Riassunto
Riassunto di Wanderings in Wessex
A chi è rivolto
This book will delight armchair travellers, country walkers, lovers of churches and castles, and readers of Thomas Hardy who want to stand where his fictional towns come from, or anyone who enjoys English history told through places.
Che cos’è questo libro
Wanderings in Wessex is a guide to the old kingdom of Alfred, written by Edric Holmes in the years just after the Great War. It is part travel book, part history lesson and part church tour. The author takes you from the Itchen at Winchester to the Otter in Devon, and he treats every town, ruin and village church as a clue to the long story of southern England.
Holmes is a companion who walks, looks closely and has opinions. He tells you where a king was crowned, where a castle was blown apart and where a saint's bones were carried off. He mocks careless restoration, admires good stonework and repeats local legends, from a giant cut into the chalk to a hill full of sleeping knights. A short note on building styles at the start helps you tell Norman arches from Perpendicular windows. Real places, real families and real battles fill every page.
In this summary you will hear the whole route in a series of stops. We follow the shape of the kingdom, its old capital, the forest and harbour country, the heaths and cliffs of Dorset, the Devon coast, the towns of Somerset and Wiltshire, and the great stones of the Plain. Kings, rebels, poets and smugglers meet you on the way. Let us begin with a simple question: what exactly was Wessex?
In questo riassunto
- 1Wessex is Alfred's realm, drawn by settlersFree
- 2Winchester is the ancient capital of England
- 3Hampshire's rivers and forest hide quiet treasures
- 4Dorset's harbour and Purbeck mix crime, castles and cliffs
- 5Dorchester and Hardy's country rest on deep history
- 6The west Dorset coast joins bays, stone and legend
- 7East Devon and the Somerset border run to the Otter
- 8Salisbury and Stonehenge crown the chalk heartland
- 9The road ends where Wessex began, at Winchester
Punto chiave 1 di 9
Wessex is Alfred's realm, drawn by settlers
Holmes opens by claiming that Wessex, the realm of Alfred, shaped the England that came after it. Of all the old divisions of the country, he calls it the most interesting and perhaps the most beautiful. Yet the word is slippery. Early Wessex was small, but by the end of the ninth century the kingdom held most of southern England, including Essex, Kent and the South Saxons.
In Alfred's youth, he explains, its borders roughly matched Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Dorset, with stretches of Somerset and east Devon. Its true heart was the fertile valley from the Solent to Winchester. Two related peoples settled there. The Jutes took the Isle of Wight and the nearby coast, while the West Saxons pushed inland and soon won the loyalty of those who had come first.
The author thinks the settlers treated the older population gently, perhaps because the Britons, abandoned by Rome, offered little resistance. One exception is Badbury Hill in 520, where Britons held Cerdic back for a while, led according to legend by Arthur. Dorchester fell soon after the Saxon victory at Deorham in 577. By the end of that century the dark-haired older people were a conquered and dependent population.
Because the region is so loosely defined, Holmes draws his own map. The southern edge runs along the coast from the Meon, east of Southampton Water, to the mouth of the Otter in Devon. The northern edge is the great chalk ridge from Inkpen Beacon to Hackpen Hill. Bath, Wells, Glastonbury and Oxford are lovely, he admits, but they lie outside his book.
He also tells you what to expect inside those borders. There are the bare chalk downs of Salisbury Plain, the steep hills around the Vale of Blackmore and, above all, the Dorset coast with its cliffs and bays. Two sights matter most to him, Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge, made in very different ages for very different reasons. His last claim is that nobody knows England without loving the village church on the back road.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Wanderings in Wessex
What is Wanderings in Wessex about?
It is a guide to the old kingdom of Wessex, walking from Winchester to the Otter in Devon. Edric Holmes describes towns, churches, castles, battles and legends, using each place to tell part of the history of southern England.
Which area does Wessex cover in this book?
Holmes sets his boundary on the coast from the Meon, east of Southampton Water, to the mouth of the Otter. The northern edge is the chalk ridge from Inkpen Beacon to Hackpen Hill, taking in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and parts of Somerset, Devon and Berkshire.
When was Wanderings in Wessex written?
Holmes wrote it just after the Great War. He mentions wartime camps, memorials and events of the summer of 1921, and he describes railways, motor roads and restoration work as they stood in those years.
Does the book connect to Thomas Hardy's novels?
Yes. Holmes names the real places behind Hardy's settings, such as Dorchester as Casterbridge, Bere Regis as Kingsbere, Puddletown as Weatherbury and Salisbury as Melchester, so Hardy readers can follow the novels across the map.
Is Wanderings in Wessex easy to read?
The book is plain and friendly. It moves place by place in short passages, opens with a simple guide to building styles, and mixes dates with lively anecdotes, so you can read a chapter at a time or dip into one town.