The valley of the River Bride

As previously advertised, our day in Abbotsbury was rounded out with a visit to the valley of the River Bride, the river that is which comes to the sea at Burton Bradstock, rather than the River Brit which comes to the sea at Bridport. Thus neglecting both the swannery and the sub-tropical gardens, the two attractions premières of the area.

The map

So we worked our way up through the bluebell strewn countryside from Abbotsbury to LittleBredy, more or less the headwaters of the River Bride, where we parked up on the village green, which appeared to have been carved out of a hillside. An area in which the Williams family, the original Williams's of Williams & Glynn bank, were much in evidence. We wondered also, spotting Bridehead on the map, whether Evelyn Waugh had pinched the name for his once well-known novel, Brideshead Revisited. As a serious social climber, perhaps he once took in a country house weekend in the area?

The approach

A slightly blurred snap of the approach to the church, dedicated to St. Michael and all the angels, which seemed very proper given that St. Michael is my very own saint. The building at the left is the village hall.

The buttress

The church itself was quite small, but despite the smallness someone had seen fit to prop up the west end with a couple of flying buttresses. A church which was probably in the pocket of the local squire, that is to say a Williams, so one imagines that one of the squires thought that a proper church had flying buttresses and had his stonemason put a couple in. Many memorial plaques, tablets etc to Williams's inside.

The bell chamber

A rather small bell chamber, perhaps intended for the use of just one bell ringer, rather than a team. We thought it best not to try it out for ourselves.

The organ, locked

An unusual double side organ arranged around the west window.

The nave

Note the presence of a heritage radiator. The sort of thing that a house proud suburbanite from Epsom would pay good money for. At least if it were cleaned up and painted a proper heritage black.

A long-lived Williams

A huge list of possibilities for 'CMS' at reference 1, plus still more turned up by Google. My choices are Church Missionary Society, Church Monuments Society and the Contemporary Music Society.

Umbrella one

Umbrella two

From the church down to the lake, fashioned from the head waters of the Bride and a fine spot for a summer picnic, not particularly well known, so not particularly crowded, and on this day we had the place more or less to ourselves, although we did not on this occasion picnic, having taken our luncheon at the Ilchester Arms. On the way down, we took in some fine umbrella trees, from which I associated to the umbrella trees of Stourhead, another grand garden, this one fashioned from the head waters of the Stour and visited three years previously. With these last trees said to be western cedars. From their snap, rather larger than I remembered and probably rather larger than the present umbrellas. See reference 2.

Plenty of midges of one sort or another, possibly the odd swallow. No fish to be seen in the still waters. A handsome waterfall had been contrived at the exit to lake. I did not think to snap it for scoring as a fake. Nor, indeed, the lake itself.

Reference 1: https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/CMS.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=stb.

Group search key: bta.