Conclusion – Why I did the Walk

The life and works of Bede, and the Jarrow March are two events separated by 1200 years, but I've always
been fascinated by how with them, this little town of Jarrow stands on 'both edges of England'. At one side, it has a foot firmly in the origin of this country, whilst its other stands equally strong not only in where that idea led, as the first industrial country, but also the 'flip-side' of that industry: the poverty, unemployment, and the social questions raised by things like that.

Instead of being two, isolated 'stories', Bede and the March are two incredibly significant events in two movements which take up huge chunks of all English History: - One, the Anglo-Saxon period, which gave us the birth of scholasticism, the language, culture and art etc.. and, Secondly, the Industrial revolution, from which we got ideas of pre-eminence over nature, mass production, the British Empire and the period which ended with the Second World War. When you see it that way, there aren't really many centuries in English history that are exempt from the spheres of influence in which Jarrow's two events play influential roles.

The walk showed me the history of many places, but very few - especially those of comparable size – possess the 'breadth' of history that Jarrow has. As historian Michael Wood said in his book 'In Search of England' a few years back: 'As an historical landscape, Jarrow takes some beating – to say the least, it holds a special place in the story of England.'

But how can these two events mean anything of relevance, in today's world which is 'post industrial''post-religious' and post-everything except 'now'? Well...I think that Jarrow's 'two big moments' are often viewed in the same way that people today are accustomed to think of the two places where the walk started - St Peter's, Wearmouth, and St Paul's, Jarrow: as two separate churches, in two different towns, on two separate rivers, which support two oppositional football teams. But, as we know, when built, Bede called them 'One monastery in two places.' - there was no sense of separation; the gap between them was what unified them. It made them something bigger: not just two monasteries alone, but something larger than the sum of the two.

That's how I'd like the March, and Bede, to be viewed today. With both pulling each end of the same rope, Jarrow becomes a concept which - as the industry for history, culture and heritage becomes more pivotal in issues of economy, prosperity and simple awareness – can catapult the town out of its reputation as a poor, typically-downtrodden town, to something uniquely placed to ask broad, comprehensive questions of cultural identity.

As the Vikings took away too much from Bede's Monastery in the 8th Century, and then William, and later, those who thoughtlessly demolished the rest of the buildings just 200 years ago, too much of Jarrow's industrial history was taken away between the late 1950s and the 1970s, to be replaced with constructions such as Jarrow Arndale/Viking/Shopping Centre, and Jarrow Flyover. In the 'then and now' tradition of Lavendon, just look at these photos, to see what's been lost from this town's landscape in just the last few decades:

1200 years separate these two destructive actions, but both were done because the word 'heritage' wasn't respected, of if it was, was considered in its narrowest possible sense.

The breadth of Jarrow's history signifies to everyone just how 'big' the word 'Heritage' is. I hope that gaining World Heritage Status will enable people from all over the world to learn that fact, and to learn it here, where English learning began.

Going Home

After I'd put my fingers on the Jarrow Stone, we hung around a little longer. In all, around 15 people turned up to meet me. There was a service, and talk that there should be some permanent connection set-up between Jarrow and Guildford to commemorate the Surrey Fund, which both towns have forgotten more than they should have.

This is a pile of walk flyers on the entry table:



..and this is me with Frances Dawson, whom I'd first met during my second visit to the cathedral, in 2007, and with whom I'd liaised to gain most of my info regarding the stone in the two years between:

Then, I was overcome with an overpowering urge to just be quiet, and sit down. I was invited to a meal, but I just wanted to get the bag back to Kirsten's, and lie on a sofa. I couldn't think of anything to say, and I just wanted there to be no more hassle, or if there was - like carting all my stuff through people, and getting trains - I wanted it over as soon as possible. Kirsten and I left Kate, Bill and Jenny to have the meal, and went back to the station:

I couldn't even think what route I needed, so Kirsten made all the important decisions regarding getting back to Richmond. It was a nightmare journey, of two hours, in rush-hour people, with a 25 minute wait at Clapham Junction stuck in the middle. We got a taxi from Richmond station to Kirst's house.

I hung around Richmond for another three days, doing not much, except for being shown around All saint's Church in Kingston: the spot where seven late Anglo-Saxon kings had been crowned:

This harks back to a time after the golden age of Northumbria, when the emphasis in England shifted down to the south, and the dominance of Wessex, Alfred the Great, and the growth of the capital of the East Saxons, London, etc.. This led onto Edward the Confessor, who set up Westminster Abbey. With the Battle of Hastings, the emphasis of the entire island shifted from having been East/West, (Germanic, English Anglo-Saxons against the British Romanised Celts) to North/ South (Anglo-SAxons against the Norman French). The Norman French won, and that's the history most of us know best today - one of 'The North/South Divide'. This misses out the Ango-Saxon period -from about 500AD to 1066, calls it the 'Dark Ages', and leaves the impression that those 566ish years were just 'preamble', and that the North has never been anything other than a backwater.

Then, I caught a Megabus to Bristol, to visit my mates Allan and Gail, and their three-year old daughter, Evie, who live just south of the city, in Congresbury. That was just what I needed; I took some photos in the churchyard there:

....and the four of us took a day trip to Glastonbury. This was on top of the Tor, the 9th time I've been up there:

There were some cows trying to stop us getting up:

..but we made it. This is Allan and Evie getting back down:

We went to the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, which had been the richest abbey in England until Henry VIII dissolved it - a process which saw its last abbot, Richard Whiting, hung, drawn and quartered on the Tor, with his head being stuck over the abbey gatehouse. This is what it looked like before the dissolution:

..and this is what's left of it today:

In the abbey ground, we stopped by the site of the story I mentioned back in St Albans - the one about the lead cross, the grave of King Arthur, Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Jerusalem? This is the spot where the monks supposedly dug to find Arthur's grave, with Gail and Evie behind.

Later that day, we went to Wells:

It had been just a few weeks earlier, in a nursing home in Wells, that the last surviving British 'Tommy' soldier of the First World War, Harry Patch, had died, and with it, an entire page in English history, turned. I 'did' the battlefields of Ypres and the Somme five and six years ago, and I can say that a long walk around those areas, and the Western Front in general, is the only walk I can think of which is more historically resonant that the one I've just finished.

Most people agree that Wells Cathedral is one of the greatest in the country. The west front has the best examples of intact medieval statues in the world, although, 'intact' is a big word..

But inside, it's fantastic:

I spent a day in Bristol, looking at more recent history, such as the SS Great Britain:

..and the Clifton Suspension Bridge:

..both of which are the work of the man who was a few years ago voted the '2nd Greatest Briton of all time.' - Isambard Kingdon Brunel, whose name is so common in Bristol, it's almost like he's watching you wherever you go:

I took a lot of buses around:

..and on my final day, I went over to Bath, to see my cousins, who live in Winsley, just a few miles west of the city. Bath is a World Heritage Site, just like we all hope Wearmouth/Jarrow will be one day. It's famous for its Roman ruins, Jane Austen and Georgian Architecture:

..as well as its abbey:

...which has this very original sculpture of angels climbing a ladder on its front:

Then I went up to the Royal Cresent, and the Circus:

..which is covered in strange Freemasonic symbols, like these:

Bath has the greatest concentration of this type of 'golden stone' Georgian architecture in the country, but many people are surprised to find out which city has the second-greatest: Newcastle. Ok, it may have been built about 60 years later, but as we've just seen with the Grainger Towns improvements, Newcastle centre scrubs up very well. It's a shame a lot of people just think of it as a place to come and get up to the type of 'antics' they wouldn't do in their home towns.

I ended my tour of Bath in one of my favourite pubs in the country: The Crystal Palace:

Then, it was off to Winsley, for a great catch-up evening with my cousin, Heather:

her husband, Richard

..and my second-cousins, Victoria, and Dan:

Then it was back to Jarrow..

After a ten-hour Megabus journey via Victoria (which only cost £20!), I found myself waiting for the metro at Newcastle Central Station, then here, Heworth, late the following night:

Fifteen minutes later, I was 'Back ti canny auld Jarraa'

..just across the platform from Vince Rea's sculpture of the March, so too far away to see the grafitti over it:

Tuesday the 1st of September - To Guildford

I got up really early this morning, knowing that after three easy days, this was one final, long leg. It was imperative that we got there 'at around 3ish' - so Kirsten and I left before 7, passing Kingston town Centre before anyone was really up:



We walked along Portsmouth Road, and soon, entered the final county of the walk:



Here, we saw the first sign for my destination:



In Esher, we walked past this Estate Agents, which is very well-established down here, but which made me snigger nevertheless:



At Cobham, we got a very precise road map, which led us straight over this river:



Because of the map, we managed to make the best of the day by walking on very narrow country lanes. As ever, I can't really recall what order I saw the next sites, but soon we went past this wonderful old road sign:



..over the M25, again. Goodbye London:



..this pink house, somewhere in the maze of tiny lanes and big hedges:



..and, perfectly, the final ISSR of the walk (next to two, sensibly-modelled by Kirsten):



The rest of the walk took us on and on through more country lanes. The map led us through - we would have never reached Guildford by this route without it. We crossed over the A3/ Portsmouth Road, and I had my final stroke of luck of the walk, when a path appeared next to what I'd thought was going to end up being another stretch of grass verges by a dual carriageway. At the end, after this sign:



..the sliproad took us up:



...and at the top, I had my first view of the cathedral:



Then it was into the suburbs, passing this:



Just outside town, was this old tree, straight out of the Bede school of venerability:



A bit further up the road were these defences, set up to stop tanks during the Second World War, and very wisely, kept in situ afterwards. Who needs some out-of-place bit of contemporary public art stuck in a town, when most towns have so many stories already in them?


But just after those, we reached the High Street, and were early, so we went straight to the pub. A bad one, so we left, and went to another, better one closer to the river:


Then, it was time to head for the cathedral. It's such a massive building, on a high hill just outside town, that its presence was felt at every turn through the streets:



The ground became higher, and very soon, we found ourselves just under it:



Then, we cut through the bushes, and were on the approach..just as Kate, Bill and Jenny turned up in the car! It was perfect timing - exact to within 10 seconds. While they drove up the approach, I hung around to 'take in' where I'd walked to:





If you think you recognise this area, it was the place used in the first Omen film, in that scene where Damien's in the car, and goes crazy on Lee Remmick and Gregory Peck, when he realises he's heading towards a church. I think that was a great choice of location, because there's something extremely powerful about the architecture of Guildford:



..many people dislike it, and think it looks like a power station, but...that's the point. It speaks really truthfully of the years it was constructed -between the 1930 and 50s, at the high point of Modernism - and when Modernism was still progressive (before it started building things like Jarrow shopping Centre and flyover -see the concluding entry of this blog). I like it more than the other cathedral to which it's sometimes compared -Coventry. Anyway, even if people are justified in disliking it, a lot of them revise their vitriol when they see inside:



This is just an incredible space - it's like it takes all of the Gothic buildings from the preceding 800 years, and scrubs them down, getting rid of the colour, statues, and any other embelishments, to just show you the essential details of the style. It's rampantly Modern on the outside, and very modernly respectful of the past on the inside, which I like.

Meanwhile, back on the walk..this is Bill, Kate and Jenny parking:



As it had been when I'd left Bede's World, three and a half week's earlier, the rest of the time in the cathedral was a whirl. There was a photographer there, who'd been employed by Sunderland Council to capture the moment, and he did -for 25 minutes, then another one, from the Guildford newspaper, who was a lot quicker. This is the first one, who had a penchant for dropping into impressions of Sean Connery, at the entrance with Kate, Bill and Jenny:

Within a few minutes, we walked down the north wall of the nave, to this little spot,





And that was the end of the Walk.