A Day Out in Wells & Glastonbury

While Tom Hardy has been winning rave reviews for his portrayal of Batman’s nemesis Bane this week, I have been spending time with his nineteenth century namesake, reading The Return of the Native. It is not one of Hardy's most famous novels, but engrossing nonetheless, and full of his usual motifs of country life and beliefs, fate, sexual politics and the questioning of accepted morals and values. Hardy's novels, set in the semi-fictional area of Wessex (comprising Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and parts of the surrounding areas) are some of my favourite indulgence reading. When I have a break from academic reading, there's nothing I enjoy more than a little bucolic drama. Maybe it's because the West Country has been my home for many years now that I love Hardy so much, or maybe it's Hardy that makes me so drawn to the West. Either way, it felt particularly fitting that the day after I finished The Return of the Native we headed off into the Somerset countryside for  one of my favourite day trips, to Wells and Glastonbury.

The day started at Wells, the smallest city in the UK, where we admired the beautiful Cathedral, home to the oldest working clock still in its original setting, which shows not only the time but the phase of the moon. We also visited Vicars Close, where part of Harry Potter was filmed (most of our trips involve some small location of Harry Potter).

Vicar's Close, with the Cathedral in the background

We then hit the market, and tried to sample as much free cheese as possible. Taking the anthropologists' view of culture, cheddar and cider are just as important to West Country culture as arts and architecture, perhaps more so as they are so integral to the identity that the region presents to the rest of the world (or maybe I'm just greedy and love cheese!). I was also very happy to see the Wells town crier busy entertaining the crowds, as I had not seen one in real life before.

Moving on to Glastonbury, we had told the students that it is a wonderfully alternative town and we weren't disappointed. Our welcome to Glastonbury was a thunderous performance from the Pentecostal Drummers, combining the locals' loves of music, paganism and beards.

Following the recommendation from my classmate Rod on my literary tourism post a few months ago, I had to check out The Speaking Tree bookshop.

This being Glastonbury, the shop was of course bursting with books on all kinds of alternative subjects, from drugs and psychedelia to witchcraft and 'the Goddess'.

Fellow student helper Christie in The Speaking Tree

Part of the wicca section

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this giant mural on the High Street either. I recognise the artist, but can't remember who it is. One for my dad's expertise I think! EDIT: As I suspected, Dad recognised the artist as Stik.

The main attraction of our trip to Glastonbury though was of course the Tor. It is a mile's walk up a very steep hill, but worth it for the spectacular views and the feeling of being completely surrounded by countryside. Although Egdon Heath, the setting for The Return of the Native is much further south, near Weymouth, I still felt like Eustacia Vye roaming the countryside so imbued with pagan significance (the Tor was believed to be the entrance to the underworld by the Celts, and this importance lives on today in pagan communities).

While Eustacia hated her rural home and couldn't wait to get out to a 'greater' life in the city (preferably Paris), I loved getting away from civilisation and out into the endless green of the Somerset countryside. If you get a chance, I highly recommend climbing up to the Tor and feeling like you've travelled back to a time when nature still ruled over industry.