From Mordor to Old Wardour

One of the best things about being a mum is re-experiencing the things you loved via your child. My son is currently reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy whilst I drive. He keeps finding sections that he loves and explaining them to me: did everyone love the Balrog and Treebird the Ent best, or is it just us?
Today we went to Shaftesbury in northern Dorset. I haven't been to that town since I was a kid and really loved going there: particularly to see the beautiful Gold Hill which (somewhat frighteningly) was the scene of the famous Hovis advert in 1975. How can it have been so long ago?








I remember going to Gold Hill as a child on a wet day and being terrified of the precipitous drop. Today it didn't seem anywhere as frightening with dry cobbles and the sun in the sky.
We had lunch in a gorgeous little cafe called King Alfred's Kitchen which had lovely food and excessively low ceilings




In the afternoon we popped into the best little museum I've been into in a long time: the Gold Hill Museum. It's a typical little social history museum but has a brilliant idea of giving kids a rucksack of little tasks to do in each room.
In room 1 we had to predict which modern articles would and wouldn't rot, based on looking at the cases of the archaeology room.








In another room we looked at historic toys and my son got to play with a kaleidoscope and a Jacob's Ladder toy.
















The museum had loads of Dorset artefacts which I loved to see especially Dorset buttons which my aunt taught me to make as a kid




And the Shaftesbury Byzant which was a mad local tradition to thank the lord of the manor for the springs involving following a gold candelabra type thing called the Byzant and lots of feasting and drinking.




And, of course, no Dorset museum would be complete without a Hardy link: here the bell from the schoolhouse mentioned in Jude the Obscure.




Our final visit in Shaftesbury was to the Abbey founded by King Alfred in 888AD and led first as Abbess by his teenage daughter, Aethelgifu. It was here that the remains of Edward the Martyr were discovered. Unfortunately it was knocked down in the Reformation and all that remains is a beautiful garden. I particularly loved the names of the Abbesses.












Our final destination was Old Wardour Castle, a beautiful late medieval castle in Wiltshire.












All the way home my son read Lord of the Rings and we discussed which imaginary realms we'd like to go to: we both want to go to Lothlorien and Narnia. He fancies Mordor and I'd much rather go to Winterfell.
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