There ain't a cloud in sight
It's stopped rainin' everybody's in a play
And don't you know
It's a beautiful new day, hey hey
From time to time I'm going to start the daily blog with the tune that jumps into my head when I wake up to the new day.You must guess who the band or musician is. Did you get Monday's when you read it? Well, it was the Mama and the Papas. For today, the lyrics above were so apropos! You see, England sometimes has an unfair reputation for it raining all the time. A look at weather statistics, however, would show that the entire UK gets on average 133 days of rain or snow a year totalling 33.7 inches - when the snow is measured as rain (https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/United-Kingdom/average-yearly-precipitation.php), while Southern and Central Ontario get far more days of rain or snow (157 days on average totalling 38.3 inches) https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Canada/Ontario/precipitation-annual-average.php. I guess we Canadians see more snow and that'a perhaps why we believe that it rains all the time in England. However, I would rather walk in wet, milder temperatures than in cold, blowing snow.
So today, when the day dawned into a completely blue sky, there was no debate -- it was time to get out and go for a hike. Of course it helped that Ange had already been up before me working away and that we would be back from our walk around the time most people in Canada were just getting to work.The plan was to follow a walk that made its way out of Salisbury and went west along the Nadder River and then through some small villages and countryside south of the Nadder before making its way back across the river and into the village of Wilton.
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One of the villages, Netherhampton, had the most delightful pub (the Victoria and Albert), but even I felt it was too early for a pint (shock and dismay ripples through the readership), although once again the British humour emerged in the signage outside of the pub.
Closer to Wilton we came across an equestrian centre where I was able to meet one of the horses from the Budweiser commercial -- the one where the horses pull the beer wagon. They look so much bigger on TV.The village of Wilton has a history that dates back to the middle ages and is where one of the early English kings, Alfred the Great of Wessex, fought the Danish Saxons and his early success led him to support the creation of the Wilton Abbey. The name of the county, Wiltshire, is because Wilton had become the major town of the region. However, the construction of the cathedral at Salisbury and major transportation routes intersecting there eventually helped Salisbury overshadow Wiltshire so that the latter is now only a village.
Yet, Wilton has the most amazing Italianate church which we had to venture into. It is the Church of St. Mary and St. Nicholas and was built in the mid-1800s to replace another St. Mary church that had fallen into disrepair in the centre of the village. As you can see from the picture, it's not your traditional Church of England design, but when you walk inside you find many of the traditional features, most of which were recovered from other churches across England and Europe.
However, Wilton was also the home of English carpet making. When Henry VIII destroyed the abbey (no ruins remain), he gave the lands to a local Lord who built Wilton House and created a significant wool carpet weaving industry in the mid 1500s that grew to be the most significant carpet producing area in the UK. Carpets are still produced there today, but the major mill closed in 1995. Today, the buildings have been converted to shops and restaurants while maintaining the original outer facades.With Skype calls scheduled by Ange and me to Canada for mid-afternoon, we enjoyed a quick lunch and made our way back to our cottage in Salisbury. All in all, 16 kilometres and total sunshine. Who could ask for anything more? Wait a minute...that sounds like another song coming on!
Pint of the Day: Temperance Sessions Ale, One Mile End Brewery, Tottenham, London
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