Living and Learning in St Andrews: Our Third Expedition! Hadrian's Wall, York, and Manchester

In late September I heard that Liana's official favourite band (they are in my top 5, too), Mumford & Sons, was going on a UK tour this fall. Unfortunately, even though I was well prepared by being online 10 minutes before the tickets went on sale, hitting 'refresh' every 30 seconds, I was unable to get tickets to the Dundee (a 20 minute drive away) or Glasgow (an hour's drive or an easy train ride away) shows. The best I could do was Manchester – about a 5.5 hour drive from St Andrews. A bit of a long way to go just for a concert, we thought... so why not rent a car and make it into a holiday roadtrip? There's a long list of places we want to visit all over the UK, so we decided to make the drive worth it.

Rather than bore you with endless detail, let me just give you a brief outline of where we went and what we did. We decided that we would take three days and make two stops before Manchester. So we got up early last Saturday morning and drove south through Scotland, crossed over the border into England a few hours later, and spent the afternoon exploring Hadrian's Wall. This was something I really wanted to do, as I've had a keen interest in Roman history for a while now. We stayed at a B&B in the town of Hexham for the night. On Sunday morning we took off for the city of York. We spent a wonderful day there, primarily in and around the incredible York Minster, but also exploring what is a beautiful and charming town centre, with plentiful historic evidence of both its Roman heritage and medieval period. In fact, we enjoyed York so much that we didn't leave the next day until close to lunch. Then we made the drive west cross-country to Manchester where, after finding our hotel, we spent the afternoon wandering the city streets, exploring the John Rylands library, and stuffing ourselves at the Manchester Christmas market. That night was the concert, and it was fantastic. Tuesday morning we were on the road heading back north to Scotland. It was a wonderful trip!

Some of the highlights:

Hadrian's Wall: As far as the experience goes, this was my favourite part of the trip, I think. I was especially pleased with the weather... which is odd, since it was freezing cold, windy, and wet. Visiting Hadrian's Wall on a clear sunny day would have had some charm, I'm sure, but the miserable, grey, wet mist seemed very appropriate for a defensive wall marking the northern boundary of the empire. After all, for the Romans this was practically the end of the world! The wall itself was pretty impressive, even though it only stands 3-4 feet tall now (as compared to its original 15-20 feet). To think about the labour it took to build this wall 73 miles from one side of the island to the other – stone by stone, foot by foot... it's quite something. Even though my feet were soaked, I really enjoyed walking up and down hills, on ancient stone paths, with Liana and no one else around (for most of the time). It was very memorable.

The Sycamore Gap: OK, so for those who don't know, this is the site of a particular scene from the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. This was the hands-down favourite movie of me and Chris growing up, and I'm pretty certain I've seen more times than a select few people in the world. That said, I was SO excited to come upon this spot in the wall! I quoted extensively from the movie, and with Liana's encouragement/help tried to climb the tree to get a picture like Wolf (son of Little John, for those of you who don't know, who gets trapped up the tree by Sir Guy of Gisbourne, the Sheriff's cousin). Unfortunately it was too wet and slippery and there were no good hand/footholds anywhere. Still... so cool!!!

York Minster: Undoubtedly my favourite part of York. I don't know how to do justice to this building with words. Pictures do the job a bit better, but they still fail to capture the impact of its size, beauty, and intricacy. If you've ever seen one of the famous cathedrals (I'm thinking of St Paul's in London, Chartres, Amiens, Notre Dame in Paris, Milan, etc.) you will know what I'm talking about. In my mind, no other man-made object in the world better exemplifies the adjective 'breath-taking'. It's almost overwhelming in its beauty and majesty, when you even begin to consider the work that went into it.

Two highlights in particular from the minster:

The Evensong: we attended the Evensong service, for which we were seated in the choir of the minster. It was a wonderful, worshipful, beautiful second advent service. The sound of the choir (the people singing, not the section of the church where we were seated!) echoing in the stone building was entrancing, and the experience of participating in holy worship in this place of such history was very special.

The stained glass: Although the Great East Window, a stained glass masterpiece as large as a tennis court (!), was covered by scaffolding (it's undergoing restoration until 2018), there were several restored panes from it on special display. Being able to view these scenes up close was a special privilege, because it allowed the incredible detail in these works of art to be seen. Keep in mind that these were installed twenty, thirty, forty or more feet above the floor of the church, where the detail was completely unobservable by anyone. Why put such work in? This helped me begin to understand the intricate, detailed craftsmanship put into every square inch of this building. It is easy for me to look back on the wealth, opulence, and grandeur of the church throughout much of western history with scorn, disdain, and condemnation. And in part, I still think this critique is deserved. Yet those who dedicated their lives to such efforts, producing works of art the detail of which, for all they knew, would never be seen by another human, did so (at least in part) to the glory of God. This art was for them an act of worship!

The Rylands Library Papyrus, aka P52, aka the St. John's Fragment: We had no plans to visit the Rylands Library - we just happened to pass it on our wanderings in Manchester, and since I'd read a blurb about it online we decided to take a look inside. What a great decision! Besides being a beautiful building, the Rylands Library has one of the largest special collections in the UK, including the Rylands Library Papyrus. Also known as P52, this is a small piece of papyrus which is the oldest known written fragment of the New Testament! Dating to ca. 125 AD, it has several lines from John 18:31-33 and 37-38 written on each side. I was very excited to get the chance to see this, since this little piece of papyrus has been influential in New Testament studies as an important piece of evidence in dating the Gospel of John and, for that matter, all the NT writings. Very neat stuff.

The Spaetzle: We ate and drank a lot of good stuff at the Manchester Christmas Market: mulled wine, bratwurst, potatoes cooked with onions and covered in cheese sauce, spaetzle, and strudel. I think Liana would say the strudel was her favourite (it was apple – classic – and covered in vanilla custard... um, yeah, it was good) – but for me, it was the spaetzle: nicely sauteed (in butter, I assume), they then added in some cheese that got all melty and delicious, then topped it with fried onions and bacon. Yep. Cheese? Onions? Bacon? Carbs cooked in butter? Is it possible to go wrong with that combination?

The Mumford & Sons Concert: Obviously! They put on a fantastic show, and Liana and I had a ton of fun. Favourite songs of the night? For Liana it was 'Lover of the Light', for me it was 'Roll Away Your Stone'... though that's a hard decision to make. They are an incredibly talented group of individuals, that's for sure.

The A-7: On our drive home, we decided to take the A-7, the historic route to Edinburgh, through the area of southern Scotland known as the 'Scottish Borders'. Though it probably added close to an hour to our drive, it was worth it. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever driven through, with sheep-covered hills, dark wooded forests, rivers, and small towns full of stone buildings dotting the route. If ever you have the chance to take this road, I highly recommend it!

We had a great time. It was wonderful to explore the isle of Britain a bit more thoroughly (we covered a lot of ground!), see some incredible sights, and have some great experiences. It is a blessing to be here in Scotland and have all this within several hours of our front door! I'll leave you with a few more of my favourite photos.