Holidays are good for you

While the rest of the parish was going mad cleaning and polishing and getting everything ready for the Bishop's Visitation, I took a week off to go down to Somerset. I didn't have what you might call the best weather, but then, you can't have everything - not in this life! It was, however, a relaxing and interesting stay. I was staying at the Ship Inn at Porlock, where Southey wrote a sonnet while he was bored because a rainstorm kept him from continuing his journey!

I was very far from being bored and found that the rain kept off for long enough to walk to Culbone and back, along the cliff path - quite tiring when you're out of condition - but at the end of it is what claims to be the smallest parish church in England, at some 35 feet in length, and dedicated to St Beuno. It is in fact only accessible by footpath but it's a lovely little place and in a beautiful setting. It's difficult to be sure of its age, but I would think that parts of the fabric may go back even to the 11th century.

Even older wonders may be seen in this part of the country. At Tarr Steps, on the Barle Water (they don't have Rivers down here, but Waters) is an ancient stone bridge which some would date to the 10th century, but others even to prehistoric times. You can see why bridges were needed for these streams most of which are extremely fast-flowing and violent waters not easily to be crossed by fords. The country is wild. Its roads are extreme by English standards with even the main roads having precipices, hair pin bends and frequent gradients of 1 in 4 (25%)

Here we see Tarr Steps - however old it is. In the next post we may find we have a couple of pictures taken on Exmoor itself. We'll see what happens, but this will have to do for today. As I already mentioned we have the Bishop's Visitation of our parish this weekend, so it is inevitably a busy time - not because he demands it, but because the rest of him have what I consider a natural desire for him to see the parish at its best.

In the calendar, of course, today has been the Feast of the Visitation. If I believed in omens and suchlike fooleries, I would probably say that was a good sign!