Wanderung 21

Lands Ho! Scotland, England, Shetland, Iceland, Newfoundland

August - September 2009

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009: Hastings Battlefield

The distance from Portsmouth to Hythe where Monika had reserved a hotel for the next three nights was fairly short, maybe 120-150 miles tops, and I therefore anticipated maybe 2-3 hours of driving interspersed with a stop at Hastings to see that historic battle field. But when making these plans back in the U.S., we had not really recognized exactly how slow and demanding the driving on rural roads in England can be. Rather than having 50% city roads at 30 miles per hour plus 50% country roads at 50-60 miles an hour, the mix really was 90% city roads at an average speed of 20 miles per hour and 10% country roads at an average speed of about 40-50 miles per hour. So I ended up actually driving 3-4 hours to get to Hastings and another 3-4 hours to get from Hastings to Hythe, which was far, far longer than I had planned.

Given the usual delays in getting everyone up and eating breakfast, we didn't hit the road for the drive to Hastings until 10:30 or so. The difficulty of the driving was enhanced a bit as Lois, who was sitting right behind me, insisted on rolling down her window so I had road noise coming directly into my right ear, a rather distracting phenomena. Phyllis, who sat in the rear to my left, kept her window rolled up but at unpredictable intervals would ask questions about my driving or give me sage advice on how to handle traffic situations based on her driving stint in Ireland 15 or 20 years ago. Those hassle factors were added to the usual joys of whipping around the traffic circles searching wildly for the correct exit and creeping around the blind curves and hills of the narrow country roads while being tailgated, usually by impatient local folks driving tall, wide delivery vans. Predictably, I was once again totally exhausted by the end of the day.

But we did stop in the middle of the day to tour Hastings battlefield, museum, and battlefield abbey. That way we saw a critical piece of English history, and the stop had the additional advantage of giving my frazzled nerves a chance to calm down. After parking the car we entered the historic area through the old town hall building that has been converted to serve as an entrance and gift shop.

Since it was noon by the time we arrived, we all settled down for a bite to eat in the cafe located in the one modern building in the complex, just on top of a small exhibit area that showed examples of English and Norman weapons, armor, and so forth.


 

Lois and Phyllis decided, wisely I think, to take the short version of the walking tour while Monika and I took the longer path that circled the battlefield. That allowed us to view the battlefield from all sides and try to see the events as they unfolded from both the point of view of the Normans and the point of view of the English.

We first walked around the lower part of the battlefield where the Normans had massed for their attacks on the English shield wall located at the top of the hill. The audio guide we carried with us, which I highly recommend by the way, explained about William the Bastard of Normandy and Harold, King of England, in a thoroughly engaging way as we tramped around the field. The Normans had calvary which the English did not, but the calvary could not easily penetrate the shield wall. The Normans resorted to staging fake retreats to encourage the English to break out of the shield wall where they could be cut down by the calvary, but it still took them all day long to wear down the defenders.

Coming back up the hill we met Lois and Phyllis while we took a view of the battlefield from the English point of view. The English shield wall was purely defensive, but I had not known that Harold had reinforcements on the way and might jolly well have won if he had just been able to hold out until nightfall. In any event, he was killed during the tail end of the day, at which point the shield wall seems to have disintegrated, ensuring a Norman victory.

We also toured the ruins of the Battlefield Abbey established by William the Conqueror to celebrate his victory over Harold. We saw the spot where Harold was supposed to have been slain, which became the high altar of the abbey. Somehow, I couldn't see much difference between dancing on Harold's grave and William having priests celebrating masses for his own forgiveness on it. I also could not see how England benefited from the replacement of the Anglo-Saxon style of government with the oppressive hereditary royalty that they suffered under for the next several centuries. Certainly from the point of view of the common man, I suspect, the foreign overlords and their successors were no better than their previous rulers and quite possibly worse.

We wandered amidst the ruins of Battlefield Abbey before returning to the car park via the gift shop. I found the graceful arches and quiet interior of the ground floor of the old monks' dormitory, which was mostly intact, to be very pretty. On our way out we all paused to purchase some mementoes of our visit.


 

Given the driving conditions, we didn't arrive at the Stade Court Hotel in Hythe until well after 6:00 p.m. The sun was getting low in the sky and although I was exhausted I was profoundly grateful that I didn't have to drive strange streets in a strange town in a foreign country on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car in the dark. Monika filled out the paperwork for our room and we just carried our rucksacks upstairs to our room on the 3rd floor where we had our usual simple meal while I tried to relax from the driving. Lois and Phyllis used the tiny elevator to get their suitcases up to the 4th floor and then had dinner in the restaurant downstairs.


 

Copyright 2010 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Map of Scotland Map of England Map of Rest of Lands Epilog

August 2009
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2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
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30 31
September 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
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