St Albans

Yesterday we took a day trip to the town of St Albans, which has a nice combination of Roman and medieval stuff (above is the cathedral seen through a Roman wall). It's about an hour-and-a-half drive east of Oxford, and we saw all the sights in about three hours so it made for a nice mini-trip. First a brief summary, then photos!

St Albans is a very old city: it was inhabited even before Roman times. When the Romans arrived in 43 AD, they named it Verulamium. It was one of the earliest cities established in Roman Britain. In 62 AD, Queen Boadicea of a Celtic tribe revolted against the Romans and razed St Albans (and London!) to the ground. (There's a statue of this impressive lady by the Houses of Parliament in London.) But St Albans was rebuilt quickly as it was on an important trade route, and flourished until 410. The remains from the Roman period include a partially excavated Roman theatre, a Verulamium Museum displaying mosaics and other artifacts, and a Roman wall in the park. They estimate that only 10 percent of ancient St Albans has been excavated so far - give me a trowel!

In the 3rd century, a guy named Alban was beheaded by the Romans for sheltering a Christian priest. He is considered to be Britain's very first Christian martyr, and the site of his execution soon became a place of pilgrimage. St Albans Cathedral stands on this site. It began as the church of an abbey that was founded in 793 AD. Today's building dates from 1077 AD and is mostly Norman in style, with some later Early Gothic touches. It later became a cathedral and the city of the same name became an influential religious center. In 1215, the Magna Carta was drafted here, and in the late 1400s, two battles of the Wars of the Roses were fought over the city.

In addition to boasting one of the oldest Roman British cities and the first British martyr, St Albans also claims to have the oldest surviving pub in England: Ye Olde Fighting Cocks. The little white octagonal pub has quite an interesting history: it started as the dovecote (pigeon house) of the abbey in 1400. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it was moved to its present site in 1600 and used as a house. It later became a pub, and was the local center for cock-fighting in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was renamed "The Fisherman" in 1849 when the cock-fighting was outlawed, but has since regained its old name. We had a late lunch there.

Photos

The drive to St Albans was a very pretty one through lots of countryside, but also through an astounding number of roundabouts of all shapes and sizes. In many cases there were several roundabouts combined together into complicated patterns, but David did great. Here's an especially "interesting" one we went through in the city of Aylesbury:
We started our sightseeing at St Albans Cathedral, which is in the city center.
The cathedral was built using bricks and stone from the deserted Roman city. It was interesting to see the same interesting stones in the Roman theatre ruins later.
There was lots to see inside.
The carved stone altarpiece, an incredible work of art dating from 1484: Faded 13th and 14th-century wall paintings on the piers, which were painted over during the Reformation and uncovered in 1862: My guidebook tells me these "pointed arches" are a distinguishing characteristic of Norman church architecture: Stained glass window over the entrance: David says a few words at the lectern: Behind me is the quire, or choir, where the monks used to gather for their chanted services in the medieval abbey days, and hymns are still sung today. The wooden structure on the far left is the cathedra, or "seat" of the bishop.
An explanatory sign next to the cathedra, with a very cute photo of the bishop: This is the stone shrine of St Alban, which dates from 1308 and is believed to be over the very site of his execution. In 2002, the shrine received a supposed bone of St Alban from a parish church in Cologne (small world!). A reflection of the decorated ceiling in the engraved gold plate of the "St Alban prayer":
Next to the shrine was a grate looking down to a private crypt, where a sign said Duke Humphrey, founder of Oxford's Bodleian Library, was buried (small world again!).
There was some construction in the back of the church, and David thought he ought to play it safe...
From the cathedral, it was a short and pleasant walk through a lovely riverside park, which had remains of the Roman city wall here and there, to the Roman theatre ruins.
Roman wall, with the park and cathedral in the background: Here I go as low as I can go to take the photo at the top of this blog:
Then on to the Roman theatre ruins (starting with a model of what it originally looked like). Much to David's disappointment, it appears they didn't have gladiator combat here, but mainly plays and such. And finally to the Verulamium Museum, which displayed the artifacts discovered from Roman St Albans. It had various sections on daily Roman life, and some lovely and very well preserved mosaics:
Mosaic of a sea god: We had a late lunch at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks after all our sightseeing. It does seem very medieval inside, with low wood-beamed ceilings. The food was quite nice, too - David had a fish pie and I had turkey escalope and chips. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of our food as is my tradition, but we were very hungry by then!