Not all of my blogs are solely about our travels and the historic or scenic sights we experience. Sometimes they are about reflection on past experiences in light of things we discover at those places. For example, staying in Puddletown has revived my interest and love of Thomas Hardy's novels … and I suppose I should also take a closer look at his poetry for which he is buried in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Here in Somerset, on what's left of a day that has been allocated to hair washing, will make a pilgrimage to Coleridge's Cottage at Nether Stowey and St Mary's Church, Bishops Lydeard.

Nether Stowey: ( the town below the road ????) Nether as in Old English (Saxon) "down, downwards, lower, below, beneath, "The name Stowey derives from the 'stone way', part of the Anglo-Saxon 'herpath' or military road.

Bishops Lydyard: (The Bishops land on which Lloyd has his house or fenced enclosure) Bishop as in Gisa, the Bishop of Wells who was the principal tenant in 1066 and Lydeard, a compound of two Saxon personal names Lide (Lloyd), and "Yarde", as well as a personal name, geard means 'a fence, enclosure, courtyard or dwelling'

Our first stop was St Mary's Church. On our train trip yesterday, it had terminated at Bishops Lydyard and we had 35 minutes to spare before the return trip to Watchet. Sheila informed me that it would take me 15 minutes to walk to the church. I figured that a half hour brisk walk with just 5 minutes for photographs wasn't long enough.

I guess no one want's the full description of this church, however what had drawn us here was to see and photograph the the Rood Screen which was probably made, in Taunton, early in the sixteenth century. It is typical of the fan-vaulted screens being installed throughout Devon and Somerset at that time. It's unusual in that one band of the ornament along the richly carved cornice contains the Apostles Creed in Latin in an ornate Gothic script.

The lower panels contain elaborate tracery. The colour was restored by Sir Ninian Comper based on traces found when it was being repaired. The figures of Our Lord, St Mary and St John are also the work of Comper, and were erected in 1948. The end of the barrel vault over the nave butting onto the chancel arch is richly embellished. This, the "Celure of the Rood" is an original medieval feature, and was placed there to form a canopy of honour over the figure of Christ crucified.

The other unusual feature is in the nave where there are carved bench ends, mostly carved by a group of itinerant Flemish wood-carvers around 1540. We suspect that they were carved by the same craftsmen who carved the bench ends at the church in Devon where Cheryl's family came from. We were amazed by them when we visited three years ago.

We contributed by buying a jar of home made "Spiced Apple Chutney"

On to Coleridge's Cottage. He moved here to escape his debtors. His first option had been to join the army. Just two month in, he couldn't handle it, so appealed to his older brother who was a senior officer, to get him out.

Just to get this straight; the cottage now bears little resemblance to the cottage when they lived there for three years. Back then, it consisted of a largish downstairs room with fireplaces at each end. The floor was just beaten earth. It was reportedly damp and mouse infected. Coleridge wrote most of his poetry in front of one fireplace, and didn't set any traps for the mice because he thought it was below him. Upstairs were two bedrooms, and the kitchen was a lean-to out the back and a deep well.

So, why make such a big deal about this cottage that he only lived in for 5% of his life. Well, I'm glad you asked. It's because it was while living there that he was visited by William Wordsworth and his siter. I read somewhere that the storyline for the Ancient Mariner was supposedly developed on one day when Coleridge, Wordsworth and Wordsworth's sister were walking the Quantock hills. It may have been inspired by a visit to Watchet, which is explained further on in this blog. I found an article written by Luke Strongman that includes information I had found at other sources that included the inspiration provided by his science teacher William Wales.

Captain Cook's Voyages and Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The debt that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's romantic ballad The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) owes to George Shelvocke's A Voyage Around the World By Way of the Great South Sea (1726) was first claimed by William Wordsworth and has been well documented by Fruman,1 Holmes,2 Hill,3 Lamb4 and others. Further, the influence of Cook's Voyage towards the South Pole and round the world performed in His Majesty's ships the Resolution and Adventure in the years 1772, 1773, 1774 & 1775 has been suggested by Moorehead5 and Smith.6 This article posits that the familiar four-step account of the ballad's creation - that the idea arose through a suggestion to Coleridge from William Wordsworth following the relation to Coleridge of an unusual dream of his friend, John Cruikshank, and was inspired by Coleridge's reading of the journal of George Shelvocke and the conversational influence of William Wales (an astronomer and meteorologist on board Cook's Resolution in 1772) upon Coleridge as a schoolboy - is in fact a partial account. Cook and Banks' journals and the paintings of William Hodges and George Forster deserve greater credit as sources of inspiration. In the original 1789 version of Coleridge's ballad the figure of the mariner gains definition from Coleridge's familiarity with the journals of Captain Cook's voyages.

There is a relatively new commemorative statue at Watchet: the albatross hangs on a rope looped around the ancient mariner's neck. "Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.": lines 139-142 

For Ches and I, it was a pleasant afternoon in a cottage full of interesting artefacts of life back them. One of the most interesting, a long metal rod with a flat plate about the size of a piece of bread on the end. It's purpose? Heat it in the fire and then hold above a slice of bread with cheese on top. They claim that Coleridge loved his cheese toasties. Ah …….. I don't know whether to believe this or not. The well is still there and amazingly, so clear is the water that I was able to take a photograph down the well and my reflection is clear on the surface.

A brief summary of why these three years were so significant follows. It doesn't mention that Coleridge and the Wordsworths went off to Germany for a trip leaving Coleridge's pregnant wife at the cottage. The child was born and died and the marriage was never the same again.

Back at Combe Florey, we decided to go to the Farmers Arms for dinner. It was about a mile away, walking a path behind a paddock of cattle and then beside a stream through the woods. We emerged into the courtyard of this fantastic thatched pub. We, along with many locals decided to eat outside instead of in the gloomy interior (which would be ideal in mid-winter). Ches and I at a table under a deep blue sky, most locals at bench tables under individual roofing and each one with names such as The Sir Viv Richards Pavilion or the Sir Ian Botham Pavilion. At the end of the area a wood fired Pizza oven called "Caddy Shack". Late 60s and early 1970's music at a good volume added to the summer theme. Beach Boys in Somerset, yeh, that works.

When we were in the UK three years ago, alcoholic ginger beer was served everywhere. Now? Cannot find it anywhere. Ches has taken to Elderflower drinks, however at the Farmers Arms it was Cloudy Lemon Apple Cider. For me? They seem to have Brewdog beer everywhere in the UK. On tap and in supermarkets everywhere. This is an amazing story. In 2009they couldn't get a bank loan, so they began an employee ownership programme. All staff bought shares in the company and then they offered it to the general public. Their most recent fund raising offer attracted 200,000 shareholders and L31m. A brief summary of why it was so significant follows. Hey now have four breweries and 100 bars worldwide and guess what one of them is in Sydney.

I checked out a company in Melbourne 30 years ago that made and sold school lockers and furniture. They had around 30 staff, all shareholders and managed by a board of employees. I should check out how they are going today.

Back to the Farmers Arms. The Punk IPA is my favourite. I've been buying it at the supermarket. Here it was icy cold. Perfect beer garden drink. Another customer explained to the barman, and I, that the origin of India Pale Ale is that it was a beer brewed so as to withstand the long sea voyage in barrels, from England to India. It no longer has to withstand long voyages.

Apparently "runners" have been a problem for pubs with beer gardens. As a consequence, if you want to order a meal served outside, you have to pay when you order. Ches decided on Scallops which she declared about the best ever and a Hedgerow Pizza (Wild Garlic Pesto, shredded zucchini and goats cheese). I, a fillet steak and chips. Not just any old filet steak. One that you could cut with a butter knife, and brushed with marrow butter and grilled and smoked at the same time in a special oven. One of the top 5 steaks of all time ….. and accompanied by THE BEST CHIPS ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET. Did I mention in an earlier blog? Russet potato chips, crisp on the outside and like mashed buttery potato on the inside.

Several pints later, we wandered back up the laneway to our last night in a stunning thatch cottage. Back to Southampton tomorrow.

I've ordered a biography of Coleridge and the complete works to be delivered to Southampton and will make up for lost time in the near future. For now, heres a brief summary:

On New Year's Eve 1796, 24-year-old Samuel Taylor Coleridge moved his young family into a freezing, mouse-infested 'hovel' deep in the Somerset countryside. Find out how the three years that followed were the most productive, and destructive, of their lives.

Since he was a child, Coleridge was able to captivate crowds with his charisma and power of speech. He had grown up to be a radical, supporting the ideas behind the French Revolution that was raging on the other side of the English Channel, and speaking out against slavery in Bristol, a city grown rich from the slave trade.

The people of rural Somerset were not ready for this eccentric young man who took long walks for fun along their trackways, lanes, and alongside their streams, at a time when walking recreationally was unheard of.

There was suspicion that Coleridge was helping the French find a way to invade Britain via the inlets of the Bristol Channel. In fact, he was finding inspiration from the beautiful landscape and its people for some of his most famous poetry.

The villages and countryside around Nether Stowey are peppered with connections to Coleridge's poetry, and that of his friend William Wordsworth, who also briefly moved to the area.

Together, they began Lyrical Ballads, a collection of poetry which is considered by many to mark the beginning of the Romantic literary movement. With the freedom to walk, write and socialise, Coleridge had the perfect conditions to produce some incredible poetry that still inspires people today.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the dark tale about a doomed sailor who shot an albatross and was cursed by demons, is believed to be inspired by nearby Watchet harbour.

Kubla Khan, the product of laudanum-soaked dreams, was famously interrupted by a 'person from Porlock'.

Frost at Midnight beautifully describes the interior of the cottage in Nether Stowey on a cold winter's night, with frost creeping patterns over the window pane.

This Lime-tree Bower my Prison was written after Coleridge's foot was badly burnt by boiling milk and he was unable to join Wordsworth on countryside walks, instead only managing to hobble to a neighbour's lime-tree bower.

A new type of poetry

Coleridge's poetry was different to anything that had been seen before. The rigid, structured poetry from the earlier period in the 1700s known as the Enlightenment, was worlds away from Coleridge's fluid, imaginative, supernatural stories alive with exotic places and nightmarish events.

However, Coleridge's doomed family life, revealed through the rooms of Coleridge Cottage, and an increasingly debilitating addiction to laudanum, meant he never regained the success of his time in Nether Stowey.

Those three extraordinary years, and the poems that came from them, inspired generations of poets, artists, filmmakers, musicians and even video game-makers. Coleridge Cottage is where it all began.

The cottage after Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his family left the cottage on 19 December 1799, to go and live in the Lake District.

A couple of tenants lived in the cottage immediately afterwards, including a 'grave' minister called Parson Cave, and an elderly lady, Miss Newton.

Not long after, still early in the 1800s, the cottage was refurbished. It was at this point the casement windows were removed, and the sash windows still in situ today were added.

In 1861 the cottage became a carpenter's workshop, lived in by John Moore, who later raised a mortgage to convert the cottage to an inn.

More rooms were added, the roof was raised, the thatch replaced with tiles, and the garden and orchard were divided and sold. John Moore called it 'Moore's Coleridge Cottage Inn', clearly aware of the connection with Samuel Taylor Coleridge over 60 years before.  

Saved for the nation

In July 1893 a committee was formed by a group who wished to 'save' Coleridge Cottage from its fate as a public house. They raised money to lease the cottage for £15 a year, with an option to purchase it for £600 when the lease expired in 1908.

Led by Professor William Knight, the cottage was acquired by the National Trust in August 1909. For 100 years it was lived in by custodians, who managed the cottage and opened a limited number of rooms.

In 2011, a big restoration project took place, recovering the Georgian features in the original rooms and returning the cottage to what it may have looked like when Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived here.

The cottage today

Coleridge Cottage is a house of many faces. Bigger than it looks from the outside, its outer shell holds traces of its many lives as a 17th-century 'hovel', Victorian pub and 20th-century home.

Despite its many transformations, the restoration project in 2011 recovered the features of the cottage that Coleridge and his family would have recognised in the late 1700s. These include the original fireplace in front of which Coleridge wrote his poetry, and the 16-foot-deep well, from which the family would have drawn their water.