| Week Ending August 5th |
| The Bristol Harbour Festival ended on Sunday and all the boats that came for the weekend had to get home. So, Monday we walked down to the harbor to watch the traffic heading out. Once the party is over, everyone wants to get going and therefore the biggest traffic is after rather than before. It was still a couple of hours 'til high tide, but the smaller boats wanted to get out as soon as there was enough water in the Avon to float them. We got to the locks just as they were loading for the ride down. The wind was coming out of the east and they were trying to cram as man |
| The whole end of Bristol Channel, i.e., the Mouth of the Severn and the River Avon, is covered with mud. This is a nice sticky, gooey mud. Every warm sunny, sunny day someone has to be rescued from the mud: kids, grown-ups that should know better, and cars. It is a little surprising that with this rich mud there is no evidence of plant or animal life. A point of civic pride in Bristol is the Brunel-designed ship "SS Great Britain", the World's First Great Ocean Liner http://www.ssgreatbritain.org . Up until the "Great Britain", it was believed that a steam driven ship could never cross the Atlantic - it simply couldn't carry enough coal to make the crossing. Brunel designed and built a ship that could and did - in fact this same ship later made regular trips to Australia. In 1970, the hull of the SS Great Britain was found in the Falkland Islands. The people of Bristol had the rusted hulk loaded onto a barge and brought home to the very dock on which it was built and started restoring it. |
| The Great Britain was in useful service for 90 years: as a luxury cruise ship, as a passenger ship to Australia, as a troop transport, as a freighter hauling grain and coal and finally as a storage warehouse. At the end of its service, the people of the Falklands knew that the ship had historic value, but they didn't have the money to develop it. So, they stored it by sinking it in a shallow harbor. To keep it from floating away, they bored holes in the hull to scuttle it. |
| The restored Great Britain looks as if it is floating at the dock. The reality is that the hull was so badly damaged that getting the old ship to float again was out of the question. So the ship rests in a dry-dock and has as shallow pool of water at its waterline. The support structure for this water is visible from beneath. |
| Even though the ship is out of the water, she would continue to rust with just the moisture in Bristol's air. So the air in the hull chamber and internal to the ship is dehumidified to help with the preservation. One of the unique features of the Great Britain was that it was propeller driven. Brunel didn't invent the propeller, but he was one of the early adopters. The ship has been fitted with one of his early models - but the ship had several propellers and engines during its lifetime. |
| During its lifetime the ship had many different deck plans. The picture here shows the cheap seats - steerage. The low price passengers (16 pounds to Australia) shared compartments separated by gender but little more. The luxury part of the ship was really nice. The common areas were very elegant and the cabins were nicely finished but minimum in size. In a cabin fitted with four bunks, the aisle was so narrow that only one man could dress at a time and it would help if he was a contortionist. |
| In addition to the ship, the museum had an impressive display showing the restoration of the ship, its history and some hands-on exhibits for the kids and the young at heart. The museum shared the space with a replica of the explorer, John Cabot's 15th century caravel The Matthew http://www.matthew.co.uk. The SS Great Britain was voted the best museum in England and worthy of the praise. Friday we were invited for an outing with John and Eve (people we met on the Manchester Trip) to "The National Trust" site "Lacock". Lacock is about 20-25 miles east of Bristol. The National Trust is the organization entrusted with the maintenance of those properties and gardens given to the people of the UK. The whole country is scattered with manor houses, castles and gardens belonging to the National Trust. Lacock is a real prize not only is it the site of a manor house that once had been an Abby, but the site includes an entire village and if that wasn't enough, Lacock is the home of the "Fox Talbot Museum". William Henry Fox Talbot was a pioneer in the science of photography and is credited with, in 1835, having made the earliest known photographic negative on paper. The first part of the exhibit that you come to is a village of about fifty buildings. The fascinating thing about the village is that it would appear that every building is a unique representative of medieval architecture - really couldn't tell it that was planned or if it just happened that way. The village even shows a medieval bus shelter as shown in the photo below. |
| The village has been popular for use as the backdrop for several movies including some of the Jane Austin films. We wandered around sampling several of the shops and then had a delightful lunch in one of the garden restaurants. |
| The Abby was only a short walk away and was our target after lunch. The Abbey was built in 1232 by Ela, Countess of Salisbury as a nunnery for Augustinian canonesses. By the reign of Henry VIII, the Abby housed fourteen nuns living a primitive lifestyle, dedicated to their devotions and prayers, in unheated rooms and having to survive with only 50 servants. After the Dissolution, Henry VIII sold the Abbey to William Sharington who, in 1539 began work to transform it into a family home. By the end of the WWII the basement still showed signs of the Abby but by then the house had been donated to the National Trust. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside the family home, so let me say that it was very nice and typical of what you would expect of the aristocracy of the time. Coming out of the family home and entering the basement lead to a different world. The basement contained what remained of the old Abbey and its Cloister was still in tack. The basement contained no furniture but was used as a set for the 1st and 2nd Harry Potter movies. |
| Grounds to the Abbey also included a fair number or grazing sheep. After the Abbey we returned to the village and toured the Photographic Museum. Talbot had been fascinated by negative images and most of his artistic work was negatives. After Lacock the four of us headed for the nearby Whitehall Garden Center. Eve is a passionate gardener and a garden center is her idea of Disneyland for grown-ups. We had a nice afternoon tea and strolled the massive grounds that included: the tearoom, a butcher shop, a pottery shop, toys and some plants. From Lacock we returned to John and Eve's home in the Staple Hill area of Bristol. J&N had taken the bus across town in the morning - in morning traffic, buses are better than private cars. Taking the bus gave J&N the opportunity to see parts of Bristol new to them. John and Eve's house was over 100 years old and it was great to be able to see inside a 2-down, 2-up house. When we returned to John and Eve's we enjoyed a nice visit, getting to know them better in their own surroundings and having a nice supper. We took the bus back to city center. The bus was one of the double-deckers and it gave us a birds-eye view of the some of the poorer parts of Bristol. John and Eve live in a nice part of town but the trip in comes though some rough areas. We had a great time with John and Eve and have several other events planned with them |
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| boats in as possible. The boats are traditionally held in place with their bowlines. The later boats tied up to the boats already in place. With the wind coming from astern and tied at the bow, the boats turned sideways to the lock. The lock crew had a heck of a time getting everyone straight - but they finally did and they the lock crew pulled the plug and lowered the level of the lock to the river level As the water level in the lock was lowered the water from the floating harbor was relased into the river. The difference in the water was startling. The water coming up the Avon with the tide was almost completely mud. |