Houston, we have a problem

April 4, 2018--Sycamore Gap Hadrian's Wall

News from the U.K. reports a maddening and hateful act of vandalism.  The Sycamore Gap Tree (in a protected World Heritage site) was deliberately felled overnight, September 13th or early 14th.  Two suspects have been arrested for the act--one a 16-year old and one a man (so-called) in his 60s who should've known better.  The investigation is ongoing.

The Sycamore Gap Tree (informally called Robin Hood Tree after its cameo in the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves staring Kevin Costner) was sent smashing into and over the top of the 1,900 year old Hadrian's Wall.  Damage to the wall too is inexplicable.  Hadrian's Wall is a world class archeological site, one that is visited daily by people from the world over.  The wall once marked the edge of Rome's Empire.  As to social development, it was instrumental in the evolution of both England and Scotland. 

Barbarians from without are not so reckless as those from within, it seems.  One could wax philosophically upon the senseless assault upon the symbolic life of Northumberia that the sycamore represented.  But words would change nothing.  And besides, we are daily besieged by similar cultural attacks and wanton environmental destruction replicated (or mutated) worldwide nowadays.  

April 4, 2018--Sycamore Gap Hadrian's Wall

That is certainly so in America.  No longer are we confined to mere spray painted graffiti and tagging.  We are hurtling toward a Taliban-like thuggery by malcontents through which extreme nazification is metamorphosing before our very eyes.  A transition from juvenile delinquency into full grown hate mongers who repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to mass slaughter, all for no real grievances at all beyond their own madness. 

April 4, 2018--an "interesting" weather day on our Hadrian's hike

Their only apparent goal is to rid this world of any life, any joy, any kindness or compassion whatsoever.  What a wretched empty existence they salivate after!  Crazed by demons themselves, and condemned to their own self-inflicted emptiness, the road they take certainly cannot be mistaken as one leading to the Promised Land; nor does such brutish vandalism lead to salvation.  Far from it.

April 4, 2018--Hadrian's Wall

We endure the cultural wreckage wrought by value sets such as the fundamentalist Taliban who destroyed the significant Salsal and Shahmama Buddhist sculptures in 1991 as being un-Islamic.  But this is not limited to one religion.  The Taliban are little different than were the iconoclasts who defaced ancient Christian monuments during Cromwell's day.  Senseless degradation has been taken up by such practices as "rolling coal" where diesels are deliberately converted (despite federal and state laws banning the practice) to create black smoke screens of unburnt fuel that dangerously clouds and obscures the roads (so called "Prius repellent") to say nothing of everyone else breathing the stuff.  Senseless, considering the price of fuel lately.      

April 4, 2018--Sycamore Gap Tree

On it goes.  Normally, rational beings analyze their actions or at least measure whether their return is worth their effort.  What return could there possibly be in walking over a mile off the B6318 road that traverses Hadrian's Wall, traipse across wet moorland that has been sectioned by barb wire while carrying a long bar chainsaw in the middle of the night...just to cut this 300 year old world renowned landmark down?

The only evident return from this act was to feed cruelty.  As if our world had need for any more.  

We are beyond what is called schadenfreude, the human psychological deformity that was metastasized by the Nazis, all the way from Blockleiter to Reichsinspekteur.  We again return to the realm of vicious sadism, a Reich that should've stayed buried 80 years ago.  We are in serious trouble as a society, as a civilization.  Infested by demons that cultivate cruelty, they feed like gluttons upon suffering.

The debris field is expanding.  Houston, we have a problem.

Architect of Faith or Devil's Architect?

April 1, 2023--Berwick's Elizabethan Walls

It is an oddity that Berwick-upon-Tweed's ancient architectural sites are seldom much heralded by travel guides.  Most tourists to Northumberland's northeast view Berwick more as an afterthought; something to see should time permit.  

Typically, they aim for the region's premier draw--the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, a tidal island lying about 13 miles south of Berwick on the North Sea coast.  A tidal island is part of the attraction.  

We too have explored tidal islands on earlier trips:  Davaar Island on Good Friday 2019 [https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2019/06/ficklness.html]; the Holms of Ire Easter 2022 [https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2022/10/solvitur-ambulando-it-is-solved-by.html]; Brough of Birsay off Orkney Easter 2022.  So yes, we are familiar with the allure of tidal islands.

April 1, 2023--Gun emplacements Berwick Walls

Dismissing Berwick as a destination in its own right is misguided.  For one thing, Lindisfarne is by any measure exceedingly over crowded.  Its 1000 acres (+/- 1.5 square miles at high tide) is crammed by over 650,000 visitors each year.  As for crowd behavior, it's nearly frenetic because day trippers only have about two hours on each side of low tide to crush onto the tidal island, check their boxes off and hustle back across the causeway to the mainland before the tide stands them.  The tide table is a crowd multiplier.  It concentrates Lindisfarne's average 2000 daily visitors into roughly four or five hours around low tide.  Those who elect to stay overnight, probably have a better go at visiting Lindisfarne less harried at high tide.  But accommodations, restaurants and pubs on Lindisfarne usually book full.

April 1, 2023--Berwick like Newcastle a city of bridges

Such crowds are never enjoyable.  Having already been to Iona, the Celtic christian mother church which founded Lindisfarne and christianity in the Kingdom of Northumbria [See: https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2019/03/euphemisms.html], we traded crowded Lindisfarne for a day-walk through Berwick on an intermittently light drizzly Saturday, April 1, our first day of exploration for 2023.

April 1, 2023--path along Elizabethan walls and forts, Berwick

Berwick Museum and Art Gallery's season opening day happened to be April 1, 2023, the same day we walked our circuits of Berwick's mighty Elizabethan walls.  Berwick Museum is housed in the Clock Block at Berwick Barracks.  These barracks (often referred to as Ravensdowne Barracks after the street end where it is located) are incorporated into the city's defensive works.  Our first foray to the barracks was along the walls path above and east of it.  The barracks has no access facing the path.  

April 1, 2023--Berwick Barracks from the Elizabethan Walls path

Later that morning, our second foray to the barracks was more purposeful.  We aimed for the museum, walking from Woolmarket up Ravensdowne to its tee intersection at Holy Trinity Church (Anglican) and Parade road. The museum entrance is just east of the intersection, through a wrought iron gate emblazoned by "The King's Own Scottish Borderers" coat of arms.  The royal regiment being stationed at Berwick from 1881 through the 1960s, after which the barracks were turned over for civic use...like the museum. 

April 1, 2023--gate to Berwick Barracks

The barracks alone are worth the visit but two museums are contained in them--a military museum of the Scottish Borderers and the Berwick Museum and Art Gallery.  Berwick Barracks was the first purpose built barracks in Britain since Roman times.   Designed by the famous architect Nicholas Hawksmoor (c. 1661-1736), construction began in 1717 in response to Jacobite risings.  The barracks were completed in 1721.  

Hawksmoor, a protégé of architect Sir Christopher Wren, would go on to be a leading English architect.  Considered England's finest Baroque architect, among the prolific Hawksmoor's designs are:  the towers of Westminster, All Soul's College in Oxford, Blenheim Castle, Old Royal Naval College, and a number of landmark churches like Christ Church Spitalfields in London. 

April 1, 2023--Berwick from a gun revetment 

Hawksmoor's church building began under Queen Anne in 1711, when the "Act for the building of fifty new churches" was enacted.  The alleged raison d'être of this Act was to serve London's burgeoning population growth--or rather the Anglican ones.  Conveniently, it also served to check increasing numbers of Catholics as well as Dissenters (Nonconformists opposed to state interference in religion).  

The 50 church building program was to be funded by a duty on coal imported into London.  Parliament already successfully levied a coal tax in 1670 for rebuilding St. Paul's Cathedral and the churches destroyed in the Great London Fire (September 1666).  But by 1718, the new 50 church coal levy was siphoned into general government revenues...a practice with which we are also unfortunately familiar.  

Without the set aside, interest waned especially as construction costs rose.  The project was pulled.  Of the 50 churches authorized, only 12 would end up being built.  Today, these are known as "Queen Anne Churches".   Of these, Hawksmoor designed and built six.  And he worked with John James, another architect, on the design of two more.  The "Queen Anne" churches are considered Hawksmoor's finest works.

April 1, 2023--swans on River Tweed at Berwick

 

Hawksmoor's architectural genius for "manipulating volume and mass" suffered under reputational attacks. His moniker is either "Architect of Faith" or it's "Devil's Architect" depending upon how much one's views are shaped by propaganda.  Hawksmoor was fascinated with mythology, the mysteries of Egypt, and something called "sacred geometry".  This led to phantasmagoric claims by his detractors, such as the geographic locations of his churches supposedly align somehow in an occult message.  Bermuda Triangle and all that.

We too are familiar with this sort of thing today.  Rumors of such and such (usually without evidence)  leads 100% to this or that conspiracy.  In any case, Berwick Barracks was well worth visiting.  The crowd must have been elsewhere, as we had the place almost to ourselves.  When we walked up to its gate, a staffer was just setting out a sandwich board noting they were open for the season.  And so it began. 

 

 

Situational awareness--no Punching Judy's

On "Landing Friday" March 31, 2023 we cleared customs at Glasgow International quickly, as usual.  Exiting the terminal, we hopped aboard the 500 Express ("purple bus") which literally waits just outside the main doors under a covered street.  Off we dashed to Queen Street Station for Edinburgh Waverley, where we had a transfer from Scotrail to LNER (London North East Rail) for Berwick-upon-Tweed on the North Sea, our first destination.

April 1, 2023--Berwick-upon-Tweed

Glasgow's airport express runs about every ten minutes...they're quick.  So unless one is seriously cramped on connection time, there's little need to throw elbows to board it.  The next one works. Of course penciling a bit of cushion time is smart; still, one can't be too lackadaisical.  After all, the layover for the LNER at Edinburgh Waverley was 35 minutes.  So, that's the "controlling" timetable cushion.  How it's used is key.

Typically, we use Scotrail's "anytime-of-day" ticket.  Purchased online before going over, the price is basically the same.  "Anytime" tickets are insurance against missing a specific train slot...and Scotrail normally doesn't refund.  Not to worry, then, with an "anytime" ticket on highly trafficked commuter rail routes.  

We weren't hellbent for leather to make connections in other words. Glasgow-Edinburgh Scotrail routes operate about every 15 minutes.  During busier times of day, some are only 9 minutes apart.  This means at least three Glasgow-Edinburgh commuters run within that 35 minute layover at Waverley Station.        

April 1, 2023--Gardens on the Tweed below Berwick Train Station

We anticipated boarding the airport express bus 10 minutes later than the one we actually took.  Clearing customs and putting a bit of determination in our steps through the terminal, managed to shave 10 minutes or so.  But this was only due to the bus stance porter holding the express bus door for us.  He didn't have to do that.  We were the last to board that bus run, which put us ahead of schedule at Queen Street.  The time shaved was enough to allow us to board a Queen Street-Edinburgh commuter 15 minutes earlier than our actual scheduled train.

April 1, 2023--Berwick Cockle Shop, a famous candy

That's also the beauty of an "anytime" ticket.  It's not just for those running on the late side of a schedule.  Being early to Queen Street with our "anytime-of-day" rail ticket, we decided that waiting in Edinburgh Waverley was no different than waiting at Queen Street.  So, we boarded the Edinburgh commuter sooner than was penciled.  Again though, Olympic high-hurdle races out of the airport are generally not required...not for busier Scotrail routes. 

April 1, 2023--No optical illusion, these ancient buttressed walls really are leaning

Glasgow-Edinburgh routes were not the issue--trains are plentiful.  The issue was Berwick's timetable.  The LNER from Edinburgh Waverley arrived at Berwick at ~6:15 p.m.  This early evening commuter sweeps up most Berwick workers who are returning home from Edinburgh for the day.  Afterwards, Berwick station enters a night schedule and trains space further apart--an hour and a half or more on late night trains.

April 1, 2023--Berwick-upon-Tweed

As for evening trains, cautiousness when on foot and under pack is wise.  For one thing, double check before stepping off curbs near rush hour.  Scotland's traffic runs counter to what American pedestrians are used to.  And you'd be surprised how programed in muscle memory we become.  Winston Churchill made a similar mistake on a visit to New York in the 1930s.  He stepped off the curb after looking the wrong way and was hit.  He ended up with a broken arm.  Similarly, I nearly got smacked in a crosswalk doing the same thing in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 2017.  So, situational awareness.  Avoid problems before they happen.  

April 1, 2023--Berwick

For that reason, we did not want to traverse the 8/10th mile walk from Berwick Station to our accommodations across an unfamiliar city at dusk, much less after dark, as would have been the case had we booked a later train to Berwick.  Even though you may have some cushion, give some thought to situational awareness.  Don't invite trouble by wandering under pack late evening.  Manage your scheduled connections.    

In our 2023 sojourn, we were (mostly) blessed with fair weather.  But that was not evident as we debarked at Berwick Station to begin our walk across town to our accommodations at Premier Inn on Sandgate.  We were welcomed to the North Sea coast under a light drizzle (or heavy mist).   

It was more damp than anything else, so we opted to stretch the legs, having more than enough daylight remaining.  The walk helped to orient us.  Truth be told, light drizzle or not, it was a treat to walk Berwick as the ancient city  metamorphosed from its work week to Friday night in front of the weekend.

Being at the end of a transatlantic flight and an equally long "Landing Friday" with train connections, the weather was not that bad.  Had it been, we would've taken a taxi (since a couple of them were queued at the station).  A fall back plan, so to speak.  But having sojourned to Scotland at Easter many times, a fail-safe taxi was not necessary.  "The weather's fine" to quote the Beatles.  Besides, we're no Punching Judy's.

April 1, 2023--River Tweed at Berwick--atop Meg's Mount (Elizabethan battery)