Category Archives: Travel

Balliol College ~ Oxford Colleges

On Friday September 23rd, 2022 after we took in the Natural Museum we headed across University Park to the River Cherwell and we found a bench dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien. The bench has seen better days and could use a sprucing up.

A few of our family are huge fans of Tolkien and his work.

We continued down the river path to a another path that led to South Parks Road and on to Parks Rd.

When we reached Broad we took a right to see if we could get into Balliol College.

Success! From the brochure we were handed we learned some interesting things about Balliol.

The current ‘Master’ of the college says, “Balliol is arguably the oldest college in Oxford, founded in 1263. It has stood on a single site (where you are now) longer than any other college in the English-speaking world. It has also over the centuries played a leading role in the intellectual life of the University and the public life of Britain and the wider world.”

 

This is the hallway that leads to the Chapel entrance.

A smaller chapel but one we could walk into and enjoy all the windows and other craftmanship.

An eagle lectern is a lectern made in the shape of an eagle on whose outstretched wings the Bible rests. Because it soars upward, the eagle is often used as symbol of Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension (lifting up) into Heaven. The eagle is also the symbol used to depict St John.

The eagle lectern was given to the College in about 1635 by Edward Wilson, a former Senior Fellow.

THE FLYING eagle is the symbol of John the Evangelist (see Revelation, ch 4, v 7) who proclaimed Christ as ‘the Word of God’ at the beginning of his Gospel. The flying eagle is thus a suitable emblem from which God’s word is read, reaching to the ends of the earth.

Oxford Day 6 099

The present chapel is the third on the site and was built in 1857. The architect was William Butterfield, who also designed Keble College. Keble is the college we visited after Balliol so that post is yet to come.

This is a link to another post on Balliol College when we visited in 2014.

I was fascinated to read that John Wycliffe, first translator of the Bible into English, was Master of Balliol in 1360. Later on this day we saw this sign.

When we lived in Huntington Beach from 1975-1984 we attended Huntington Beach EVFree church and shared the Wycliffe Bible Translators office space on Sundays for extra Sunday School rooms. We also shared the parking lot. They are no longer at that location in Huntington Beach.

Here’s some history about Wycliffe Bible Translators:

In 1917 a missionary named William Cameron Townsend went to Guatemala to sell Spanish Bibles. But he was shocked when many people couldn’t understand the books. They spoke Cakchiquel, a language without a Bible. Cam believed everyone should understand the Bible, so he started a linguistics school (the Summer Institute of Linguistics, known today as SIL) that trained people to do Bible translation. The work continued to grow, and in 1942 Cam officially founded Wycliffe Bible Translators.

Over the following decades, Wycliffe celebrated many milestones — from the first translation completed in 1951, all the way to the 500th translation completed in 2000. Around the same time, Wycliffe adopted a new challenge — a goal of seeing a Bible translation project started in every language still needing one by 2025.

Museum of Natural History ~ Oxford

On Friday September 23rd, 2022 we had breakfast at the hotel in Woodstock and then checked out and waited for a taxi to take us back to Oxford where we had reservations for our last night in England.

This was the lodge we stayed in on Banbury Road. Check in wasn’t until four so we had many hours to see what we could see after our taxi dropped us off. Thankfully we could leave our luggage at the lodge.

We found our way to Parks Rd. and made note of when it would be possible for us to get into the grounds of Keble College, not until the afternoon. Across from Keble College was the Museum of Natural History so we decided to take a peek.

I was drawn to the statues throughout the museum of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers. I only took photos of a few of them and probably missed the more famous.

In the main exhibition room of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (built 1854-60) are 18 statues of eminent scientists, philosophers and engineers and 10 busts of Oxford men of science that have made a significant contribution to the Museum, plus a portrait medallion of the architect of the building. The 19th statue is that of the founder, the Prince Consort, is placed more central in the hall.
The plan was that each pillar around the gallery would play host to a statue of one of the great scientists. The statues were paid for by private subscription however, and unfortunately only 19 full statues were completed. Many of these were presented by Queen Victoria. All but one of the statues is carved in Caen stone – a limestone from Normandy in France. Many of the sculptors were well-known Victorian artists.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz German mathematician and philosopher

Euclid ~sometimes called Euclid of Alexandria, Greek mathematician, often referred to as the ‘Father of Geometry

Joseph Priestly credited with the discovery of oxygen.

 

John Hunter ~ Scottish surgeon, one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day.

This bear was labelled from Washington State which made me smile and click a photo.

From the museum we walked across University Park to get to the River Cherwell and walk up the river path to make our way on the back roads to Broad Street.

Just a few more posts to finish off our travels from Oxfordshire in September of 2022.

Back to the Present: This is a busier week for us starting with a nice long doctor appointment and new instructions for Dear’s treatments. We had a little more snow overnight and our temperatures are still starting below freezing but managing to get up over freezing as the day progresses. My sister, Vera, is celebrating her birthday today. She’s a Leap Year baby so on the off years we celebrate her on the 28th. Happy Birthday dear sister!!

Blenheim Palace Park and Gardens

On Thursday September 22nd after a early morning walk on the Blenheim Palace grounds and lunch we returned for a self-guided tour of the courtyards of the palace, the water terraces, the Churchill Memorial Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Grand Cascades.

 

 

The Churchill Memorial garden needs some freshening up. It was interesting to walk the path that had engravings in the stone to mark different important dates in his lifetime.

1900 Member of Parliament, 1902 Edward VII Crowned, 1905 Under Secretary, 1908 Marries Clementine, 1910 Home Secretary, 1911 George V crowned, 1914 WWI Starts, 1918 WWI Ends, 1924 Chancellor of Exchequer, 1933 Marlborough Published, 1937 George VI Crowned, 1939 WWII Starts – First Lord of Admiralty, 1940 Prime Minister, 1945 WWII Ends – Election Defeat, 1951 Prime Minister, 1953 Elizabeth II Crowned – Knighthood – Nobel Prize, 1955 Resigns as Prime Minister, 1963 Made US Citizen, 1964 Leaves Parliament, 1965 Buried at Bladon.

The Rose Garden which is usually in it’s prime in late June, early July. We were here in September so way past it’s prime.

 

This patch is filled with the Jubilee Rose.

The Grade 1 Listed Rose Garden is contained within a circular walk, surrounded by blue cat mint and arched over by slender hoops supporting climbing white roses. At its centre is a fountain within a circular pool and surrounded by symmetrical beds; each filled with a variety of different roses.

Here’s a photo I found to show what it looks like in it’s prime.

The Grand Cascades September of 2022.

The Grand Cascades in April of 2004 on a trip to England with our daughter.

The brown section on the bottom right of the map is the village of Woodstock. The rest of the map shows the grounds of Blenheim Palace, over 500 acres. We walked the upper circular path to the Grand Cascade and back to the palace and then back to Woodstock. We should have used a pedometer on this trip to log the steps we ended up with! The Feathers Hotel in Woodstock is where we stayed for two nights. The marked yellow path is where we walked early in the morning to see the Harry Potter Tree. That was a separate post.

Back to the Present: We had a new covering of snow over the weekend and more is predicted for later today into tomorrow. It’s always fun to see some distinct paw prints in the snow (feral cat). On Sunday our church body had a time to grieve together over the passing of our dear church secretary of many years with our pastor sharing some great stories about her and their working relationship before our service. Today we have to head out early for Dear to meet his new Primary Care Doctor. Hope you all have a good week.

The Harry Potter Tree

Early in the morning of September 22nd we walked along the main road on the edge of Woodstock to an entrance to the Blenheim Park grounds. I marked the route we wanted to take with orange highlighter. When we entered through the gate we immediately saw the path closure signs because of the on going dredging taking place in the Queen Pool. We diverted to take the green highlighted way around the pool across the bridge and down to the ‘Harry Potter’ Tree which is on the shore of the Great Lake.

Standing on the bank of The Lake in a historic landscape below Blenheim Palace is a Cedar of Lebanon known as The Harry Potter Tree for its role in the 2007 film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Perhaps the Harry Potter Tree should more accurately be called The Severus Snape Tree, for the scene filmed here was centred around Professor Snape’s memories of a time when, as a student at Hogwarts, he was bullied by Harry Potter’s father while sitting under the tree. The scene is important, for it gives us an understanding of why Snape is so hostile towards Harry.

To counter a common misunderstanding, the Harry Potter Tree at Blenheim is not the Whomping Willow! The tree used for the Whomping Willow in the films stood on the National Trust’s Ashridge Estate in Hertfordshire. And, just to confuse things further, it was not a willow at all, but a yew.

The Harry Potter Tree was probably planted during ‘Capability Brown’s’ landscape work on Blenheim Park. Over the years 1763-1774 Brown carried out extensive work at Blenheim, transforming the Palace grounds into a picturesque landscape garden on a vast scale, with sinuous waterways and viewpoints created by carefully planted clumps of trees.

The Column of Victory.

This column was built in 1727-30 by Lord Herbert, later ninth Earl of Pembroke. It is based on designs by Nicholas Hawksmoor. His designs were based on the pillar in the Piazza Navona, Rome. It was built to commemorate the Duke of Marlborough’s military successes.

We walked back to Woodstock and had some lunch at The King’s Arms before we ventured back to the Palace Grounds for our tour of the outer courts of Blenheim Palace and some of the grounds.

Later in the day while walking on the opposite shore of the Great Lake we saw the tree in the distance. Zooming in you can see others visiting the tree.

Back to the Present: This week ended with sorrow for us and our whole church family as our beloved church secretary died suddenly on Thursday evening. She was a dear friend to us here in Colville and she will leave a hole that will be hard to fill. She is with her Savior sooner than she expected but she was eagerly waiting for His return so she got an advanced calling Home. I rejoice for her but I will really miss her on this earth and I grieve, too.

Blenheim Palace

On Thursday the 22nd of September we bought tickets at 1:15 in the afternoon for our look at the Palace and gardens. We did not purchase the tour of the interior of the Palace. In 2004 we toured the Palace with our daughter. Earlier on this day we walked to an unadvertised entrance to the grounds that is always open to try to walk on a path around the Queen Pool to get to the Harry Potter Tree but the path was closed because the pool and lake were being dredged to remove silt. More on our morning adventure in another post. After the morning walk which was a long one we went back to our hotel and freshened up. We returned to the King’s Arms for lunch and then walked back to the Palace for our self-guided tour.

Blenheim Palace, near Oxford, stands in a romantic park created by the famous landscape gardener ‘Capability’ Brown. It was presented by the English nation to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, in recognition of his victory in 1704 over French and Bavarian troops. Built between 1705 and 1722 and characterized by an eclectic style and a return to national roots, it is a perfect example of an 18th-century princely dwelling.

Blenheim Palace is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the only non-royal, non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace.

 

Blenheim Palace was always one of Churchill’s favourite places. He spent much of his time as a child there, both before he went to school and during school holidays. His parents were often away, busy with their political and social lives, and his grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, often looked after him and his brother, Jack, allowing them to play in the Palace and its Great Park.

If you are interested in more history of this beautiful palace and it’s grounds there are many sites on the internet for that information. I’ll have a couple more posts featuring our walk to the Harry Potter Tree and the gardens.

Back to the Present: Today is Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday. I’m making pancakes for our main meal with a side of eggs and Kielbasa. Heading to the market to pick up some buttermilk for buttermilk pancakes. Celebrating with our British friends. Cheers!

Breakfast at the Feathers Hotel

Breakfast was included with our stay at the Feathers Hotel September 21st-23rd. We enjoyed some nice options they gave us.

‘Soft’ boiled eggs and Soldiers. A soldier is a thin strip of toasted bread, reminiscent of a soldier on parade. The shape lends itself to dipping into a soft-boiled egg that has had the top removed. Sadly my eggs were far from soft boiled.

On our second morning at breakfast I went for a Benedict. While on the subject of food we had another nice meal at The King’s Arms on Thursday of our stay in Woodstock.

Back to the Present: We are plugging away at February. Dear and I have a 30 minute walking routine through our home most mornings. I follow him with music on nice and loud to encourage us along our route. He commented one morning that we must look like the pirates on the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ride at Disneyland. That gave us a chuckle. If you’ve been on that ride you might get the correct picture idea in your head. We are looking forward to being able to walk the Rotary trail again as soon as the worst of winter is over.

Happy Presidents Day to those of you who live in the U.S. of A. and Happy Family Day for our Canadian friends!

Tea for Two at The Feathers

 

After some time walking about the town of Woodstock we were able to check into our room and get freshened up for our High Tea reservations in the hotel dining room.

 

 

Earl Grey was my choice for tea.

After our tea we took a leisurely stroll to get a glimpse of Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill.

We walked to the end of High Street where these gates to enter the Palace grounds were. Happy to see a side gate open for us to get onto the property.

The end of a long day of walking we headed back to the hotel for the evening.

On Thursday September 22nd we planned to visit Blenheim Palace outer grounds more thoroughly and pay to enter the Palace grounds, too.

The Kneelers ~ Woodstock

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to walk through the older churches and cathedrals. This is the easiest when traveling in England because there are so many and they seem to be more readily open to visitors. One of the things that has stood out when walking through are beautifully stitched kneelers. At St Mary Magdalene in Woodstock there are over 200 kneelers! That is the most I’ve seen anywhere in my travels and visits to churches.

The brochure I picked up in the church about the kneelers was photographed so I could share the information easier for my record here. I was going to make collages of the kneelers that caught my eye but after reading about all the work involved in creating one of them it seemed to me they were worthy of being presented singly.

Here is the church tower kneeler, the Winston Churchill and one I think might be part of the Blenheim Connection

The following give honor to the Lord, the Bible and Prayer.

Then we move on to more community minded themes…

 

And from the state where Dear and I were born and raised. We were surprised when we spotted the California Kneeler.

 

That’s just a small sampling of the kneelers during our visit on Wednesday September 21st, 2022.

Do you enjoy needlework?

Back to the Present: On Sunday we enjoyed our Sunday services and made a stop on the way home to buy some Deli Salads to go with the 2 racks of ribs we put in the oven. The ribs were pre-seasoned from Costco and turned out fall off the bone delicious. We watched the first half of the Super Bowl game and then hit the record button. Since 2 racks of ribs are more than we could eat, we dropped a rack off at our Colville kids for their dinner before we headed to our Evening service at church. Back at home after church we watched the last 10 seconds of the game and saw that the Kansas Chiefs won. Congratulations to them. I’ve got to say that I really didn’t understand half of the commercials and we didn’t watch the half time show. We got a text with photos of our Grands enjoyed the ribs!

Ribs enjoyed in two households for the win!

St. Mary Magdalene Church ~ Woodstock

Much history of the church and of the photos I’m sharing can be found here.

The church was built during the reign of Henry II (1154-1189) as a chapel of ease so that local people, including members of the royal court, did not have to travel to the parish church at nearby Bladon to worship.

Later in the 13th century the church was enlarged and a bell tower and burial ground were added.

The only parts of that original chapel of ease to survive are a section on the south nave wall and a beautifully carved round-headed 12th-century doorway set into the south wall. The doorway is carved with two orders of traditional Norman zig-zag pattern separated by moulding. Unusually, the zig-zag carving extends all the way to the ground.

The above photo is of that ancient door from the outside and below from the inside.

Separating the church porch from the nave is a wooden screen, carved in the early 16th century. The screen was originally installed in the traditional place between the nave and chancel, but was moved to the west end of the nave in 1999 to make the high altar more easily visible.

This flying eagle lectern is like several others I’ve seen in churches in Great Britain. I think they are so cool.

The superb column capitals on the south nave arcade are one of the church’s best features. There are 23 carved heads incorporated into the design of the capitals, interspersed with foliage.

Each capital is different and the heads are all unique.

All of the stained glass is Victorian.

The angels at the top have banners that read: Let us love one another ~ For love is of God.

Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.

Over 200 kneelers are in this church of which I photographed quite a few. That will be another post.

Inching along to complete posts about our last few days in Oxfordshire in September of 2022.

Back to the present here in the U. S. of A. Yesterday, Friday February 10th, we traveled to Spokane to do some shopping at places we do not have here in Colville. After our stops at Home Depot, T.J.Maxx, Costco, Hobby Lobby, and Trader Joe’s we tried a new to us Chinese Restaurant called the Red Dragon. We had the best Hot and Sour soup and some good potstickers. After we ate we made one more stop at Fred Meyer before we headed home.

Happy Saturday to you.

Woodstock

On Wednesday morning September 21st, 2022 we checked out of our apartment in Oxford.

We had a taxi booked to drive us to Woodstock which was under ten miles from our location. We decided on a taxi instead of the buses that run regularly from Oxford to Woodstock because we didn’t want to shlep our luggage to a bus stop and onto the bus.

Goodbye Oxford, hello Woodstock.

Since our checkout was at 10am we arrived in Woodstock before our check in time of 4pm.

We booked 2 nights at the Feathers Hotel. We left our luggage at the hotel and took a stroll around the small town.

Woodstock Town Hall, a beautiful Grade II listed building which was built in 1766 and is now a major landmark in the town.

We were looking for a good spot to have a lite lunch during our stroll around the town.

The War Memorial next to the church. “To The Memory of The Fallen 1914-1918 1939-1945”.  War Memorials are easy to find in most villages, towns, and cities. There are over 68,000 war memorials in the UK.

We would return to the church after lunch since it was occupied for a service when we walked by.

We found a cozy spot at the Back Lane for a refreshment but they weren’t serving lunch until noon. We would be seeing a lot of Winston Churchill in Woodstock.

THIS STONE WAS RAISED BY THE PEOPLE OF WOODSTOCK TO CELEBRATE THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM.

There were many tributes to the late Queen around town. (Remember we were in England during the mourning period for the Queen)

 

The Kings Arms looked welcoming for our lunch spot.

We enjoyed their lunch special beef sandwich and chips.

After our nice lunch we walked back to St. Mary Magdalene Church to see if it was possible to get a look inside. It was open and we were welcomed in.  We were still early for our hotel check-in time.

It’s a challenge to get the old brain back to Oxfordshire to remember some details of our last few days there. As challenging as it is the posts will be good to look back on.

Back to the present: We have a relatively quiet week and our temps have been above freezing so there is a lot of melting happening. Plants are emerging that have been covered in snow since November.

Quotes of the weekend:

“Sin is always a big deal.” ~ Dennis Wilkening

“If you want to be a wise person, you need a Bible.” ~ Alistair Begg

Have a good week everyone! If you need a Bible, I could send you one. 🙂