Day Five: 6 November 2010

Today was a day to explore Worcester in depth.   After breakfast, Nick and I headed out and down the hill.  Pat stayed behind to do some things at home.

Nick led the way back down the hill we traveled the evening before.   It was a dry but chilly Saturday as we walked, and traffic was beginning to build.  Our first stop was the lovely Worcester Cathedral, situated on the banks of the River Severn.  The Cathedral was founded in 680, but the current structure dates from between 1084 and 1504, and represents several architectural styles, from Norman to Perpendicular.   It's small as cathedrals go, but very easy to explore inside.  It is also the burial place of Arthur Prince of Wales, Henry VIII's older brother, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin--and 'bad' King John, who signed Magna Carta in 1215.

When King John (tomb photo left) died suddenly at Newark in 1216, he had requested beforehand to be buried in Worcester Cathedral.  No one quite knows why...

Nick and I had a great time walking round the Cathedral interior.   One of our stops was in St George's Chapel, which is dedicated to Worcestershire Regiment soldiers killed in both World Wars.   Various Regimental Colors hang from the ceiling in this chapel from several wars, and there is a very long list of Worcestershire men who died in the First World War on one of the walls.   Nick is doing research on the Worcestershires, and gave me a short run-down of their service.   These men took terrible casualties at both Gallipoli with the Australians and New Zealanders, and on the Western Front.  But they also served successfully in campaigns in the Middle East, in Syria and pre-1948 Israel, freeing both countries from Turkish Ottoman domination.   Nick gave me quite an excellent education about the Worcestershires and their Great War service!

Worcester Cathedral is a very compact place to visit, as mentioned above.   During the English Civil War, Worcester was a Royalist city, and the last major battle of that war was fought outside its gates in 1651.   When Oliver Cromwell and his men took control, they damaged the cathedral's interior, whitewashing over 'papist' medieval frescoes and the like.  

I wonder if they stabled their horses within the Cathedral too, after smashing stained-glass windows and statues?

But there is also beautiful stained-glass windows, both restored and post-war (the latter in St George's Chapel).   I only took two photos, but they are perfect examples of their beauty: for instance, the photo right is the Cathedral's West Window.

The second one will be of interest to classical music-lovers.  It is a window dedicated to the memory of Worcester's famous native son, Sir Edward Elgar (below left).   

Elgar composed such well-known pieces as the "Pomp and Circumstance Marches" (including the one heard during every College and High School Commencement season, the March No. 1 in D), and the "Enigma Variations".  He and his wife are buried in a town close to Worcester, in the Malvern Hills.

And speaking of music: since 1719, Worcester Cathedral has been part of the oldest continuing choral festival in the world: The "Three Choirs Festival", held every August.   It is held alternatively by the cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford.   This year, it was Gloucester's turn to host the Festival.

Upon leaving the Cathedral precincts, Nick and I made our way to Worcester's High Street, or main shopping district.   It is dominated at one end by a statue of Sir Edward Elgar (photo below right).   Nick says that the statue is a good place for the locals to meet.   And Pat said later that Worcester citizens refer to Elgar as "Ted"!

The High Street  was quite busy with pedestrians and shoppers on this Saturday morning.  Worcester's High Street is closed to car traffic for most of its length, and is lined with various shops and other businesses.   Along the way, we passed by The Guildhall, which is the seat of Worcester's City Council. 

Along with its function as the home of Worcester's city Government, the Guildhall  also hosts various local fundraising events.  On this Saturday, the Worcester Animal Rescue Shelter was holding one such event.

During our walk, we stopped at the main train station to pick up a

schedule for me, for my return to London on Monday.   Then Nick led the way off the High Street, and we took a short-cut through some less-crowded side streets, which held some wonderful ancient architecture in its shops and pubs.

The buildings off the High Street are really interesting: you can see examples of Tudor-era (16th-century) architecture, with its half-timbered and sometimes-crooked look, or Georgian-era (18-century) architecture, with the brick facades and clean lines.   

One of the most historical is the King Charles Pub (photo left).   It is directly connected with King Charles II, and the aftermath of the Battle of Worcester, in September 1651.   When the Royalist forces lost the battle, the King literally hid out in this building, to avoid capture by the Parliamentarian, or Roundhead, forces.   There is a sign to the right of the pub's front door, describing the royal 'hideout'.

I wonder what would have happened to King Charles II, had he been captured?   Would he have been held for ransom, perhaps?   Or could he have faced the executioner's axe, as his unfortunate father, King Charles I, had, in January 1649?

Our last tour stop of the day was at a most interesting museum called The Commandery.  It's now a multi-faceted and multi-layered museum, covering several time-periods, in which the building was
used: the Medieval, the Tudor, the English Civil War, the Georgian, the Victorian, and the 20th-century.

When we entered The Commandery, we paid our admission and were given hand-sets like the one I used at Westminster Abbey.   Depending on what number you pressed, you could get explanations as to how the building was used in those different historical periods.  During medieval days, it was used as a hospital for the poor and destitute, and it was run by the Church.   In Tudor times, The Commandery was home to the Wyldes family, who were wealthy wool merchants.  In the Georgian period, The Commandery was split up into several family homes; while in the Victorian era, it housed a school for the 'blind sons of gentlemen".   Finally, in the 1950s, it housed a printing factory owned by the Littlebury family.

As you can see, The Commandery definitely had a multi-use history!

Nick and I eventually both chose the English Civil War, and we walked about at our own pace, as a narrator described in sometimes-graphic detail what happened to the Royalist forces who tried to flee the pursuing Roundheads (as Cromwell's forces were sometimes called), and were trapped, killed and wounded here, after the Battle of Worcester.   Some of the rooms had no furnishings whatsoever, so you had to use your imagination as to the particular event taking place.  In one room, which was used as a hospital for wounded and dying soldiers, I turned a corner and was startled: to my right was a small bed, with what looked like a dead soldier lying in it!

One room in The Commandery had medieval frescoes on its walls, which had been whitewashed over by Cromwell's men, but were recently uncovered.   They depicted Biblical scenes like the Crucifixion of Jesus, and also the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.   One particularly gruesome fresco was of the death of a St Erasmus, who was lashed to a windlass, and had his intestines slowly twisted out....can we say EEEEEWWWW?!?

I'm sorry I didn't get any photos of The Commandery either inside or out.   It really was a most fascinating place to visit!

By now, Nick and I had spent several hours in total on foot, and we were both quite footsore, so we headed back up the hill to home, and to Pat, who was catching up on household things.   We had a delicious lunch of toasted, thick-breaded sandwiches, and then settled down for the rest of the day.  Nick got the Saturday edition of The Daily Telegraph, and I went upstairs to write and take a short nap.   I probably slept for an hour or so, and felt much refreshed.  I then went back downstairs and joined Nick in the front parlor, where he was watching a rugby match on TV.

We had a splendid supper that evening: Pat made chicken pie with carmelized squash, roasted little potatoes, and a lovely berry crumble for dessert.   Pat is an awesome cook, and everything was SO good!   And of course, the three of us chattered away about all kinds of subjects.

I'd forgotten to mention that, during lunch, Pat described what she and Nick grew in their backyard garden.  This year they grew roses, tomatoes--and, strangely, a bamboo plant!   In Pat's words, it was 'big enough to hide a Japanese battalion'!!   I never knew bamboo could grow like that in the UK.

After supper, and the dishes were put in the dishwasher, the Beechings and I went into the front parlor and watched an excellent BBC documentary on the last day of the First World War: 11 November 1918.  It was presented by Michael Palin, and he told the stories of several soldiers who died in the last hours of the war: British, French, Canadian and American.   There was also one absolutely horrific sequence about the reconstruction of an English soldier's face, after half of it had been literally blown off.   The surgery was done at Queen Mary's Hospital in Kent.   That poor fellow: how long did he survive after that experience??   And this was in the early days of reconstructive surgery!

When that program was over, there wasn't much else on TV, so we switched it off, and chatted some more.   The conversation turned to the American Civil War, and Nick went out of the room to get a treasured book from his childhood: The Golden Book of the Civil War.   It was written for children in the early 1960s--the Centennial of the ACW--by the well-known historian Bruce Catton.   Nick said his parents bought it for him when he was 12 years old, and he was especially drawn to the battle maps, and the tiny 'fallen soldiers' depicted.   It was SUCH a cool book!

It was now rather late, so we all three retired 'to Bedfordshire', as Nick said (a wonderfully British way of saying "time to go to sleep"!).   It was a most enjoyable day spent with my dear British friends!