In the afternoon after visiting the Brontë Parsonage and church I decided to further wander in the footsteps of the family by walking the trail that goes from next to the Parsonage to the so called Brontë Waterfall and Bridge where the sisters in particular liked to walk.
After my visit to the Brontë Parsonage I headed next door to St Michael and All Angels, more commonly known as the Brontë church. This is the third church building on the site dating between 1879 and 1881; parts of the older church survives but not as it would have been during the Brontë’s time when their father was the parish priest here.
Back in June I spent just under a week in Haworth in West Yorkshire because visiting the Brontë Parsonage Museum has been on my bucket list for a great many years. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is one of my favourite novels and I wanted to follow in the footsteps of her and her siblings.
The Royal Crescent in Bath is one of the most famous and well photographed areas in the city but until this most recent visit my friend and I hadn’t gone there, usually being too busy with visiting the Christmas market. This trip though we wanted to head over there as though my friend had seen it before I hadn’t. We walked from the centre along the Gravel Walk which takes you past the Georgian Garden (just closing so we only had a quick peek inside) and the backs of some of Bath’s very impressive housing.
You may remember that my last visit to Bath was cut short due to Storm Darragh. My friend and I had to reschedule our Roman Baths tickets and chose the last weekend in March figuring, quite rightly as it happened, that we would have some nice weather for our return. Driving in Bath is very much not recommended so we parked as usual at the Lansdown Park and Ride and took the bus into Bath – the Roman Baths are only about a 10 minute walk from where the bus drops you off.
On my way to and from Arundel Wetland Centre I passed by Swanbourne Lake. I decided to pop in for a look on the way back but knew I wouldn’t have very long to explore as it was already quite late in the afternoon.
I’d heard that Arundel Cathedral was a beautiful example of Gothic architecture so on my first afternoon in the town I’d gone to take pictures of the exterior before exploring inside a couple of days later. In 1868 Henry Fitzalan Howard commissioned Joseph Hansom (who also designed the famous hansom cab) to design a cathedral that would be in keeping with the impressiveness of Arundel Castle.
Directly opposite Arundel Castle is Arundel Museum which tells the history of the town spanning over thousands of years. It was founded in 1963 by a group of local people who founded the Arundel Museum Society, a registered charity that still runs the museum. It moved to its present location next to the River Arun in 2013. Tickets are £5 though you do get a discount if you show your ticket to Arundel Castle.
The main reason for my trip to Arundel was to visit the castle. I’d seen a video online which inspired me to research more about it and once I saw how easy it was to reach by train I was sold. I will say though that as a visitor and from the ground there is no real way of seeing the whole place in its glory (other than on approach by train) as it is surrounded by trees but the gardens and interiors more than made up for it.
Last September I visited Arundel in West Sussex for three nights – my main aim was to visit the castle but I also wanted to visit the cathedral and the Wetland Centre, all of which will feature in their own posts. I found Arundel to be a really pleasant market town with lots of independent shops and cafes that were reasonably priced. The train journey from Nottingham was quite long, requiring a change in London that lead to a bit of a mad dash via tube but all in all the trains worked well and I was blessed with glorious sunshine for the whole time I was away.
Louise Jayne's Blog 