go but Mrs Snail had put down the map and was reasonably sure that we needed to go left. Just as we were about to another car approached from the right and screeched to a halt in the middle of the road. They paused for a moment looking at their map, and when we pulled out to the left, they followed us.

Eventually, after a couple of miles we finally hit on the smallest brown tourist sign we have ever seen which pointed us to the monument. Picking our way down the single track road, cautiously overtaking the horses from the stealth riding school that almost literally appeared from nowhere* until we reached a bit of road where an assortment of cars and camper vans had pulled into the narrow strip of verge that serves as the Pentre Ifan parking area.

Our ancestors just loved stacking rocks on rocks...

At first glance, Pentre Ifan looks like a strange sort of burial chamber. Mostly because it's clearly not a chamber at all, but a large slab of rock supported on three rough stone uprights, with a couple more slabs of rock sort of loitering around.

The truth is that Pentre Ifan is a mere skeleton of its former self. Back in the day there would have been more massive stones involved in this structure, and the whole thing would have been turfed over, making the structure effectively subterrainian. Over the years the turfs have eroded away and stones have been taken by local people with enough sense to realise that nicking stones that somebody has thoughtfully stacked up near where you want them is a damn sight easier than digging a quarry.

What you see is what remains, and it's still pretty spectacular. From the site there is a beautiful view down to the coast, which may have been a factor - the chamber's builders may have wanted their dead to have a decent view. Mind you, if that's the case they fluffed it slightly because the door of the chamber would have been facing inland, not out to the sea...

After spending some time exploring the site (this doesn't take long - everything there is to see is in these pictures), soak in the atmosphere (not quite as ethereal as Stonehenge, but you do get a sense of history and age) and admire the view we headed back down the hill to the coast road.

Not far from Pentre Ifan along that road is the Iron Age Hill Fort known as Castell Henllys. It's not the biggest Iron Age Hill Fort you'll ever see - you'd lose it at one end of Dorset's Maiden Castle, for example, but size isn't everything, and Castell Henllys is probably the most interesting hill fort in the British Isles.

You see they've been excavating this site since the early eighties, and at some point early in the history of that excavation somebody had a stroke of genius. (Bear with me, there's a longish explanation coming up - if you want to skip past it, just scroll down to the paragraph that starts with "Oi!").

The thing about archaeology is that it's pretty much a destructive process. You find your site, you dig it up and expose stuff which was previously buried. This is good, because it means we learn about the past, but it is also bad, because being buried is what protected the site from the elements. Now, if you have a big stone building you can leave it exposed and maintain it. If you're only left with fancy mosaic floors and whatnot you can either re-bury them or put a roof over the top.

But if you're digging the Iron Age, what you basically find is evidence of things that aren't there any more and so cannot be preserved. Iron age villages were made of wood. So what you find is evidence of where the wooden posts that supported the round houses were, the "drip circles" caused by rain dripping off the roof, evidence of burning where the hearth was and, depending on the geology of the site, possibly the ditch dug beneath the floor so that it didn't get damp (in the way there's usually a gap beneath the foolrboards of a modern house.

Once you've dug those out all you're left with is the site map you made to record where things were. Because you have to backfill the holes, or people fall down them and sue your university. Besides, if you leave a bunch of holes in a field they'll eventually end up collapsing and filling in by themselves, and what use is a bunch of holes anyway?

And that's where the stroke of genius comes in. Oh, hang on, well get the skippers back first, shall we?

Oi! If you skipped the expanitary bit you can come back now! "Hang on," said somebody, "let's re-create the place as it would have been, to better understand Iron Age life and put theories about how our Iron Age ancestors did things to the test!"

I may not be quoting directly, but you get the general idea...

And that, basically is what they did.  Beginning with the rather unromantically named "Roundhouse One" in 1982, archaeologists have painstakingly reconstructed three roundhouses, including the blacksmith's forge, and a raised grain store. Unlike other "Iron Age Villages" dotted around Britain, Castell Henllys's houses are built exactly on the sites of the originals. Rather than backfilling post holes with soil, they back filled them with, well, posts. These are buildings that have, genuinely been rebuilt.

The roped off areas of posts are where other houses would have stood.

We arrived in the visitor centre car park in the mid afternoon of a bleak, rain sodden August day. This should come as no surprise, the summer of 2015 was, after all, relentlessly wet.

Shrouded in Gore-Tex we squelched our way across muddy car park - Mrs Snail wisely chose to don her wellies, I stuck with my sandals on the grounds that they'd dry quick and my feet couldn't get any wetter - and into the attactive wooden building that houses the cafe, museum, gift shop and ticket office.

As you might expect on a day like this, the place was crowded with people who were less than keen to venture out in the rain. For this reason, I could forgive the lady behind the ticket counter for being a little flustered. However, I always find it very difficult to forgive customer facing staff in any business - but especially one that exists to serve tourists - where staff are straighforwardly rude and/or inattentive. This staff member was both.

There was no queue when we arrived at the desk, but we still stood, unacknowledged for several minutes while the woman faffed about writing something in a book. It might well have been important, and honestly I wouldn't have minded waiting if she'd just given us a brief smile and a "Be with you in a tick." but now. She just ignored us with the self satisfied air of somebody who is secure in the knowledge that whatever they're doing is far more important than you are. When she eventually deigned to recognise our presence she sold us our tickets** as though she were doing us a favour with an expression that made it abundently clear that we were lower than something she might have stepped in in a cow field.

I confess, I was tempted to explain, loudly and at length, exactly how unsatisfactory her level of service was, but then thought, "we're on holiday - I'm not wasting time on negativity". So I took the proffered tickets and we ventured out into the rain and began to climb the hill that put the hill in "hill fort".

If you're not good with walking, or very, very unfit, there's no disguising the fact that it's a bit of a trek to the top. There are, I am told, numerous woodland walks and trails. However, as the rain continued to plummet from a sky as grey as Gandalf's hat we paid them no mind and chose to head directly up the wide path which spirals around the hill to the little settlement.

As we approached the entrance we were struck by the earthwork defences that surrounded the fort. I confess that me and Mrs Snail are not the fittest specimens of humanity, but we were more than a little out of breath merely from a leisurely stroll up the hill. If we'd had to do it at a run, carrying an iron sword, and then had to negotiate the eathern ramparts while people behind a wooden stockade were firing arrows and chucking rocks at us?

Not an enticing prospect.

Fortunately, these days the locals are friendly***.

The Chief's House.

We made our way through the gates to the settlement  - past the rather imposing wicker man guarding the right hand side of the entrance and made our way to the closest Round House (don't call them huts), ducking in through the surprisingly low entrance of the "Chief's House". It was truly a revelation, and it made me glad for the deluvian weather.

You see, had we visited on a warm, sunny day, we would probably have had a look around the thatched round house with its low walls of mud, straw, horse hair and dung and thought something along the lines of "well, it seems comfy enough but I wouldn't want to be here when the weather was manky". Visiting on a day of such damp and chilly weather we got a real sense of how effective the round house design actually was - they might look primitive, but they're not.

That squat little doorway was like a portal between the world of cold and wet and the world of the warm and dry. In my ignorance I had always assumed that your average round house was a damp little place. The Chief's house was anything but. Although the walls themselves were low, the conical roof gave the space a real sense of height and space.

Following the standard round house format the centre of the space held the hearth - literally the heart of the house - providing heating, cooking and a little light, although not much, because embers, not flames were the order of the day. Around the fire four low benches carved from whole logs were arranged to allow people to sit around the glowing coals. The woodsmoke from the fire scented the air and rose up into the thatch. Roundhouses have no chimney, the smoke simply rises up throug hthe pourous thatching of the roof, helping to keep the thick layer of straw vermin free.

At the back (if a round building can be said to have a "back" - it was opposite the doorway. You know what I mean) there were a few private "rooms" separated from the main space by textile hangings and animal hides which would have served as sleeping quarters for the Chief and his family. To the left hand side of the doorway was a low table affair, at which crouched a woman in iron-age dress teaching three small tourist children how to make bread iron-age style.

"Now," she said, as she handed them wooden bowls of dough, "you've seen how I kneeded it. The bad news is you have to do that two thousand times..." She went to tend the fire, blowing the embers up into a low flame, while the children kneeded, counting "1,2,3,80,200,500,1500,2000 - 'scuse me, I've finished!"

With a wry grin which most definately said "Kids today, what can you do eh?" the iron age lady collected up the barely kneeded dough and took it to the fire, placing it on a hot slab of rock to cook. Mrs Snail and I ventured off to the next hut, smaller than the Chief's hut, but build to essentially the same design. This time there was a full ring of log seating around the hearth and these were full of people listening to stories around the fire.

The final of the three roundhouses was smaller still. In this one the hearth was slightly off centre, and there was no log benching or curtained off private space, just a low plank bed. By the fire sat a man in iron-age dress who ushered us in and bid us sit at the back of the roundhouse.

Proudly he showed us a pair of smith's tongs that had been made in that very smithy - for this roundhouse was endeed built on the site of the settlement's original smithy and forge. They had been made, he explained, by a graduate student from the University of Aberystwyth who had spent some months working at the forge working out some of the secrets of iron-age metal working.The student had also begun work on a sword, which I held in my hand. It was horribly unbalanced, and cracked down the middle but it may have been representetive of the kind of weapon your average iron-age foot soldier might have wielded.

Back in the Chief's house there was a much finer sword which I was also privillaged to hold (in that I regard holding it as a privillage - they'll let anyone have a go with it). This was shiney and balanced and pretty damn sharp. When you consider that most people in the iron-age didn't know the secret of working metal, those men that did, who could turn black, soft raw iron into hard, deadly, shiney blades must have seemed like wizards. Given the variable quality of swords you can see why the good ones, the ones that caught the sunlight, didn't bend and kept an edge, must have seemed magical. The origins of stories about legendary weapons like Excalibur are all too easy to see.

By now the weather was closing in, and closing time was approaching. Iron-age residents of the settlement were beginning to pack things away, squelching across the muddy grass in animal hide sandals which somehow seemed far more efficient on the slippery surface than my own twentyfirst century "all-terrain" pair. Had the weather been less driech we might perhaps have explored the woodland walks and herb gardens.

But we didn't. Because we were wet enough already.

Time then to head back to modern Wales, which I'll tell you about next time.


*Seriously, nothing for ages, and then suddenly horses all over the place...

** Summer prices:
Adult £5.00
Child £3.50
Concession £4.25
Family £13.50
Young Archaeologist Club members go free when accompanied by a paying adult.

***If you discount the unrepresentetive misery on the ticket desk - and who knows, when you visit she might be in a better mood - or even on her day off!

From Elphin to Lochinver.

So here we were, ensconced in the heart of Assynt, the region of Scotland that first kindled our devotion to the highlands, and the place that made us buy a caravan in the first place. 

We first came to Assynt nearly twenty years ago. Mrs Snail's parents invited us to join them on a self catering holiday in the fishing town of Lochinver, a few miles north of our current pitch at Elphin. We were students at the time and the chance of a free holiday was impossible to refuse. Once there, I don't believe we ever truly left.

We returned to the self catering chalets at Lochinver many times in the following years, sometimes alone, sometimes with Mrs Snail's Mum and Dad. But the price inevitably rose year on year until we were paying in excess of six hundred quid a week to stay in a little chalet with a view of the harbour. And a jacuzzi. If I'm honest, however much I love life on the road with the caravan,  do miss that Jacuzzi. Mind you, the way caravan equipment is going at the moment, I'm guessing it's only a matter of time...

But the fact was that at those prices a trip to this wonderful part of the world was too expensive to be anything other than a treat we allowed ourselves only occasionally. What can I say? We're greedy. We were determined to find a way to come here more often, and Mrs Snail suggested that a caravan was the obvious solution. I confess I took some convincing, but it all turned out extraordinarily well in the end. Since picking up the Road Snail we've been to all sorts of places we wouldn't otherwise have got to, but most of all, we've been to Assynt a lot more frequently than would otherwise have been possible.

Elphin sits a few miles inland, opposite the twin hills of Cul Mor and Cul Baeg. (Respectively "Big Back" and "Little Back" in Gaelic.) Many years ago, as a much younger and fitter man I accompanied my father in law on an ascent of both of these hills in one day. He was older then than I am now, and I have to say that now I'd probably just do the one... It's a good walk though, and not particularly difficult - and the view from the top is fantastic, assuming the clouds are higher than the peak and you actually get one. This, I'm afraid, can not be guaranteed.

Head north from here and in a couple of miles you arrive at the Ledmore Junction - something of an important landmark hereabouts, although if you didn't know that you'd be hard pressed to tell. The "T" junction marks the point where the mostly North/South A835 ends and you join the mostly East/West A837. That's all there is really, a T junction and a sign - not so much as a house. I'm not even sure that Ledmore actually qualifies as a place at all...

Still, if you're minded to turn right here and head to the west you'll follow a winding single track road that will eventually take you to the central town of Lairg. We, however were turning left and taking the rather more substantial road West towards the coast and the little fishing community of Lochinver. 

As you approach the Ledmore junction you are afforded impressive views of the long craggy ridge of Suilven - my very favourite hill - and the taller and rather pleasingly mountain shaped Canisp, both rising up on your left. Right in front of you, however looms the impressive bulk of Ben More Assynt (not to be confused with Ben Mor Coigach, the other "big hill" in these parts) which is the region's only Monroe, or Scottish Mountain over three thousand feet. 

The A837 sweeps you onwards, eventually bringing you to the shores of Loch Assynt, and the little village of Inchnadamph. As we passed through we noticed a couple of RAF Regiment soldiers ambling their way along the road, and wondered what they were doing there - the RAF is often to be seen in the skies over Assynt, but you seldom see them on the ground. We assumed that they must be involved in some sort of training exercise and pressed on. Bear them in mind though - we'll be coming back to them in a future post...

Ichnadamph is also the site of the memorial to the geologists Peach and Horne, who we well also be coming back to in a future post. On that morning however we kept rolling on towards Lochinver and soon were passing the ruins first of Calder House and almost immediately afterwards of Ardvrek Castle. These two buildings span a great deal of the history of this area, and both ruins are interesting in their way.

Perhaps forever fated to be the bridesmaid rather than the bride in this pairing is the grey boxy structure which is all that remains of Calder House. However historically and politically significant it might be, Calder House looks like the derelict shell of an old house, while Ardvreck looks like a ruined castle, and castles are always interesting.

Unsurprisingly the Castle came first. Built on a promentary that is very nearly an island in Loch Assynt in the later part of the fifteenth century by Angus Mor III* of the Clan MacLeod, the castle is joined to the mainland by a narrow strip of beach. This former MacLeod stronghold began life as a simple rectangular block, perhaps three or four floors high - presumably reminiscent of the Pele Towers that can be found all over the border between England and Scotland.

It remained a fairly simple affair for about a hundred years until in the latter part of the sixteenth century when Donald Ban IX made some improvements. It was Ban who added the tower, and following the fashion of the time he also vaulted the cellars and the ceiling of the great hall on the first floor.

Very little remains visible of the other building that stood around the castle itself, or of the ramparts that augmented the building's natural defences. The stronghold needed good defences, because Ardvreck experienced a lot of violence throughout its active life.

It withstood many attacks and sieges over the years, as various branches of the Clan MacLeod fought for dominance and other enemies, from outside the family tried to muscle in on MacLeod territory. It was one such attack, by the MacKenzies of Wester Ross in sixteen seventy two that finally breached the fortress and, after a two week siege, ended MacLeod rule in Assynt.

The castle continued under MacKenzie ownership for some time, and it was nature who had the final word. The great devastation that brought the place to ruin was the result not of attack by men, but a lightning strike in seventeen ninety five.

By that time, however, the main focus of the MacKenzie Lairds of Assynt had moved to Calder House, the construction of which had been ordered in Seventeen Twenty Six by Kenneth MacKenzie II. By all accounts his wife Francis found Ardverck a little too lacking on modern comforts, and Calda was an attempt to make her feel more at home.

There's an argument for suggesting that he might have been showing off a little mind you. When it was constructed Calder House was the pinnacle of gracious living. Apparently it was the first symmetrical manor house in North West Scotland and the design would be influential in the plans for later MacKenzie houses in Wester Ross.

The MacKenzie dominance of Assynt was to be short lived, however. Kenneth built up massive debts supporting the Royalist cause, and his wife was not exactly a paragon of frugal living. By seventeen thirty seven it was all over. Not just the house, but the whole of Assynt was sold to the Duke of Sutherland - the region still resides within the county of Sutherland today - and the brief MacKenzie dominance of the area came to an end.

With that end came the end of Calder House. The Duke of Sutherland had no need for a manor house in Assynt, he had a whole castle of his own on the east coast. Indeed, he (or at least his successor) still does. Besides, even if he'd wanted to he wouldn't have got the chance. Determined that no Sutherland should ever reside there, MacKenzie supporters looted and burned the building on 12th May seventeen thirty seven.

The ruin you see today was finally produced when, demonstrating an attitude to recycling that does them credit, at the end of the eighteenth century a bunch of guys from Inchnadamph at the head of the loch earned themselves one shilling and sixpence each for taking stones from the house and taking them to Inchnadamph for use in the construction of the schoolhouse. That was good money in those days and certainly easier than quarrying stone from the ground.

Ardverck is an old friend. We've been visiting this wonderful little ruin for the better part of twenty years, and I have to say, it's looking pretty good. When we first visited back in the nineties we had to park at the side of the road and both Ardverck Castle and Calder House were covered in warning signs that suggested anyone venturing too close  was taking their lives in their hands. Since then extensive work by Historic Assynt has secured the structures and provided ample car parking and informative sign boards.

Very informative for tourists, if only because they help explain why you see so many geology students on the side of the road. Geology is important in this neck of the woods, for reasons we'll get to in a future post - the same one where we'll talk about Peach and Horne, in fact. For now all I'll say is "drive carefully around here" - geology students turn up on the road as unexpectedly as the Red Deer that roam around here, and hitting students is every bit as damaging and inconvenient as hitting deer...

Indeed, as we moved on from the castle I was forced to break sharply as a young lady in a mud spattered waterproof and a short black skirt - going bravely bared legged in the midge filled air - stepped backwards into the road without looking, presumably to get a different perspective on the rock face she was staring intently at. My speed on the break was rewarded by a broad grin and a cheerful wave. Ah, the immortality of youth...

Just beyond the ruins you have an opportunity to turn right, and head north along the A894 towards the north coast - and we'll be doing precisely that in a few posts time. But we kept cruising westward along the shoreline of Loch Assynt, the western half of which is dotted with small islets sporting clumps of spindly pine trees. It occurs to me that in all the years we've been coming here we have never once stopped to photograph the Assynt Pines, as we have come to call them, which is odd because they're a sight we have come to think of as iconic.

The loch dominates the left hand side of the road. Before the junction with the A849 the view to the right is the massive bulk of Ben More Assynt and his associated peaks. Once past the A849 Ben More is replaced by the smaller but no less impressive form of the mountain Quinag (which so far as I can tell is pronounced Cun-i-Ag). Both of these mountains are actually more like mini mountain ranges in their own right, but Quinag, although much small both in terms of area and height, is rather more impressive because you can see so much of it at once.

Once you've passed the end of the loch the land around the road begins to rise above it, so views become more limited. However, don't despair because this just makes the glimpses you get between hills all the more interesting and in any case before long you're skimming through the small light industrial area that sits on the edge of Lochinver and them suddenly you're driving down the high street with the sea loch stretching out into the Minch.

 Next time we'll be exploring this remarkable little town and its surroundings. See you then!







 
*Yes, all those of you who've been following the Gaelic notes in this blog have already realised that Ardverck Castle was built by "Big Angus". Seriously.

The High Road North - Part Three: The Great Glen.

Right. So we had driven the The Long High Road to Bunree, then continued north past the town of  Fort William and its immediate environs. Now we were approaching the village of Spean Bridge.

The village itself sits at the bottom of a steepish hill, which will not trouble you as a tow jockey so long as a: you select the correct gear and b: you have a car with enough power to pull your caravan safely. Be warned though - the hill can present a problem to camper vans - especially those of a vintage VW nature. If you happen to be behind such a vehicle make sure you give it a head start - it'll need it.

At the bottom of the hill the Spean Bridge Hotel, as well as providing all the usual hotel type services, also contains a small museum dedicated to the Allied Commandos who trained in the area during world war two. At the top of the hill, gazing out across the landscape stands the Commando Memorial.

These three Bronze figures commemorate the men who trained at the Commando Training Depot established at Achnacarry Castle in 1942. The base of the bronze carries the legend "United we Conquer", while the bronze plaque mounted to the plinth explains that the memorial is dedicated to the "Officers and Men" of Commando units who fell in the Second World War, further explaining that "This Country was their Training Ground".

To the side of the monument a small memorial garden has been established. Over the years this has filled with personal tributes to the men who fell in the Second World War, to their commando comrades who survived, but are now leaving the world through old age and illness, and perhaps most poignantly of all, to the men and woman of the armed services who have fallen in more recent conflicts, from the Falklands, to the Gulf and Afghanistan.

Considering that it's on top of a windswept hill and always filled with tourists the memorial is a remarkably tranquil place. Reading the messages in the memorial garden and gazing out over the land where the whole concept of "The Commando" was essentially born is a moving experience and a reminder that wars might well be fought between countries, but they are fought by incredibly well trained, incredibly courageous young people who risk everything, and sometimes lose everything without ever knowing whether their sacrifice achieved the objective.

If you're towing, unless it's very early in the morning or quite late you'll have to view this remarkable landmark as you pass by - when the car park is busy there's no way you're getting a caravan in and out of there. It's well worth a visit if you're spending a couple of days in the area though.

Once you're past the memorial you descend past the entrance to Glen Gloy - where we tend to joke that anyone venturing down there will come to a sticky end, because we're from the eighties* - and then down into the Great Glen proper as the road takes you along the shores of Loch Lochy. Presumably this is the most loch like of all the Scottish lochs, (because it's really Lochy - you see? oh, never mind...) and it is certainly quite an impressive looking stretch of water. There are invariably some boats - all of the lochs in the Great Glen are linked together to form the Caledonian Canal allowing boats to cut all the way across Scotland so there's a lot of through traffic - which if you choose you can stop and watch from a vast lay-by at the southern end.

Good lay-bys aren't all that hard to find in this part of Scotland but some are better than others and this one is exceptional. Large enough to drive into and park up with a caravan, easy to get in and out of , excellent views. Hard to argue with really. If you happen to be going past at an appropriate time of day its a great place to stop, drop the legs and cook a spot of lunch. If you prefer not to cook on the road, then there is usually a burger van there which might well be attractive - I can't give it a recommendation because we've never eaten from it, but the customers we've seen didn't look unhappy.

As the road carries you ever further north east it takes you across the Caledonian Canal at Laggan Bridge and then along the north shore of Loch Oich. About half way along this relatively small loch you have the option to jag sharply left to follow the road to Skye. Just before this, on the left hand side of the road you will find an excellent shop. With a long layby on the right hand side of the road offering easy parking even when you're towing it's a fabulous place to stop and pick up any last minute groceries you might have forgotten. We've used this helpful little retail lifeline on a couple of trips and I really can't think of much you might need that they don't sell.

Then it's onwards, re-crossing the Caledonian Canal at the Bridge of Oich at the end of the aforementioned loch and into Fort Augustus.

Marking the south west tip of Loch Ness this little town was originally called "Cill Chuimein", and indeed still is called that in Gaelic. It is believed that the settlement was named for Saint Cummein who came from Iona and established a church in the area. Until the early eighteenth century the Anglicised name for the place was "Kiliwhimin", but after the Jacobite risings in 1715 General Wade -  who did so much in Scotland he gets a mention in the verse of the British National Anthem that even sticklers no longer sing** - ordered the construction of a fort named after the Duke of Cumberland.

Wade caused the settlement to be enlarged, and changed it's name  - at least in English, I can't imagine the locals paid all that much attention - to "Wadesburgh". I'm guessing that getting a mention in your nation's national anthem ensures that the only self esteem issue you're going to have is a surplus... As with Fort William at the far south west of the Great Glen however, the settlement ended up being known by the name of the fort, and Wade's exercise in egotism didn't stick.

Fort Augustus remains a place that we've only ever driven through, so I can't really tell you very much about it. Judging by the crowds to be seen there in the summer it seems like a popular spot - and I can certainly confirm it's an attractive place. You can also catch a cruise boat and sail along Loch Ness from here if you fancy a little monster spotting.

The road then sweeps you along the northern shore of Loch Ness, which is clearly the star of the Great Glen. Stretching twenty three miles to the north east this colossal inland waterway contains more fresh water than very other lake in England and Scotland put together. That's a lot of water. By surface area Loch Lomand is actually bigger, but Loch Ness is very, very deep - seven hundred and fifty five feet at its lowest point - it has massive holding capacity.

There are many, many lay-bys on along the road, as it climbs ever higher above the water many of these offer spectacular views. Many others however are screened by trees so that you can't see much except branches, so choose with care. Find the right place though, and this too is an excellent place to stop for lunch - although here you really will need to make your own because I've never seen a burger van anywhere along here.

A little more than half way up the loch stands the picturesque ruin of Urquhart Castle. This is notable for two reasons. This is the place where the vast majority of "Nessie" sightings are made. Not to be unromantic, but all of these sightings are mistaken. Sorry, but there is no large creature in Loch Ness. The water is murky and cold and doesn't contain all that much food - certainly not enough to sustain a colony (because unless Nessie is immortal there must be a reasonably sized population). Also, although it's big, it's not that big. If there was a population of large creatures somehow surviving in a Lock without much food, we would most definitely know about it.

The castle is also notable for the congestion that it causes. I'm sure the castle's thirteenth century founders didn't mean to build the place on a blind bend at the top of a steep hill, but that's what they did. Northbound vehicles turning right into the castle's woefully inadequate car park may occasionally just stop dead, so if you're towing a caravan with all the added inertia that implies you definitely need to keep your distance.

If you're towing, as we were, Urquhart castle is not for you. The turn into the car park is tight, and the car park itself is very narrow. You might get your outfit in but I really don't fancy your chances of getting out again.

So, as tow jockeys we continue on, down the steeply twisting hill and into the village of Drumnadrochit, a sweet little place which these days seems to owe its entire existence to the legend of the Loch Ness Monster. Which means that this blog post is unlikely to appear in their tourist information centre. The village sits in a sharp bend on the road, dominated by the Drumnadrochit Hotel and Nessie Exhibition. Again, we've only ever driven through the place, but the reviews I've read suggest that it's worth a visit if you're in the area.

And then, onwards. Along the remainder of the loch side before hitting the bright lights of Inverness, which will form the start of the final (I promise) leg of our journey along the High Road North...





*Anyone from the UK over forty will probably remember using Gloy in craft projects when they were kids. Everyone else might need to google it...

**Which, if you're interested, goes like this:

Lord, grant that Marshal Wade
May, by thy mighty aid,
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush
And, like a torrent, rush
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King.

As Billy Connolly once memorably said in response - "Oooh, d'ya bloody think so?"