Walking to Camelot (28 page)

The idea of flower beds originated with monasteries. William of Orange later brought to the throne of England a passion for flowers. This added impetus to the idea of an “aesthetical garden,” especially when he imported bulbs from Holland and thereby created a trend. The garden also became a palliative for the annihilation of the ancient forests. Edward Thomas noted that the English sought to recreate their ideal country of the past in their gardens “as in a graven image.” The Green Man, that Celtic guardian of the woods and its mysteries, has been replaced, notes A.A. Gill, by the fictional Puck: “hobbit of the garden; the sprite of the window box and the hanging basket.”

The 1911 children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett,
The Secret Garden,
centres upon the magical, therapeutic qualities of the walled garden attached to the home of Colin, a little lame boy who secretly spends part of every day there, getting stronger and stronger until eventually he gets up from his wheelchair and walks — to the utter astonishment of his overbearing father, who has written him off as a cripple. The hallmark English imagery of hidden doors leading to magical places is present when Mary finds a key that turns the lock of a door, and suddenly finds herself standing inside Colin's secret Eden. This imagery is key to understanding the secret world of the countryside in English literature. The wardrobe closet of C.S. Lewis in
The Chronicles of Narnia
is another portal to that idyllic “other world.” In
The Lord of the Rings
, Tolkien also refers to the journey of adventure along the road “out from the door where it began.”

The last half mile, plunging down rain-soaked lanes with cars streaming past our eyeballs, is unpleasant, as the rain is driving at us now in droplets the size of paintball pellets. Fortunately, the George Inn lies on the upper outskirts of town. We stamp our wet boots and enter to a hubbub of men standing and mingling at the bar. One chatty bloke greets us cheerily.

“Rather dickie out, yes?”

“Indeed,” I respond. I try to slither a tad closer to the huge fireplace that's roaring and crackling its flaming warmth like an angry lion. We find a table next to eight English bankers on a walking trip. They explain that they like to go from pub to pub quaffing the local brew; all are in their twenties or thirties. Each year they walk a different part of England, at about eight or nine miles a day. We chat it up and they become a little subdued upon learning that seventy-four-year-old Karl has just walked over three hundred miles.

I replenish Karl's Guinness with a half pint and order another lager. The talk at the bar turns to the hot topic of the day — the great Gold Hill brothel scandal. Sherborne has a virtual twin in Shaftesbury, which lies a few miles to the east; both are ancient market towns that sit perched on hills bordering Thomas Hardy's Blackmore Vale. Gold Hill is a steep lane leading down from the edge of Shaftesbury to the Vale, adorned by picturesque, multi-hued cottages. It is a favourite photo stop for tourists, a scene rendered familiar to Brits by the now classic
TV
commercial for Hovis bread that features a delivery boy pushing a bike with a basketful of baked goods up the cobbled street.

But alas, it seems that Gold Hill these days is appealing to more than just tourists snapping their photos. The press reports that a retired army major set up his wife as a hooker on the internet. Police became interested in a website that offered the “cultured, gentle and sensuous services of Jilly, a woman who loves to be borrowed and shared.” When police burst into the major's picturesque cottage on Gold Hill to arrest Jilly and her hubby, their timing could not have been better, for she was halfway through a rather sensual massage. As the Hooker on the Hill, Jilly may be a joke right now, but in this quiet, conservative corner of rural England, the community is not so forgiving. The press report quotes local resident Janet Bardy, sipping coffee at the Café Rose, her shaggy dog Max at her feet, asking, “What did she do for 500 pounds a night?”

Karl shakes his head in amusement at all this.

“So maybe, John boy, our Liberty House experience was no isolated phenomenon. Besides, wasn't that Thomas Hardy a bit of a horny bastard?”

“It's all about being discreet, Karl. Marnie up in Bradford flies under the radar. This part of Dorset is a conservative, stricter part of rural England — you just can't sell yourself blatantly as some online English Rosie, sensuous and wicked, because here you stick out like a sore thumb. Besides, town officials no doubt think it's bad for tourism. Thomas Hardy country is supposed to be quaint, not racy.”

That said, British society has moved toward the European model of a liberal approach toward sex and morality, closer to the libertarian approach of the eighteenth century than to Victorian prudishness. When someone handed me a mainstream British newspaper the first time I travelled here, I thought I had been given pornography, but it was just
The Sun
with its topless Page 3 girls. And I have hastily skipped through breast-filled sections of other English papers in embarrassed, furtive fashion at coffeehouses — only to glance over my shoulder to see a wispy, white-haired old dear in a lavender and cream jacquard dress sipping tea, unabashedly enjoying both the stories and the skin show.

We rise to leave, our backpacks now reasonably dry. It is hard to disengage from this noisy yet convivial chatter and the warmth of the fire to face the fierce rain outside. Before we reach the door, a man and woman, both in full riding costume, sweep through the entrance with a retinue of wet equestrian types behind them, much like royalty. This must be the local squire and his wife, because the publican and his assistant both rush out from the bar to bob, bow, and curtsey.

Sherborne is a mad jumble of narrow, twisting streets. Cheap Street careens downhill and is lined with lichen-dappled, ochre stone shops full of Dorset knobs, fresh-baked scones, creamy blue vinney cheeses, sticky honeys, and succulent hams. The shops cater to all wallets, from a Diva accessory store associated with Castro clothing to an Oxfam bookstore full of earthy intellectuals. I count eleven coffeehouses, including Caffe Baglioni, Kafe Fontana, and Costa Coffee. One guidebook advises that “if the town were a woman she would be a popular socialite who relished the envy she generates in everyone else. She has an impressive aristocratic pedigree spanning hundreds of years, and exudes a refined sense of style.”

The town attained affluence from the wool industry, later becoming a manufacturing hub for lace, gloves, and buttons. Famous residents have included Sir Walter Raleigh, John Le Carré, Cecil Day-Lewis, Alan Turing, and Sophie Kinsella. Hardy often frequented the town, and he references Sherborne Abbey and the town's marketplace in his novel
The Woodlanders.

Dominating the town is Sherborne Abbey, which has been a Saxon cathedral, a Benedictine abbey, and a parish church throughout its chequered history. Henry
VIII
would have demolished it at the Dissolution if the townspeople hadn't clamoured to make it their parish church. I note the expansive Perpendicular Gothic windows, ornate pinnacles above the gargoyles, and decorated flying buttresses. The abbey's bells hold the distinction of possessing the heaviest peal of eight bells in the world.

Light penetrates the abbey interior through enormous clerestories, illuminating the decorous vaulted ceilings. Crested heraldic symbols and painted flowers line the walls, and stained glass windows everywhere overwhelm the senses — a fabulous display that must be credited to those busy beavers, the Victorians. Both Henry
VIII
and Cromwell's Puritans viewed colour as being idolatrous, and their minions destroyed a large percentage of the stained glass windows in England. But the Victorians believed in restoration, and built and fitted some eighty thousand stained glass windows into churches across the land during the nineteenth century.

Two of King Alfred's brothers, both of whom became kings — Æthelbald and Æthelbert — are buried in the abbey. Sir Walter and Lady Raleigh attended services in the Leweston Chapel when Raleigh was not abroad or imprisoned in the Tower of London. Lady Raleigh introduced to Sherborne Castle, the Raleigh home, a flower known as clove pink, which still grows on the castle grounds and is known as Lady Betty's Pink. Clove pink flowers are still cut on special occasions and placed in Leweston Chapel as a reminder of the good old days of the First Elizabethan Age when chivalry abounded, adventure lurked, and poetry ruled.

Sherborne's Pack Monday Fair is an important civic event that dates to medieval times. It is held in October and is preceded on the weekend by much festivity. Traditionally, the fair opened at midnight on Sunday with a noisy parade through town making “rough music.” People in Sherborne complained in Henry
VIII
's era that labourers used their “riotous expenses and unlawful games to the great trouble and inquieting of the inhabitants next thereto adjoining.” In 1962 and 1963, hooliganism added to the noise problem, and in 1964 the chief constable of Dorset turned up with a hundred police officers and suppressed the traditional procession.

The nature of such fairs had begun to change in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the focus shifted from food and animal displays to entertainment spectacles. In Thomas Hardy's
The Mayor of Casterbridge,
the pens where horses and sheep had formerly been exhibited had disappeared; yet dense crowds poured over the fairgrounds, including “journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or two home on furlough, village shopkeepers . . . among the peep-shows, toy stands, waxworks, inspired monsters, thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors, and readers of Fate.” The fair is still held — minus the midnight procession.

A highlight of any visit here is Sherborne Castle. The old castle was built in the twelfth century by the Bishop of Salisbury. Queen Elizabeth granted it by lease to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1592. Raleigh loved it with a passion, calling the entire town of Sherborne “fortune's fold.” He updated the castle and also converted the nearby hunting lodge into a turreted manor house now known as the New Castle.

Raleigh was a swashbuckling adventurer, sea captain, soldier, explorer, and courtier. He stood six feet tall, with a full beard, dark black hair, and a sword always at the ready. Queen Elizabeth found him dashing and gallant with his quick wit and demeanour, and flirted, teased, and toyed with him for over ten years. Raleigh in turn was fascinated with Elizabeth. Using a ring she gave him, he once etched in a window pane at court the words “Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.” The queen noticed this and famously responded, to complete the couplet, “If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.” Raleigh publicly referred to the queen as a “chaste moon goddess.”

Raleigh was given the right to colonize North America on behalf of the Crown and attempted two settlements on Roanoke Island, naming the newfound territory “Virginia” in honour of his queen. His daring exploits complemented his colonization attempts, including a bold raid on Cádiz, Spain, where he was wounded. He competed with Sir Francis Drake for being the most gallant figure of the Elizabethan era, but Drake was more single-minded and successful in his endeavours, concentrating on plunder, adventure, and exploration. Raleigh got involved in everything — politics, plunder, colonization, tobacco cultivation, poetry, and social climbing. In modern parlance, he “overextended himself.”

In 1596, Raleigh composed his poem “The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd,” in playful response to Christopher Marlowe's “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” The first stanza is well known to high school students:

If all the world and love were young,

And truth on every shepherd's tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move

To live with thee and be thy love.

Alas, Raleigh may have worshipped Queen Elizabeth as a “chaste moon goddess,” but he compromised himself by secretly marrying one of his queen's maids of honour, Bess Throckmorton, with whom he fathered a child — not necessarily in that order. Elizabeth was furious when she discovered the secret marriage, and threw both Raleigh and Bess into the Tower of London. She relented after a few months and allowed the couple to return to Sherborne Castle, but upon her death, Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time by King James
I
, who believed Raleigh had been involved in a plot to depose him. Here the gallant knight languished for thirteen years. Finally, in 1616, the king offered Raleigh a chance to redeem himself by sailing to search for his famous El Dorado in South America. But the aged adventurer failed to find any gold for the royal coffers, and in the process offended the king by plundering a Spanish outpost, riling up Spain when the king could ill afford another war. To both appease the Spanish and remove a thorn in his side, the king had Raleigh beheaded in 1618.

ON THE GROUNDS OVERLOOKING
a tranquil lake, I sit on Raleigh's Seat, a stone bench where the old courtier used to smoke his pipe with his newly minted Virginia tobacco, contemplating the peaceful setting. It was while he was sitting on this very seat one day that a passing servant unfamiliar with pipe smoke threw the entire contents of his water pitcher over Sir Walter's head, thinking his master's beard was on fire. Raleigh took his dousing with good humour. In the castle museum, one can view a pipe he was given by a Virginia tribe. The ghost of Raleigh has often been seen walking about the grounds, dressed in Elizabethan court attire. The ghost strolls about through the trees until reaching this seat, whereupon he mournfully stares across his grounds. He is seen most fre-quently around the anniversary of his death, on September 29 of each year.

Karl is anxious to move on, and so we leave Raleigh's ghost behind at his favourite bench and turn southward. The rain has ceased. Birdsong bursts forth as we dance down the pavement of Sherborne's Half Moon Street by the railway station. Then it's over the busy
A
352 and through muddy fields, with a kissing gate and a group of ponies to greet us on the other side. The sun is peeking through an oyster-shell sky as we enter Honeycombe Wood. Bulbarrow Hill is seen on the distant skyline, some eleven miles to the southeast. Crossing a ditch, Karl slips on the narrow plank and retwists the same ankle that is already sprained. Too late do I read the
Guide
's caution that “between two stiles is a deep ditch bridged by single sleeper, which may sometimes be concealed by dense undergrowth.”