First off… Happy Birthday to my favorite set of twins and closest of friends, Kyle and Kevin Larson. Secondly, I just realized that due to Britain’s moist climate, bread molds much quicker. The loaf I bought last week is now a fresh specimen of penicillin… oh well.

Finally, what an amazing day. We took a field trip to Winchester in the South of England. Winchester, just like St. Albans has a lengthy, rich history, starting off as a Roman settlement but going through its paces eventually ending up in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex, the most powerful realm in England and later the capital of all England for several generations.

Like last week Winchester has a Cathedral at the center of its town and the reason Winchester became such a powerful city is because the Bishop of Winchester, for generations was the guardian of the Royal Treasure Chests. Winchester was the Fort Knox of medieval England. Several Kings had their coronations at Winchester Cathedral which is the longest Medieval Building in the World (although the world’s longest nave is in St Alban’s). In fact, legend has it that King Arthur and Camelot existed in the region, and in the great hall of Winchester, hoisted on a wall is the fabled Round Table of King Arthur.

The Round Table is enormous, probably close to thirty feet in diameter, and although we can tell that its not actually from any time period close to Arthur, but it does date back to around the 12^th century which is still pretty impressive. In the 16^th Century Henry VIII had it repainted to impress the visiting Holy Roman Emperor Charles I. He painted a large two colored Rose in the middle representing the two Houses of the Tudor dynasty that fought to war of the Roses over control of the Crown, and he had his own face painted onto Arthur’s body. However, its still an impressive sight.

The Cathedral which would’ve taken up a whole quarter of the town , has some amazing facets to it as well. For example, several of its Bishops started Colleges at Oxford, including Corpus Christi, New College, and Magdalen College. Cardinal Beaufort, who presided over Joan of Arch’s “trial” and execution, is buried at the Cathedral. And Thomas Wolsey who was chief Minister under Henry VIII started Christ Church at Oxford.

The Cathedral is also home to a unique set of six boxes containing the bones of the early Anglo-Saxon Kings. While most Kings after Edward the Confessor were buried in the Abbey he had constructed in Westminster in London, before Edward, many of the ancient Anglo-Saxon Kings (before 1066) have the bones at Winchester Cathedral. In some pictures you may see a large stained glass window that has no discernable pattern. This is because during the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell’s troops smashed the window. A dedicated church member painstakingly collected all the bits of glass and hid them away, then after it had passed remade the windows, but it was impossible to recompile the images, so the glass is the original glass from the 12^th century.

In the basement of the Cathedral is a Crypt, and the Normans who built the Cathedral were so anxious to get it up that they did little work surveying the land, thus they built it over a bog and river bed. As a result for the past 900 years the Crypt fills with water during the winter thaw, this was a continuous cycle until modern technology allowed pumps to be installed to keep it dry. As a result, no one has ever been buried in the Crypt. Although this has persevered it in its original design, and in the middle of the crypt stands a statue that was designed to be in water up to its knees, looking at his own reflection… pretty sweet. This had another effect on the structure, in the far south east corner of the Cathedral the bog and marsh has led to a sinking of the foundation, just like what has occurred to the leaning tower of Pisa. As a result the SE corner is leaning, in fact, to a greater degree than the tower of Pisa. The problem took a man five years in pitch black bog water, without any light, taking out rotten wooden support beams and replacing them with bags of concrete, in Scuba gear. He now has a statue in that corner, praising him as the protector of the Cathedral.

Winchester was such an important sight that Norman the Conqueror built a Castle here after his successful invasion of England to become King in 1066. Making Winchester his town. Its also where Jane Austen died and is buried in the Cathedral.

Due to all these many facets of English life going on in Winchester, and that it has been a place of historic Kings, including Arthur and Norman the Conqueror. Winchester became one of two towns that Hitler gave specific orders not to bomb during WWII. The other, interestingly enough was Oxford. Hitler planned on leveling London and as a result, was going to require some capital cities to help regulate life in England. One would be Oxford, in the center of England, and the Winchester would be the other, in the south near the cost. The other reason Hitler didn’t want Winchester bombed was because it was the town of the last successful man to invade Britain, William the Conqueror.

Due to the writing of papers, this has been a more lonely week. I spent a lot of my time in quiet libraries and in my room writing. I’ve been keeping busy with work, which I suppose is better than just sitting around. But its been tough being away from friends, both back in the colonies and even here in England. I had a frustrating day yesterday with class. In my history seminar we spent 2 hours discussing the philosophy of History, and I tried to explain my position on issues over and over again, and I’ve always felt like a competent communicator, but I just couldn’t get my ideas across to my professor, but at the end of it, he repeated my philosophy to the class. It was frustrating because I wanted to say, “That’s exactly what I was saying!” So it was comforting to feel vindicated in my thoughts, but I felt foolish for not being able to communicate it, and to his and everyone else’s eyes, I didn’t.

So today was a special time. Nice to get away from all the work and see some sights and refresh friendships, get some good pictures. Relax, in the middle of the day I just sat under a tree, read Mark, ate lunch, and took a nap… cheers.