In the footsteps of poets, the pawprints of dogs

It was a fine, sunny morning and a trip outside Bristol was well overdue, so we decided to try Poets Walk at Clevedon again, following our abortive visit there at New Year. After all, it wasn't a bank holiday, and it's still January, for heaven's sake, so there wouldn't be loads of people there. Except there were and once again Salthouse Fields Car Park was full, though this time we did find a parking space near the old Church of St Andrew's. 

As I mentioned before, I'm not convinced all these people meandering around Poets Walk can be actual poets. Maybe there should be a rule that when you phone to pay your car parking fee, you also have to upload your latest poem. It could then be subjected to Turnitin to make sure you haven't just submitted 'In Memoriam' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and if it then passes muster, you get to park there. Seems fair to me. 

That said, I think most of the visitors were up on the front rather than on the cliff walk as it wasn't too crowded at all. We walked up onto Church Hill and took in the views. The tide was a long way out and the offshore sand bar visible. 

Looking back to St Andrew's

Stinking iris in Salthouse Woods

We cut through the woods and up the coast path, past the Lookout. 

The celebrated views of the town were clearly visible through the bare branches of stunted cliff-top trees.

Cwtch had a run off the lead on Wain's Hill. She hadn't been there before and was really happy. It was harder for us because the last time we were there was just a week before our previous dog, Ted, died. He was so tough and resilient, we didn't even realise he was ill. I felt a real pang in my heart as we walked over the ancient hill fort. 

Back at the Church we paid our respects to the Sheela-na-gig (bottom right) and a very noisy crow on the tower (top left). I expressed dissatisfaction that cockcrow is a thing and crowcrow isn't, even though crowing is clearly associated with crows, what with them having secured the onomatopoeic name for themselves at least as long ago as the mid-13th century. The Northerner quite reasonably pointed out that cockcrow is primarily a time rather than a noise, and if our ancestors had ordered their day by crowcrow, they'd have got in a pickle. 

In the churchyard, Emma Amelia was quite clearly a beauty of Pre-Raphaelite distinction in her prime ... 

... and Hyacinth is in evidence too, despite it being on a windswept cliff. 

 

Looking back over the churchyard

 

Poets Walking

The summer holidays are almost over, and apart from two road trips to Nottingham to see my mother (and nothing else) (though she is quite enough), I haven't been anywhere at all. This is partially down to coronavirus and partly because there's been a lot to do close to home. So as yesterday dawned fair, the Northerner and I set aside a few hours for a trip to Clevedon, and a wander along Poets Walk, the historical background to which is here.

When something is actually called 'Poets ... ', I'd like to think that's who it's intended for. Back when poetry groups happened in real life, not just via email, I'd always feel a bit aggrieved when I got home from our poetry groups suitably early on a Friday (Poets Day) to find the parking space outside my house had been taken by someone who'd also Pissed Off Early because Tomorrow's Saturday but who probably hadn't written so much as a verse since they were in primary school. 

Obviously I don't really think Poets Walk should be reserved for poets, but it was busier yesterday than I'd seen it before, with all those other stay at homers.

By no means crowded but cliff paths aren't great for social distancing. 

We found a little more space for ourselves and Ted by walking along the edge of the iron-age hill fort on Wain's Hill, with its wonderful views down to Sand Point, Brean Down, Steep Holm and Flat Holm ... 

... before dropping back down to the path above Clevedon Pill, where my great-uncle Joe used to keep his flotilla of boats for hiring out to tourists a century ago. 

Then a quick visit to the World War II pillbox pimpling the face of the far older fortification. 

It's a good place for a look-out, across the estuary to Cardiff ... 

... and back up it.

Poor female blackbird

We wandered around the edge of the Glebe to visit the churchyard.

St Andrew's Church was closed ... 

... but we paid our respects to its resident sheela-na-gig, green man and chough corbels.

... before repairing to a bench to watch a rabbit foraging among the graves ... 

... and a massive car transporter make its way up the channel to Avonmouth.

We rejoined Poets Walk for a short distance ...

... before deviating to skirt Church Hill.

A last view of St Andrew's nestled between the two hills ...

... and an olfactory interrogation on Ted's part of the last two remaining 'Tennyson posts' that constitute the 'Darkened Heart' sculpture erected in 1994 with lines from In Memoriam.  

Then down the hill through the woods to the car park ...

... and home in time for a socially distanced cream tea with the IsamBards, courtesy of David and Alex. 


When shall we three meet again ... ? 

Clevedon Sojourn

The trouble with living within a relatively short drive of so many beautiful places is that everyone wants to travel there, particularly on weekends, particularly during the summer holidays. So yesterday we went to Clevedon instead.

The trouble with Clevedon is that it would very much like to be Eastbourne, but despite its best efforts, it just can't counteract the Channel's huge tidal rise and fall ... 

... the rockiness of the beach - at least until it gives way to quickmud ... 

... and a prevailing wind, the effects of which that no bandstand or flower beds can disguise.

I think it should revel in its bleakness. 

We walked up to the pier but decided not to go on as it was a bit too crowded for our Accompanying Border Collie.  Then we realised that the people thronging its decking were going on a boat trip. 

Not just any old boat either - it was the MV Balmoral stopping off on its way from Penarth to Bristol. 

After a drink at the Salthouse we walked around the cliff path to the churchyard of St Andrew's Church, passing the Look Out on the way. This is thought to have belonged to a local family, the Finzels, who were sugar-importers. It's said that they used the Look Out to spot their incoming trade ships.  Though I don't suppose they'd have been looking upriver too much. 

This path forms part of Poets Walk, so named for the town's connections with Coleridge, who stayed in a cottage in the town in 1795 while writing The Aeolian Harp, and some 40 years later Tennyson, whose friend Arthur Hallam, the subject of In Memoriam, is commemorated in the church, along with other members of his family.   

Still no guide books in the Church, despite a sign saying they cost £2. Maybe I just happen to go on the few occasions they've sold out of them.  You'd have thought they'd have made more out of such an illustrious literary connection, however.

Although St Andrew's clifftop churchyard is rather less atmospheric than St Mary's in Whitby or St Materiana's in Tintagel, it still has great views ...

... even if a woodpigeon perched on headstones is a bit less fitting than a corvid ... 

... no, wait, there's a magpie there on that cross, that'll do. 

There's some good 18th century skull and cherub action in the oldest part of the churchyard ...

Come hither mortal cast a eye
Then go thy way prepare to di
Read here thy doom for know thou muft
One day like me be turnd to dust

... including this one her- hang on a minute ... 

Well, I'm blowed - a Tutton. Which is ironic because when I was last in Clevedon and out of sorts, I drove all the way to Othery churchyard, looking (in vain) for the graves of my ancestral Tuttons. But just over the cliff there was one here all the time. I see you, John Tutton. 

I don't know if he is a relative, of course. He was born the same year as my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, George Tutton, although much shorter lived.  And there's evidence to suggest that my ancestors stayed in Othery for a generation or two after George, as his grandson, another George, seems to have been baptised in St Michael's in 1803. Yet by the end of that century, in 1895, my great grandmother, Fanny (nee Tutton) marries yeoman Tom Hill in Clevedon (although they are shortly to decamp to Bristol). Another of her many sisters is married to Joe Rich, landlord of the Royal Oak as well as running a number of pleasure boats for holiday-makers. At some point our Tuttons made the move from Othery to Clevedon. Was it to join relatives already living there?  

Back over Church Hill to Salthouse Park and it was sunny and Clevedon was suddenly beautiful after all.  

In fact, I loved it.