Day 6 - Our first day in the UK

Day 6, July 9, 2013:

Today we went into St Albans, a local town made up of parks, narrow streets, shops, homes and a stunning cathedral.  St. Albans is old, really old!  The Celts settled here first, and then the Romans built the city of Verulamium which was the second largest city in Roman Britain after Londinium along the river Ver.  After the Roman withdrawal, the town was called Verlamchester or Wæclingacaester by the Angles.  The mediaeval town grew up on the hill to the east of this around the Benedictine foundations of St. Albans Abbey.  This is the spot where St. Alban (the first Christian martyr) was beheaded some time before AD 324. The story has it that he a roman citizen harbored a Christian monk who was hiding from the Romans and converted to Christianity.  As Christianity was illegal, when confronted by the soldiers, St. Alban refused to betray the monk and he took his place for trial and refused to renounce his new faith in one god.  He was tried for being a Christian and beheaded on the hill overlooking the river.  The first executioner refused to do the job so a replacement was found.  The second executioner completed the beheading only to have St. Albans head roll down the hill into a well (Holy-well Hill, a major street running into St. Albans) and his eyeballs fall out of his head! (or so they say....)  St. Albans became the principal abbey in England and the first draft of the Magna Carta was drawn up there (upon which all British laws are based).  St. Albans Cathedral became the parish church in 1553 when it was bought by the local people and made a cathedral in 1877.  There has been a succession of abbeys on the site before the current building which was started in 1077 – almost a thousand years ago!

 

Pauline graciously acted as our tour guide today and ferried us all in to St. Albans.  We strolled through the narrow medieval streets, shopping and gawking.  This was the first stop over site on the main road to London and thus has a number of Tudor buildings, pubs and inns.  We stopped at the 15^th century clock tower which was used to sound the curfew until 1863 (it was closed) then on to the Cathedral proper.  What a magnificent building which represents many eras of construction and addition.  There are stunning carvings, century old frescos, wood carvings and a huge organ.  Unfortunately the boys stomachs would not allow us to linger so it was off to lunch at the “Two Fighting Cocks” which claims to be the oldest continuously operating inn/pub in England.  Apparently the foundations contain some workings from the 800’s but the building itself is Tudor with ceilings just over 2 meters high (we had to stoop under the beams).

After a great lunch in the garden in stunning sunshine we returned to our wanderings.  The boys went off to the local playground where they had outdoor workout equipment to work up a bit of a sweat while Mary Rose, Pauline and I trucked on over to the roman ruins that are in the middle of the park.  The park sits on top of a fairly extensive roman town; most of which is buried and will likely stay that way.  There is however a beautiful mosaic floor from a wealthy townhouse that has been unearthed and preserved in situ.  They were in the process of filming a BBC show on holy places so we got chased out but only after a good long look.  Well we wrapped up the day with a bit of shopping, then back to ‘Glen Iris’ – our digs for a proper outdoor grill, lots of wine and blessed sleep.  Tomorrow it is an early start as we are Paris bound!