Juliots Well and St. Julitta

The church dedicated to St. Julitta, Lanteglos-by-Camelford.
Currently under reconstruction, so this is a photo
from its website. The oldest parts date to Norman times.

Our base for three nights in Cornwall is one of the Juliots Well Cottages outside of Camelford by the River Camel. There is no evidence that there were any camels here, so the name is actually an English corruption of the Cornish name.

The other example is Port Isaac, the picturesque Cornish fishing village used as the location for the TV show, Doc Martin, which has nothing to do with any Isaac. Port Isaak is a corruption of Cornish "Porthsek," which means Corn Port.

Wikipedia is an easy source of information. Juliot is not a misspelling of the woman's name Julia, but a corruption of Julitta. St. Julitta (not the martyr) was an early Celtic saint who settled in nearby Tintagel Castle by the end of the 5th Century. A church in Camelford is dedicated to her, as was the Norman chapel at Tintagel Castle.

So, perhaps not surprisingly, there is history where we are staying at Juliots Well Cottages. And it's not just Arthurian. Camelford and seemingly every other place in southwest Britain claims some association with Arthurian legend. Shops abound selling crystals and Harry Potter stuff. This history of Julitta is of the earliest Christians in Britain.

Rivers, springs and wells have spiritual associations. So St. Julitta, who lived around these parts some seventeen hundred years ago, and a well named after the saint, has to be triple sacred.

So checking my trusty map of Juliots Well Park in the guest notebook, I hiked downhill across wet grass towards nearby Juliots Well.

You can't get there.

The descent to the river and the reputed well have been bulldozed and terraced. Tiny concrete pads have been poured. Plumbing and other utility conduits are sticking up, ready for even more manufactured homes. Some are marked with "sold" signs. There already are three existing streets lined with rows of manufactured homes planted and regularly spaced on small concrete pads.

The British tend to name their homes. So these manufactured homes have names like Westwood, Pinehurst, Forest Grove, Portland, Beechwood and even the whimsical Dunromin. In their bricked driveways, BMW's, Volvos and a Maseratti are parked.

What is marked as the "Dog Exercise Area" on my guest map is no more. It is an even larger construction site. A "Brand New Leisure Facility" is being built with indoor pool, sauna, lounge, cafe, fitness suite, etc.

All construction sites are fenced off.

Port Isaac (Porthsek), historic Cornish fishing village
and location for Doc Martin TV show shots.
Henry VIII had the breakwaters constructed.

I asked one couple how to get to Juliots Well. All they knew was that it was down the hill. They had no idea access was blocked. They had no idea of any St. Julitta. They were from London. They came often. (They probably owned one of the manufactured homes.) They liked the quiet in the countryside.

I stopped by the mobile office that manages and sells pads at the development. The young lady confirmed no access. It seems the contractor located a petrol tank there.

There may be access to Juliots Well some time in the future. I don't know. There is no mention on the construction site signs. Apparently, it was not sufficiently significant to preserve access during construction.

The cottages where we are staying were probably the first development. There is another duplex cottage next to us, then next to it an old stone building labeled "The Coach House Pub and Restaurant" and in smaller lettering, "17th Century Cornish Inn." It is closed.

I also asked the young lady at the office about plans for the inn. She didn't know, other than she thinks it's up for sale.

Times change but names remain. Cornwall understandably is a retreat and resort destination. Corn Port is no longer used to ship farm products or coal, wood or stone, as it has in the past. St. Julitta and the well associated with this 5th Century saint live on mostly in a parish church, a place name, and a vacation resort development.

That is what is intriguing to a history-buff and trivia-afficionado traveling around the Old World where so much written and physical history has been preserved. No matter where I look, there are endless layers of history.

Inclement Weather

If a forecast like this were to appear for the Sonoran Desert, it would portend floods of Biblical proportions. 90% and 100% chance of rain? All day? For days on end? At monsoon rates, that could be inches per hour.

But in the British Isles, it's only autumn. It's the drizzle and just plain overcast with occasional squalls and sunbreaks that keep everything green. It's the weather where hourly forecasts have little meaning.

View from King Arthur's Cafe.

Yesterday was forecasted to be a 90% rain all day. We got sunbreaks enough to enjoy a light lunch at King Arthur's Cafe, near King Arthur's Car Park and King Arthur's Arms Inn, all in the crowded village that lives off of the almost one-quarter of a million annual visitors to Tintagel Castle.

We got a window seat where we could enjoy Brits with their pet dogs, young families, tatooed and pierced Gothic folks, Arthurian enthusiasts, and German, French and US tourists.

Sunbreaks continued as we visited the English Heritage site, craggy Tintagel Castle ruins on the rugged north Cornwall coast.

Then as the rain set in, it was time to leave.

The ascent, footbridge visible in back.

Visitors to the site, and there were plenty on a rainy Sunday, wore an assortment of different dress. Some in shorts and T-shirts, others in hooded rain parkas.

As the squall set in, people continued filing down the steep path, then up to the footbridge leading to the shale-rocky promintory with its ruined medieval fortifications associated with Arthurian lore.

One woman climbing the narrow steep path that clung to the cliffside (only occasional guard rails) wore Wellington boots. Another flip-flops. Both were headed in, not out.

The footbridge (English Heritage website)

Anatomy of Travel: Planning, Endurance & Serendipity

Beryl Country House, Wells. Our room is the open
window on the top right, where I am writing.

We were having lunch in Stow-on-the-Wold. In a pub, of course. The Bell with its photos of Prince Charles and the queen mum pulling beers at that very same pub. A party of two couples took the table next to ours. We exchanged conversations of where we were from. Even English are tourists in the Cotswolds. The woman talking with us was from Lincoln. She ran a hotel there. She asked where Shari and I had been and we listed places, including York.

"Not Lincoln?" she asked. "Lincoln Cathedral is much larger and more wonderful than York. You should have seen Lincoln," she added with some competitive pride and just a hint of disdain.

Wells Cathedral

Lincoln I had heard of. But how can one see everything? We only have one month. One month! Most vacations are one week. Even if you are a starving student with a backpack bumming around for a summer, or comfortably retired and reasonably healthy making traveling your second career, or living and/or working locally and traveling around each weekend, you still can't see everything in a place like Britain — or Ireland or any other country in Europe, or in the world for that matter.

Yesterday afternoon after visiting Glastonbury and Wells, we were sitting in one of the Victorian appointed lounges of the Beryl Country House (1838, but mercifully renovated and upgraded since). A young couple comes in to serve themselves a drink from the honour bar. We exchanged conversations of where we were from. They were from London. When we described how we had been to Wales, the woman commented, "We've never been to Wales."

Glastonbury Abbey. Arthur's grave is a plaque in the middle of the lawn.

What you end up seeing is limited by what little you know about what to see, endurance, and serendipity.

We had planned to stay on Anglesey Island last night. That is northwest Wales. That is knowing a little of w hat you want to see. Then three days ago we realized that a five and a half hour drive from Anglesey to Cornwall made no sense. That's endurance or, more accurately, reality. Hence we decided to stay at the Beryl Country House. (Actually, we booked another place, then the next morning got an email that they really had no room and had booked us at the Beryl instead. That's serendipity,  but another story.)

We booked three nights in Carmarthen planning to use it as a base for Wales. Cardiff is a must see place in Wales, said Shari's distant Welsh cousin. That's planning. It was one too many cities, churches, castles, narrow streets, and pay-and-display parking lots. That's endurance, or the lack of it. We simply drove past and headed to Somerset in England. That, as it turned out, was serendipity.

Our plan was to see Glastonbury, its Celtic Tor hill, and its ruined abbey, the mythical site of all things King Arthur, and the darling of the New Age set — of which we are sympathetic. The abbey was among the first in Britain and, before Henry VIII pilfered it, was Britain's wealthiest.

Inside Wells Cathedral.

What happened was we drove through Wells first to get our room at the Beryl. We noticed an impressive Gothic church towering over the small town. We marveled at the Beryl House, squashed our feelings of not being worthy, then headed for the first place we could get some lunch. A pub, of course. Our car being parked, we walked the two blocks to that gothic church and realized it and Wells itself were stunning treasures.

But our plan was Glastonbury. We decided to drive the eight miles, see the sights, and maybe have a closer look at Wells afterwards if we had the time and energy.

To be honest, Glastonbury didn't impress us that much. What's left of Glastonbury Abbey is nothing compared to what we had seen and experienced at Tintern Abbey in Wales near the English border. King Arthur's tomb isn't really a sight, just a plaque and a concept. We skipped the Neolithic and now neo-pagan Chalice Well. We drove past the Tor twice looking for its play-and-display parking lot, but noticed the stream of tourists climbing up the trail to get to the top of the rather steep and tall hill.

Back to Wells.

Inside Wells Cathedral.

Again to be honest, I had no idea there was a place in England named Wells. The Wells with which I am familiar with is on the Great Basin Highway where it intersects I-80 in northern Nevada. Shari and I often fueled our cars in Wells during our three-day, 24-hour driving time, 1600 mile migrations between Seattle and Tucson. It's impossible to imagine anything more radically different than Wells in Nevada and Wells in Somerset.

Probably because it was not connected to any abbey, the Wells Cathedral, dedicated to St. Andrew the Apostle, survived Henry VIII's destructive Dissolution of the Monasteries relatively intact. It still has statues in niches on the outside walls. Inside, it is a marvel of light and simple, open shapes.

Our delight with Wells was enhanced by the wedding that had to conclude before we were allowed inside. Imagine cathedral bells ringing as the wedding party emerges from the main entrance, sunshine on them, the cathedral front, and the large expanse of green lawn dotted with picknicking couples, children, and visitors. Imagine medieval bishop's quarters, schools, row houses, and narrow shopping streets and squares crowded with Saturday market stalls.

Rhys ap Thomas, the Tudors, and Connections

Pembroke Castle where Henry Tudor was born.

Whoever ill-affected to the state, shall dare to land in those parts of Wales where I have any employment under your majesty, must resolve with himself to make his entrance and irruption over my belly.

In a nutshell, Rhys ap Thomas promised Richard III that if anyone landed in Wales to attack him, it would have to be over his body. The Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) were still going on. The Welsh nobleman Rhys had confirmed his support for King Richard and, in exchange, he was rewarded with money and the job of defending SW Wales.

Henry Tudor was Richard's rival and enemy. He had fled to France, secured help from the French king, and returned as an invader with a small force of French and Scottish soldiers. They landed in Southwest Wales at Mill Bay, Pembrokeshire.

Mullock Bridge in the countryside of
southwest Wales near Pembroke and the bay where
Henry Tudor's invasion force landed from France.

It was Rhys' job to attack the invaders, but he changed sides and joined Henry instead.

Promises were rather serious matters back in those days, as was the fear of eternal damnation for breaking them. As one story goes, a clever priest offered a solution which Rhys adopted. He stood or sat under a bridge near Mill Bay, Mullock Bridge, as Henry Tudor (likely, his advance guard) rode over the bridge. His promise was fullfilled to the letter, if not the principle.

Rhys, then others, joined Henry and defeated Richard's army at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485). Richard was killed - the last English monarch to die in battle. Some thirty years of dynastic warfare were decisively ended. Henry become Henry VII, the first Tudor king and the father of the better known Henry VIII and the grandfather of Elizabeth I.

The tomb of Siir Rhys ap Thomas in St. Peter's Church,
Carmanthen. Henry VII knighted and
rewarded Rhys with Carew Castle, and Rhys is
a bit of a hero in these parts.

Had Rhys not switched sides, Shakespeare would not have written Richard the Third, glorifying the Tudors for the sake of Elizabeth I and demeaning Richard. "A horse. A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" The English Reformation may never have happened, and a Catholic regime may have surpressed the remarkable creativity that we know today as the Elizabethan period.

Here's the interesting rub. Rhys is credited, according to the eyewitness who wrote a poem about the feat, of being the man who killed Richard III on the battlefield of Bosworth.

The name Rhys and its variants Rees, Reese, Ris, Rice, and Reece are common enough in Wales that there is no assurance Rhys ap ("son of") Thomas is Shari's blood ancestor. Shari's mother's maiden name is Rees and her ancestors came from Felindre in Wales, north of Carmarthen. But certainly, there is no harm in pondering and basking in the possibility.

Tintern Abbey

William Wordsworth wrote a poem entitled Tintern Abbey.

Actually, its full title is "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798." And it actually is about the River Wye and never mentions the Abbey.

The valley and the little stream that runs by Tintern are not only lush, intimate and beautiful, but on a sunny day like yesterday, the area is peaceful and filled with the sounds of doves and finches.

But in my opinion, Wordsworth missed the real gem, the spectacular ruins of the Abbey.

Maybe there were too many ruins in Britain for any one ruin to attract the inspiration of the poet. Maybe the River Wye was more special to Wordsworth than a ruin. But then, especially in the late 18th Century, before the days of motorways, automobile dins, and chattering tourists, there would have been plenty of idyllic nature scenes to inspire poets great and mediocre.

We were lucky to get there early on a sunny day. We had the place to ourselves for the first half an hour, and only a handful of visitors had arrived by the time we left. But the two parking lots were ominously large.

Tintern Abbey is no ordinary ruin. It is one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen. It's not even a sight as much as an experience.

The soaring open stone shapes are amazing, all framed with the lush green of the lawn that serves as its floor, and the green of the trees, paddocks and bushes of the small valley that is the setting for this jewel.

It is more a fantastic sculpture than a ruin.

The destruction of royal greed and survival is imprinted upon seemingly every church and castle in Britain. Tintern was a thriving Cistercian abbey in the early Middle Ages. But even before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and pocketed their wealth (even the Abbey's lead roof was stripped and sold off) the population decline of the Black Plague and the damage from Welsh revolts against the English rulers took their toll.

The odd thing for me is my suspicion that ruin has improved the Abbey. Its exposed bones in their simplicity, shapes and grandeur strike me as an amazingly powerful blend of art, spirituality, and nature — and not a little sense of timeless haunting.

History Becomes Alive

Reading history interests me, but actually being and seeing gives a much greater depth of color and experience.

Some times it is little things that bring history to life, like the small museum in Cirencester, the Corinium Museum. Cirencester in the beautiful Cotswolds was Corinium in the Roman days — over three centuries of Roman days. It was a provincial capital. The well laid out museum features Roman artifacts and large floor mosaics unearthed locally, as well as Saxon and medieval finds and remains. But what most intrigued me under the subject of "History Becomes Alive" was a museum wall with information about the English Civil War (1642-1651).

Off and on several times, I have read about the cavaliers versus the roundheads; the Royalists versus the Parlimentarians. Cromwell and an austere form of religion win and become dictators. The display on the wall in Corinium Museum shows how the people suffered from both sides. Leave aside the direct horrors of warfare and sieges. Think about damage to farms and property, theft to feed the armies, and forced billeting of soldiers. One young man kept a diary in which he recorded the hardships. It was quoted and printed on that wall.

That Civil War also left its mark on Dunnottar Castle. It was blockaded and besieged by Cromwell for months in his effort to take the Scottish crown jewels (the Honors) and destroy them.

Malmesbury Abbey,. What the Tudors left standing
still serves as a magnifiscent church

Then there is Henry VIII, his need for money, heirs and gratification, and Elizabeth I, and her need to surpress Catholic opposition. In the process, monasteries and abbeys were confiscated, sold off, and torn down, and churches stripped and defaced. The obvious scars today are all the many exterior wall naves on the many remaining cathedrals and churches in England. The statues are missing. Plaques on some historic houses describe how some of their stones were pilfered from the demolished monasteries.

We visited Culloden battlefield (1745). Today it is an open, grassy field with three red flags marking the English army positions and three blue flags marking where the Scottish Jacobites stood. Some two thousand mostly Scottish clansmen died or were wounded in that final decisive defeat of Scottish independence. For what? A mixture of religion, clan loyalty, and the vein arrogance of the twenty-six year old young Stuart pretender, the Italian raised and French supported "Bonnie Prince" Charlie. He fled the battlefield when the going got tough, leaving the clansmen to their fates.

Historical anecdotes: The Queen Mum
pulls a beer at The Bell at Stowe pub,
Stowe-on-the-Wold, Cotswolds.

The battlefield has its ghosts, but visiting castles in Britain bring the brutality home. Every one has its prison. Even churches have histories of being used as prisons. Jacobite prisoners were crowded in the dungeon rooms of Carlisle Castle without food or water. The castle brochures point out the worn stone where prisoners licked water dripping into the dungeon.

On a less violent theme, the Corinium Museum in Cirencester has a wall devoted to the wool trade that made the Cotswolds wealthy in the Middle Ages — until the invention of the cotton gin radically changed the economics of clothing. Sheep in the Cotswolds produced the wool that was exported to Flanders and Northern Italy where it was woven into cloth. This wall featured one man born a commoner who became ridiculously wealthy as a wool merchant, bought himself a noble title, and lived to the ripe old age of a hundred and one. He died only because he fell off a horse.

I wish I had taken a photo of that wall. I cannot find any reference to that merchant on the internet. Yet such anecdotes preserved in local histories provide the details that bring history alive -- at least for me.

Post Script:  Searching the Corinium Museum website I found the merchant's portrait and name, then this basic information on a BBC website. (God bless the BBC.)

John Coxwell was a self made man who made his money from the wool trade in the Cotswolds and rose from the ranks of the lower middle classes to that of the gentry. In the 14th and 15th centuries the trade in Cotswold wool was on an international scale

John was in his early twenties when the Abbey at Cirencester was dissolved. Twenty years later, when Elizabeth I sold off the Abbey estates, he purchased a significant amount of land using the money he had made from trading wool. Eventually he owned over 40 properties in Cirencester. In 1563 he purchased part of the manor of Siddington, ten years later he bought the manor of Ablington

John was 101 when he died after falling off his horse at Lechlade!

The Boo Laundrette.

It's been a week, our laundry bag was getting heavy, and we do like to wear our favorite clothes. Monday became laundry day and our laundromat of choice was the Boo Laundrette in downtown Cirencester.

Of course, being an oversized village and medieval wool town, negotiating the warren of narrow streets in the old city was no small feat. But we had scoped out the parking lot, the route, and the location of the Boo well in advance. We even had set aside some one pound coins for the Brewery Car Park. We assumed the Laundrette would give change. It opened at eight.

We were there at eight. The door was locked and no one inside. We rang the bell. Nothing. We begin to get a little desperate. Then Shari noticed the only intelligible instruction in that laundromat, which was to press the button and open the door simultaneously. It worked.

Inside was nice and clean and lonely. But no change machine. There were no instructions posted on the wall as to how much it cost for a load in the washers. We had about £2 in coins. We put a coin in and the washer's screen lit up and asked for another £6 some. We had no such amount in coins.

It was still early, but the butcher shop a block and a half away was opening. I asked the woman, "Could I trouble you for some change? Pound coins? My wife and I are trying to do laundry and the laundromat has no coin changer."

She smiled. "Say no more." and she gave me £5 in pound coins.

Elated with my success, and impressed with yet another example of British kindness, I returned to reassure Shari that all was well. We got the wash going.

While the wash was washing, we had time to decipher the dryer instructions. Here was the clue. A typed and overwritten piece of paper pinned above the dryers which read: "£2 = £1 coins only". The £1 had been handwritten on a tiny piece of paper and sticky-taped over something else.

After about five minutes of pondering alternative interpretations, we reckoned that neither our £2 coins nor our 50p coins would work. The sign meant £2 to get the machine to work and the machine took only £1 coins.

We needed to exchange our coins for £1 coins.

I hesitated to go back to the butcher again. So instead of going out, then left, I walked out, then right. The One Pound store was open. Kinda like our Dollar stores. The doors were open, lights were on, and two young school boys dressed in uniforms were cruising an aisle.

"Can I trouble you for some one pound coins?" I asked in the most calm and polite voice I could master. The lady smiled and asked me how many. I asked for ten £1 coins in exchange for my ten pounds worth of £2 and 50p coins. She pulled out a handful of £1 coins and counted them out.

I returned victorious to Shari who was anxiously waiting. The One Pound store. Of course.

While we are watching the clothes go round, a woman came in dressed as you would expect for an early, chilly, overcast morning that threatened rain. We exchanged polite and warm greetings, she deposited her load of wet clothes into a dryer, and left.

Now comes the good part. A few minutes later, another woman walked in. She was a rather striking woman. She wore a short red dress and high heels suitable for an evening cocktail party. She made no attempt at eye contact or any greeting, but walked right up to the dryer with her Ikea blue bag with wet clothes and shoved them in the dryer. I was sitting next to that machine and, being polite, stared at the ground, unavoidably looking at her naked legs and painted toenails in her high heeled sandals.

Like the first woman, she left. Obviously both women knew the system and how many minutes of dryer time £2 bought.

Now comes a better part. After a few minutes, the dryer used by the woman in the red dress made some god-awful bashing noise. I looked at the dryer and saw a woman's belt tumbling around and around. A belt buckle. Okay.

Now comes the best part. About another five minutes later, I saw some white, rectangular shape tumbling around and around in the dryer used by the woman in the red dress. I thought that was a little odd, but I am polite and did not stare at someone else's laundry in the dryer. But I couldn't help noticing that it was a piece of paper. Okay. She hadn't checked and emptied pockets.

Here's the punchline. As the minutes passed, more and more sheets of paper appeared through the glass door of the dryer used by the woman in the red dress. Soon there were twenty, thirty, and who knows how many more. Now I got curious, stared through the glass, and started reading the printed text on the pages. They were the pages of a book. I read page three hundred and something on one sheet. They were all neatly separated and so many of them were tumbling around and around that the clothes of the woman in the red dress were no longer visible.

Of course, I pulled out my video camera and took some shots of the pages going around and around in the dryer.

Our loads were done, folded, and stacked in our laundry bag so we left. But both Shari and I would have loved to have seen the expression on the face of that woman in the red dress when she came to retrieve her load and opened the dryer door.