The wonder of wander

I just returned from a couple of weeks of “target travel” in the UK. What that means to my wife and me is that we wandered around the countries with purpose. Nothing profound, really, but with a slightly off-the-beaten-path sense of direction for each day. 

In England and Wales we directed our rental car through narrow, hedge-lined backroads to locate some ancient or unusual trees. They were almost always found on the grounds of churches that were many hundreds to a thousand years old; and we almost always visited with no one else around, save a relative who might be tending to an old grave in the surrounding cemetery or a groundskeeper who was pleased to provide us some history and local knowledge. 

For example, we located a yew that has stood for more than 1,000 years outside the doors of St. Bartholomew Church in Much Marcle, England. It has a hollow trunk that is 31 feet in circumference, and there’s a bench which invites visitors to rest and reflect within its shelter.  We found a yew that is argued to be England’s oldest – up to 4,000 years old – in the church yard of St. Mary’s Parish in Linton. A huge taproot has grown within its hollow trunk which might assure another millennium or two of life for this venerable specimen.

In Wales we located “The Bleeding Yews of Nevern,” a collection of seven 750-year-old yews which actually secrete a red sap (which we observed) when wounded or cut, according to the friendly caretaker of St. Brynach Church near the coast along the Cardigan Sea.   And then we found Wales’ oldest tree — some websites rank it as the third oldest tree in the world – the 4,000- to 5,000-year-old yew in the cemetery of St. Digain’s Church in Llangernyw in county Conway on the north shore of Wales. 

In Northern Ireland we had very different targets. We walked through the streets of Derry and Belfast in search of political murals as we struggled to grasp the complicated history – ancient and recent – of “The Troubles,” a label that really understates centuries of extreme violence surrounding the status of Northern Ireland. The huge public paintings assure that events I only heard about on my side of the Atlantic are bored deeply into Northern Ireland’s memory. 

Like the deaths of 14 unarmed men and boys at the hands of British military in Derry on “Bloody Sunday” in 1972, followed swiftly by nine deaths across Belfast due to IRA bombs. And the deaths of ten IRA members during their hunger strike at a prison near Belfast during 1981. And the IRA’s “Good Friday Bombing” that killed 29 people and unborn twins in Omagh in 1998. 

Our final destination was London where there’s little need to carry a printed map or use GPS because, on almost every block, two maps are posted to show walkers where they are standing and what they could find within the radius of 5 and 15-minute walks. Our targets were most of the popular historical sights of London as well as some of its public squares – like Gordon Square, Russell Square, busy but intimate Soho Square with its massive shade trees, Tavistock Square with tributes to its former neighbors, Virginia Wolf and Charles Dickens, and grand Trafalgar Square with its military monuments and fountains.

The targets guided our wandering, goaded our wondering, and left ample opportunity for wrong turns and screw-ups, as well as the occasional serendipity.

JER

Many stories have been passed down over the centuries about “The Devils Pulpit” which has grown out of the rock above the River Wye which separates England from Wales at Tintern Abbey.