West Country Adventure, 16 July

We were very near the West Somerset Railway 

and I couldn't help but hope we would be able to spare some time to go on it. I didn't think it would be possible, but nevertheless sent the Swan Whisperer to pick up a leaflet when he went for his walk last night.

Imagine, then, my joy when the leaflet suggested that, if you were starting your journey at Washford Station,

you should probably park at Cleeve Abbey, which was only 10 minutes walk away. And as it was to visit Cleeve that we had come to that part of Somerset....

We worked out that we could take the first train to Washford, and would have just over 90 minutes there before the train back. There is a path to the Abbey that is signposted - the direct way is too dangerous on a very busy road with no pavement - and it took us 13 minutes to get there - there was quite a steep downhill so we agreed to allow a little more time to get back.

I had the EJO Society's leaflet about the place (it those to whom that means nothing, I should explain that the novelist Elsie J Oxenham wrote a series of novels set in and around a former Cistercian Abbey, based on Cleeve but transplanted, for the books, to the Buckinghamshire /Oxfordshire borders) and we spent a very happy 45 minutes or so wandering round looking at things.

We could have allowed ourselves another 5 minutes, in the end, as we had plenty of time at the station, but it would have been such a nuisance if we'd missed the train! 

However, we didn't, and arrived back at Blue Anchor on a preserved Diesel in good time to get as far as Bridgwater, where we parked up in an Aldi car park and had lunch.

Then on to Wells, and the cathedral  there, immortalised as Torminster in Elizabeth Gouge's City of Bells. I had been there before, many years ago, but had forgotten the scissor arches, which make it seem to scowl!

The Quire is nice, though,

and there is a beautiful window. 

When we had had enough, we went next door to the Bishop's Palace

where I wanted to see the bell that the swans ring when they want fed. It was there, but the string pulled up so they couldn't!

By this stage, I was gagging for a cup of tea, so we had one in the café there, and then walked back to the car park via the market square. I wondered which one had been Jocelyn's bookshop - perhaps where Waterstones is now?

And so on down to this campsite near Ilminster, where we remain for the last two nights of our holiday!