Tewkesbury

 Monday 23rd September. Day 37.

It was pouring it down as it had been all night. Our pitch was waterlogged and so our first priority was to try and change to a hard standing pitch. 

That achieved we set off to explore Tewkesbury Abbey.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tewkesbury_Abbey

We lit a candle for all those we have loved and lost ❤️

The sun is an emblem of the House of York. It was put on the ceiling as a memorial to their victory over the House of Lancaster at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. 

The lecturn.

The pulpit.

The Denny windows are two modern stained glass windows designed by Tom Denny in 2002 to mark the 900th anniversary of the Benedictine monks coming to Tewkesbury. 

Here you can see wooden carved resting ledges or Misericords which the monks would have leant on during worship.

The Font. The base is original and dates from the 13th century. The ornate and in my opinion rather vulgar top was added in Victorian times.

The consecration cross from 1121.

After the Abbey we set off for Pershore to meet John’s sister and brother in law for lunch. We drove through a very wet Tewksbury. 

We arrived at the Plough and Harrow at Drakes Broughton just outside John’s home town of Pershore. We had a lovely lunch with Marg and Ken and it was great to meet little Bengy. 

After lunch we returned to the campsite and our new dry pitch. 

A lot of the campsite was flooded so we were glad to be moved.

It had finally stopped raining so I dived out with Dex for a walk around the fields near the Abbey. 

There was standing water in a lot of places.

The river had burst its banks and was encroaching over the grass. 

A bit of a difference between this and yesterday’s photo!

We returned to camp. We were all settled when at around 8.30pm we had a knock on the door. It was the site warden. They were concerned about the rising water and we needed to move to higher ground! So we have ended up on the road outside the toilet block. Which I think is a bit of a result 🤣

We could also see the Abbey tower illuminated.

The campsite entrance was now completely flooded and the road is a river. Let’s hope we don’t get evacuated during the night! They have an emergency exit on the other side of the campsite so we can at least leave!