At Stoke Abbott they'd just had the Street Fair which not all the inhabitants regard with unmixed delight as, one local told me, 'the main road is closed off and strangers come and traipse through your garden'. Someone decided it would be appropriate to 'bless' the spring-fed water-trough in the village centre as some souls believe it's a holy well, which it isn't. No official of any religious tradition, Christian, pagan or otherwise, took part, but I found bunches of flowers floating in the water which is apparently what 'blessing a well' means.
Of course I took in a trip to St Catherine's Chapel at Abbotsbury, toiled up the hill - now yellow with lack of rain - and sang the office hymn to the blessed Martyr. Sweat ran off me. The doves - many fewer than last year - watched me quizzically and a group of tourists waited outside until I'd finished! The votive deposit remains, including, this time, a prayer headed 'Dearest St Catherine'. There was another for a daughter about to have a baby - also Catherine.
The iconic Colmer's Hill, which dominates the landscape around Bridport, stood out beyond Symondsbury village.
The most beautiful manor house in the county, Waddon House, looks simply amazing against the impossible blue sky.
Mum decided she wanted to go to Sturminster Newton today, a place neither of us has visited for years. The Museum is closed at the moment, but the roof is being thatched:
The parish church boasts some very good stained glass including this somewhat odd effort by the great Harry Clarke. I was gratified that I recognised it as one of his! Apparently nobody knows why he (a Roman Catholic) was given the commission:
In the much more standard window showing the Crucifixion, the artist - a Mr Webb - has signed the design not with a signature but with a rebus:
At first Mum was disappointed by "Stur'" which she remembered as a bustling market town where her own dad, my Grandad, used to attend the cattle fair (that was probably in the 1950s), but although there is a closed bank and pub along the main street which look a bit forlorn, it still has a greengrocer, butcher, hardware store, library, Post Office, a big Co-Op, and a flourishing farmers' market on a Saturday, as well as the now-ubiquitous small clothing, trinket and what-have-you shops, so this is probably all a small town now needs. On Tuesday I'd driven through Beaminster, and remembered a LiberFaciorum conversation with my Goth friend Archangel Janet who, along with her partner, has moved to Glastonbury and who finds the conservative attitudes she's encountering there rather trying: I was surprised as I always thought Glastonbury would be a pretty liberal place considering the people who are attracted there (like her). Beaminster's economy now seems to rely on organic food shops, beauty salons, alternative therapists and, of course, cafés. I even saw a Black Person. How the world changes.
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