Warkworth - A Very Thin Place

Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Warkworth, England, United Kingdom
As I said at the end of the previous entry, Pam, Janet, Michael, and I decided to spend the day in Warkworth. Warkworth is a charming little town with a population of approximately 1,400 about a ten minute bus ride from the cottage. Our original intention was to see the castle, and we did, but we also ended up doing much more. 

Digression back to the toilet paper saga. Just as we were leaving, the owner of the cottage brought the toilet paper that we had asked for on Sunday evening! She acted surprised that we had already bought some and suggested we take this new toilet paper with us when we leave. Just what we all wanted - something superfluous in our luggage as we were traveling home. We decided to just leave it there for the next tenants so maybe they wouldn't run out. Add this to not being ready for us, leaving us to fend for ourselves with the bus schedule when we checked in, and the rude treatment about using the Internet, and you can see why I say I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone else.

So, we arrived at the bus drop in Warkworth and immediately noticed an old church, St. Lawrence to be exact. St. Lawrence Church has been in existence for almost 1,300 years. The first record of it is in 737 AD when Northumbrian King Ceolwulf gave the church and surrounding village to the Lindisfarne Abbot. Unlike most surviving churches that have been rebuilt over the years, St. Lawrence is of almost completely Norman construction. We were drawn to St. Lawrence almost as if it was a magnet. Once we went in, we knew why. This church was one of the "thinnest" places I have ever experienced. There are many definitions of thin places, but to me a thin place is where one can feel the Divine as almost a tangible presence. Thin places can exist anywhere. They do not have to be in a church, but they can be. I was almost overpowered with that feeling in St. Lawrence. We didn't stay long because we were constrained by the bus schedule and had other things we wanted to do in town. Later, when we had an hour to wait for the bus and went to a pub for tea - coffee in my case - I wished I had taken the opportunity to go back. I will definitely revisit this church someday.  
















   
By this time, it was lunch time so we decided to eat before climbing the hill to the castle. We chose a little place called Topsey Turveys. It was a small cafe' with delicious food and great service, but the most fascinating thing about the place was the bathroom. I didn't take a picture because to get it, I would have had to stand in the hallway with the bathroom door open as the wait staff was going back and forth, which just seemed too weird to me. But visualize the commode seat and think Elvis Presley. Silver glitter and glam. I've never seen anything like it and doubt I ever will again unless I go back there.

Notice the flowers in the hanging baskets outside the cafe'. This is something you see all over the UK. The outsides of the buildings were all adorned with plants. It made the towns very charming. Another cool thing was that there are still working telephone booths. When was the last time you saw one of those? I kind of wished I had a reason to use one just to experience talking in a private space once again.  



















  
After lunch, we walked up the hill to the castle. There is some disagreement about when the original castle was built, but there is definite reference to it by 1157. The castle was part of the holdings of the Earl of Northumberland until 1922 when the 8th Earl, Alan Percy, gave custody of it to the Office of Works, which is responsible for the guardianship of ancient monuments.However, the Earl(s) retained the use of the private residence until 1987 when the entire castle came under the purview of the Office. I have seen many castles that have fallen into disrepair so that all you can do is walk around the ruins. This castle is still remarkably intact so that you can go inside and get an idea of what a real Medieval castle would have felt like. 

(Aside from learning what a real Medieval castle looked like inside, I also learned something about my camera that day. Apparently, two bars on the charge icon do not really mean anything since my battery ran out just as we got to the castle. Fortunately, I had my iPhone and could take pictures with it.)  



































 
 
Getting a feel for what a real castle was like inside was very cool. But even better than that was an encounter I had with a person I met while walking around inside. Just as I was getting ready to climb some very uneven, somewhat treacherous stone steps to the second level, I noticed a man helping an old lady down those same steps. I asked if I could assist them, and when I did, we struck up a conversation. The lady told me a very touching story. Fifty years ago, when she was a young woman, she worked in a candy factory boxing up candies to be shipped overseas. On a whim, she put her name and address in one of the boxes and requested that whoever found it to write her and let her know. A young woman about her same age from the US wrote her, and from that, they became penpals. They had been penpals for all of those fifty years but had never met - until just that spring when her pal traveled to the UK to meet her and spend time with her. She had tears in her eyes as she told the story of meeting her friend after all that time. I had tears in mine when she finished. She then thanked me for my help and went on her way. 

After spending hours at the castle, we walked down the hill back to town. Janet, Michael, and Pam wanted to see the river, which was right through a passageway next to the Topsey Turvey. I was pretty much done in by all the walking so I sat on a bench next to the cafe' to wait for them. While they were gone, I started talking to the owner of the restaurant, and she told me she was thinking of closing and retiring. We discussed retirement, and I told her that I was loving it! She said she was pretty sure that she would, too. 

As we were talking and right before Michael, Janet, and Pam returned from the river, the bus went by, which meant we had another hour to wait. We chose to do so in the Hermitage Inn, where we had tea, soda, and chips and talked about how much we liked the town of Warkworth and would like to come back to it someday. We also discussed our plans for the next day when we would visit Lindisfarne, the Holy Island.









 
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. One other cool thing about the day was that it was my birthday! 
 

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