On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good morning everyone,
Today we return to a tour, already in progress!
Continuing on through my tour of southern England, this batch of photos is from Bath, Stonehenge, and Stratford. It was overcast and drizzling the day we went to Bath, and the pictures reflect that, unfortunately.
As a reader of Regency romances in my youth, it was great to see Bath. We visited the Fashion Museum there, which I highly recommend. I also sipped the Bath waters, which were dreadful. I just don’t get people drinking them for their health.
Stonehenge was one of the absolute highlights of the trip for me. I’m fascinated by history; I could have spent hours visiting the nearby prehistoric sites.
Stratford was cute and very touristy, but I was most intrigued by the canal and the canal system in England.
The Circus, originally called King’s Circus, was designed by the architect John Wood, the Elder. Convinced that Bath had been the principal cent of Druid activity in Britain,Wood surveyed Stonehenge, which has a diameter of 325 feet at the outer earth bank, and designed the Circus with a 318 feet diameter to mimic this.
The initial leases for the south west segment were granted in 1755–1767, for the south east segment in 1762–1766, and for the north segment in 1764–1766.
The Circus was part of John Wood the Elder’s grand vision to recreate a classical Palladian architectural landscape for the city.
This alley ran behind one of the streets, just south of the Circus. The architecture was amazing, which is why I took the picture. It started to drizzle right after I took the picture.
The Roman Baths are a well-preserved thermae in the city of Bath, Somerset, England. A temple was constructed on the site between 60-70CE in the first few decades of Roman Britain. Its presence led to the development of the small Roman urban settlement known as Aquae Sulis around the site. The Roman baths, which were used for public bathing, were used until the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th Century CE.
Another angle, from the ground level.
Stonehenge was magnificent. I would have liked to have visited some of the other nearby prehistoric sites, but that’s the downside of taking a tour.
The heel stone (I think!). Included for scale, mostly.
Pardon the bad picture! You literally walk across fields to see Stonehenge, and one of them was full of sheep. The contrast between the sheep and Stonehenge was incongruous.
This is a shot of the Stratford Canal in the morning. I was not aware of how important – or extensive – the canals are.
The modern canal system was mainly a product of the 18th and early 19th centuries. It came into being because the Industrial Revolution (which began in Britain during the mid-18th century) demanded an economic and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities.
Restoration projects by volunteer-led groups continue. There is now a substantial network of interconnecting, fully navigable canals across the country. You can rent a barge and travel the canals in England.
eclare
Thanks for the photos and information!
?BillinGlendaleCA
We did a tour of Bath and Stonehenge when we were in London about 25 years ago. The building surrounding the Roman bath were built in the 19th century, the column bases are Roman and everything below that.
JPL
Traveling by barge sounds so romantic.
eclare
Maybe in England. The ones I see here on the Mississippi River are ominously huge.
Dorothy A. Winsor
What great stops for your trip. Jane Austen’s characters talked about Bath. They don’t look crowded. I’m guessing it wasn’t high summer.
painedumonde
We must’ve used the same agent. ;-) Couldn’t resist though, and had to plunge my hands into the bath you display in the post. Delightfully warm – bathwater warm.
lahke
Five of us rented a canal boat in Shrewsbury a few years back and spent a week going through Wales at 4 miles an hour during the last week in April . Totally idyllic. It takes you 5 minutes to learn to drive it, and they issue you a hand crank so that you can lift the drawbridges yourself the small rural roads you cross. The locks had keepers, and were usually located right next to a pub if you needed to wait for the lock. The route we took passed over a couple of trestles, so you’re essentially 100 feet in the air traversing an aqueduct over a valley, looking down at sheep pastures. There was also a tunnel through a mountain– I had to jog through ahead of the boat to make sure no one came through from the other side, because it was just one boat wide. All in all, a great excursion.
terraformer
Love the canal system in England.
I found “Travels by Narrowboat” on Amazon Prime and I’m taken by it – something about the narrator’s gentle voice, seeing England by water – especially the more pastoral areas – is calming to me. The host essentially sold all he had at 50, bought a used but in good condition narrowboat, and films his journey.
arrieve
What a wonderful trip. I’ve never been to Bath, but coincidentally I’m rereading Northanger Abbey right now (Jane Austen is my current escape from these insane times) and the first part of it is set there. I’m scheduled to be in Oxford this summer and I think I’ll have to schedule a weekend in Bath. Thanks for sharing your journey.
MelissaM
Lovely! I’m wondering how many folks fall into the bath. Now I’m daydreaming of a canal trip through Wales, but I’ll have to wait for the floods to recede.
oldster
I don’t know whether you can squeeze it in on this trip, but you are close to one of my favorite spots in England: the Vale of the White Horse. All on one hillside are a large chalk horse, an iron-age hill-fort called “Uffington Castle,” and “Dragon Hill,” the promontory where St. George slew the dragon, a natural hill that looks supernatural.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse
This place is magic. And I say that as one of the least magically-inclined people in the world. My woo-quotient is about zero. A healer once tried to find my chakras, and could only find old burnt-out spark-plugs from a ’55 Fairlane. I got no patience with New Age nothing.
And yet. Like Stonehenge, some sites are bigger and more wondrous than anything that stupid human superstition can make up about them. The Vale of the White Horse is one.
Erin in Flagstaff
As a fan of Regency romances, and especially of Georgette Heyer, I was giddy when visiting Bath. I need to revisit and see more of the city.
Jeffro
I am not normally one to revisit places where I have been on a trip, but Stonehenge and Bath and London of course would be the exception – I would go at the drop of a hat.
TomatoQueen
Oh oh oh all my favorite English places in one go, with a bonus willow.
rosalind
there are also fabulous walking tours you can do along the canals, like the Kennet and Avon Canal from Reading to Bristol, through Bath. tour companies will move your luggage from stop to stop as you walk.
Tehanu
The thing I noticed at Stonehenge when we visited, oh, 35 years ago or so, was that the color of the stones changes from gray to golden when the sun comes out from behind the clouds. I’ve seen recreations of what it probably looked like when new, and it must have been like the Parthenon. Glad you enjoyed it.