UK Day 3: The Beautiful South

Friday, I started off with a half hour drive to Lavenham, reputedly one of England's finest medieval towns. It did not disappoint. I drove through town and turned around again, starting with Lavenham church. Built in the 1400s sometime, but who's counting. There was a square top on the church tower, more like a fortress than an ecclesiastical building. This is something you will only see in Suffolk and Norfolk.

The drive took me through leafy woods.


It almost felt like driving through a green tunnel.




Lovely, old church.


Then followed a succession of quaint, cute, nerve-racking buildings, from the loveliest of Tudor houses to the ricketiest looking piece of junk. But all very charming and nice to look at and to photograph.







On my way in I had stopped and taken a photo of the place name "Cockfield" and in town there was a pub called "The Cock Horse". On my way south, I passed the settlement of Assington. I've seen enough Beavis and Butthead (and I am certainly immature enough) to snicker at such names.

*Insert Beavis & Butthead snicker*


I believe you have the word order wrong.




I then left the car and walked around the streets of Lavenham. I saw ancient, rickety houses - not pubs, regular houses where people live - people milling about, doing shopping and other errands, people walking their dogs, stopping to let their respective mutts sniff one another.

The sun was shining, and it was all very peaceful and cordial and friendly. An essentially Anglo-Saxon town, where Anglo-Saxons were going about their Anglo-Saxon lives in an Anglo-Saxon way. Oh, how I love and adore this island.

I was lazy enough to drive down and finally get a legal parking spot outside the local co-op. I took more pictures and then ventured inside to shop diet sodas and some food. I probably came out with more unhealthy stuff than I had intended, but… hey, I was on vacation! Don't judge me!





This had once been a priory, built in the 1200s.


Door to a secret garden? I do lubs me some Engerlish mystery.


View from the bus stop where I sat down and stuffed face.




There's was small number of tourists walking around taking pictures and gawping at the buildings, but I did not hear a single word spoken in anything but English. Mmmmmmmm!

I drove narrow, terrifying lanes until I finally reached a four lane highway going south. Now, somewhere along the way, I put the phone on charging from the car. I think that was when the phone decided not to let me hear the directions anymore. Long story short, I wasted an hour driving deep into Essex, heading for Southend on Sea, instead of southwest to Gatwick.

After one false try, I found my hotel and stayed there for the rest of the evening, tired but in good spirits after a great day out.