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Last Updated: 03. Mai 2000
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Our English Heritage, Great Britain
Northern England
Shrewsbury, The Medieval Quest
Ironbridge and the Industrial Revolution
The Lake District and Yorkshire Dales
Hadrian's Wall
York and Museums about Vikings and Trains
Shrewsbury, The Medieval Quest
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On our way to see the Ironbridge Gorge Museum, we decided to stay overnight in Shrewsbury. As we investigated the tourist information, Chris realized why the town's name sounded so familiar to him. It was from the Brother Cadfael Chronicles series on the PBS show of Mystery. Brother Cadfael is a fictional medieval sleuth who is the subject of many books by Ellis Peters and, of course, the PBS series. The location of the series takes place in the Shrewsbury Abbey. Not only did we find the small abbey church but we also found Shrewsbury Quest. In Shrewsbury, an innovative company created a tourist attraction based on the PBS Mystery series that shows 12th century monastery life. It appeared to be a tourist trap but Chris was curious and he really enjoyed the series, so we visited this attraction.
At the reception deck, we received two mysteries to solve - one for adults and another for children. We followed the mystery quiz for children through each room. This quiz encouraged a careful search of each room. Through our experience, we learned about the daily life of a monastery, techniques used by the monks for creating illuminated manuscripts, and the variety of the abbey's herbal and medicinal garden.
The Scriptorium was the most interesting room. Our experience became very interactive because materials were provided at the beginning of the tour to create our own illuminated manuscript pages. We could create the pages by using crayon rubbings, block letter printing for calligraphic letters, or linoleum rollers for pattern development. It was fun and everyone had a great time.
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Ironbridge and the Industrial Revolution
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One of the must-see tourist attractions is the Ironbridge Gorge near the town of Telford. This is the location of the first cast-iron bridge built during the Industrial Revolution. At the Ironbridge Visitor Center, Erika exhibited the typical computer-age kid syndrome. She gravitated towards the computer information kiosk screens. There she learned about environmental concerns. Also, at the Ironbridge Visitor Center, we saw a scale model of the Ironbridge Gorge area along the River Severn. This is a model of how this area appeared during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Afterwards, we walked along the Ironbridge. The bridge is not impressive by today's standards. The construction and engineering of the bridge is very similar to a typical wooden bridge and it is very small.
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The Lake District and Yorkshire Dales
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The Lake District is a combination of green dales, rocky mountains that heave themselves into the sky, and lakes that appear like jewels reflecting the sky, trees, and mountains. Of course, we cannot forget the dense population of sheep. While driving through the Lake District, we visited the town where Beatrix Potter wrote many of her stories. Hill Top Farm is located in Windermere. It was also fun to see the tourist attraction, "The World of Peter Rabbit". We learned that Beatrix Potter treated her rabbits like pet dogs. She took her rabbits for walks around the garden on a leash!
Yorkshire Dales is filled with austere stone villages, streams cutting out the rolling hills, empty moors, and endless stone walls snaking over the landscape. Of course, we cannot forget the dense population of sheep again. Driving through Yorkshire Dales reminded me of illustrations from the children's books by James Herriot based on his series, All Creatures Great and Small. It is easy to see how these authors and illustrations used their everyday experience and environment to create the stories and illustrations for their stories.
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Hadrian's Wall
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At the border between England and Scotland is Hadrian's Wall. We visited Vindolanda Fort and Museum. This is an extensively excavated fort and civil settlement with a museum that has some unusual artifacts including shoes, spinning wheels, and letters with writing tablets. We saw the re-creation of rooms from the civil settlement that included a typical family kitchen, a general store, and a Roman temple. Within each of these buildings, the museum designers created audio recordings that presented a typical day through the perspective of a Roman wife and mother, a Roman storekeeper and various people praying to the Roman gods in the temple. The archeologists discovered some of the earliest samples of Roman writing near Vindolanda. The fields are so boggy that the writing tablets were preserved.
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York and Museums about Vikings and Trains
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We had a great time in York because we found a campsite very close to the center of the city and within easy walking distance of the major tourist attractions. The campgrounds are located near the River Ouse. Although the campgrounds had no playground, we did find many friendly cats hanging around who created some amusement and diversion for Erika. When we ate dinner, these very friendly cats were more than willing to share our dinner with them. It did not surprise us because we miss our very lovable but mischievous cat, Casey. So, the next day, we purchased some dry cat food for our new four-footed friends.
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The first museum to investigate was the National Railway Museum. This museum contains many restored steam engines and carriages from the 1820s to the present day. We saw two versions of the carriages for the Royal Family - one from the late 19th century and the other from the early 20th century. We also saw a train turntable demonstration. In Britain, the development of the train system is directly related to the delivery of the Royal Mail. So, we also saw an exhibit of the mail system. In that exhibit, Erika and I got a postcard, a stamp, and a small pen from a vending machine for one English pound. We sent this postcard to her cousins in Fulton because they like trains also.
At the Jorvik Viking Center, we took a "time machine ride" back in time to the 8th century. We discovered a Viking village and saw displays of the daily life of a Viking family. The archeologist re-created the faces of the Viking people based on actual skeleton and bone structures of the skulls found at the archeological site in York. After the time machine ride, we saw many exhibit cases filled with artifacts from the archeological dig in York. We saw a chess-type game played by Vikings and a helpful museum guide dressed as a young Viking man showed us how it was played. Erika also made a Viking coin by hammering a piece of silver with a special template. A museum guide dressed as a Viking woman helped her.
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The final museum that we investigated was the York Castle Museum. This museum shows objects from everyday life including streets with fascinating re-constructions of 18th century English storefronts that are built along cobblestone streets. This is an exact full-sized replica of driver with a horse carriage. Erika really enjoyed this experience because she went from store to store pretending to buy or sell various types of goods such as fabric, shoes, or even candy. At the York Castle Museum, we also discovered late-19th and early-20th century animated mechanical toys. By putting a 20-pence piece in the slot, we were able to see a toy fireman put out a fire in a 3-story town house, hear Al Jolson sing, and see a spooky ghost appear in the living room.
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Die Fotogalerie von der Grossbritannien
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We will try to respond as soon as possible.
See you all later.
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