England 2015: Day 4--The Bodmin Moor and 2 Parish Churches, Cornwall

By now it's Thursday, 18 July, our last day in Cornwall visiting Lisl's BFF (best friend forever), Pauline.  You could say we squeezed every drop out of our time together.

In the morning we drove to the Bodmin Moor, just 25 miles away from St. Austell.  Did I know what to expect?  NO.  For one thing, it's 80 sq. miles in size and is as old as time itself (from the Carboniferous period), housing 10,000 beef cows, 55,000 breeding ewes, and 1,000 horses and ponies.

To be honest, before I stepped onto the moor from the parking lot,

the first thing I saw was the belted cows.

And then the horses.  All of them up close and personal!

The foals were everywhere, nuzzling their mommies.

This one in particular caught my eye.
Can you hear the blustery wind and feel the sense and sensibility of the moor?

Then I started to breathe it all in.
In the distance we saw the Cheesewring granite tor, a natural geological formation.
But all the stones felt full of energy.  Thousands of years locked up in them, trying to get out.

As we walked amongst them, they felt as alive as the animals walking around them.

 The sheep reminded me of grizzly bears.
I'd look like that, too, after years on the moor.

The vegetation knows how to survive, of course.
The gorse, of course.  A thorny, evergreen shrub suited for the moor.

Back in the 1700s there were mining enterprises for the tin and silver.
Their long-abandoned structures reminded me of Wuthering Heights.

It was near this spot that we walked off the moor into the wee village of Minions, from 1613.


Call me delightfully shocked to see the sheep having the run of the village.
WE were THEIR guests, no question about it.

Once in the village, it was time for an ice cream (Cornish Vanilla, of course) and a rest.

Back at the car, many of the horses had come down to the parking lot.
Wild and free and not afraid of anyone.

And as we left the area, we made one last stop at a cross and King Doniert's stone,
2 pieces of a 9th century decorated cross.

Talk about history!

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From the Bodmin Moor we drove to the Halfway House Inn/Pub in nearby Liskeard to meet up with Pauline's husband Christopher for lunch.  It was Lisl's and my treat for such a lovely stay with them.

I made sure I treated myself to a steak pie and Doom Bar ale lunch.

More English you cannot get.

THANK YOU, dear Pauline and Christopher, for all your hospitality.

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After lunch, and with the afternoon still available to us before our train ride back to Bath, we 3 girls continued our search for parish churches from the previous Day 3.  These get added to the list: 

6.  St. Protus and St. Hyacinth Church, Blisland, Cornwall, 12th century.

Once again, the outside architecture looked like from a cookie cutter to the ones we saw earlier.

"Blisland church is the only one in the UK devoted to the pair of saints, who were 3rd century brothers,
martyred for their beliefs. The pair are locally known as 'Pratt and Hatt'."

The churchyards really are resting places!

And artwork is everywhere.

But once inside.  O.M.G.

This was the crowning glory of them all.

Why was this parish church...so much more?

Some of the cushions were the oldest I've seen to date.

And lest we forget, mixed in with the new is much of the old.

7.  St. Helena Church, Helland, Cornwall, 14th century.

Again, you almost have it memorized from the outside, don't you.

And yet how very different and unexpected on the inside!

But still...the old wood.  The hymnals.  The cushions.

It was as though the 2 parish churches of this day were the extremes of the gamut,

which I found quite fitting as Lisl and I headed to the train station for our trip back to Bath....

...and to Astrid, who was there waiting for us with Lisl's Michael!