Clemson University Study Tour of England
July 2004
Back in January 2004 I got an email on one of my work-related listservs about a study tour being sponsored by Clemson University--two weeks visiting British universities, learning about their system of higher education and how they do student services, for three graduate credits. And I thought, wow, wouldn't that be nice? Too bad...and I was about to delete it when I thought, well, wait a minute! I need an elective class this summer. I'm already so deep in student loan debt now, what's another few thousand? So...
It was fabulous. I did the tour for two weeks and stayed an extra week in London on my own. I did my junior year at St. Mary's College in Twickenham, in the London suburbs, in 1978-79, but the tour went mainly to places I hadn't been (I saw more of the far corners of Wales and Scotland back then than I did of large parts of England). We visited the University of Plymouth, the University of Oxford, the University of Hertfordshire, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Sheffield. We also made stops at Topsham (a terminally cute seaside village in Devon), Exeter, Dartmoor, Stonehenge, Bath, St. Albans, Chatsworth (the ancestral home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, bigger and more over-the-top than a lot of royal palaces, with gardens that they compare to Versailles), Bakewell (another terminally cute village, this time in Derbyshire), and York. The class was actually a lot of work, but we were studying things we were all interested in, so we got really excited about it, as only a bunch of student development geeks could. They nearly ran us ragged (it probably didn't help that most of the 32 students were twentysomethings working on their masters degrees. Fortunately, there were five of us doctoral students, all women of a certain age, who shared a desire to move at a more leisurely pace when we had a choice. We also had better jobs that made us a little more interested than the kids in shopping and eating well--and we actually spent more time than they did in the pubs!) but it did let us pack a lot into two weeks. Dartmoor was eerie and spare and beautiful. Stonehenge was as mobbed as I'd always heard, but still worth seeing. York was medieval and atmospheric, and the cathedral was stunning. But I think my favorite stop was Cambridge. It's very green and expansive (especially coming just after Oxford, which was gray and dour and stuffy). We went punting (little flat-bottomed boats poled up and down by pretty young students) on the River Cam, which runs through the middle of the colleges. We had tea and scones outside the gates of Trinity College. We toured Kings College (but sadly, not inside their famous chapel--the choir was in there recording a CD). It was glorious--the only thing missing was Sebastian Flyte and his teddy bear (okay, I know that Brideshead Revisited was set in Oxford--but it just isn't pretty enough for them. Cambridge is.)
The extra week I stayed in London was lovely, too. I went back to some places I'd been before (Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London , Harrods). I saw some stuff I missed the first time (the Crown Jewels, St. Mary-le-Bow Church, a ghost tour of the East End), and some that was altogether new since I was there last (the London Eye, and a tour inside the Houses of Parliament, which was one of the highlights). I saw some shows (Romeo and Juliet at the Globe, and Mama Mia!--which was fabulous!!--in the West End). I went book shopping and found some great obscure British stuff for my dissertation research. And, according to the scales at the airport check-in counters, my shopping added approximately 18 kilos (over 39 pounds) to my luggage in three weeks (not including most of the books, which I had shipped).
And of course, I revisited St. Mary's College. A lot has changed--they've done a some building, and they have more in progress. But 17 Waldegrave Park, the house I lived in, is still there, and apparently still a college residence. And Strawberry Hill House (the main college building, dating from the 1700's) is still there, spooky and odd. Before I left home I wrote to their Manager of Student Services, hoping we'd be able to meet and talk, but unfortunately she was on vacation all that week. Classes weren't in session, so the place was pretty well deserted. It was a little anticlimactic, without being a disappointment. I was still glad I went. I saw what I was really looking for: myself, at age twenty, scared, excited, wide-eyed and awe-struck, tripping around town and discovering the whole wide world for the first time.
So here are a few of the pictures I took...
Dartmoor (and lots and lots and lots of sheep)
the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth (the Pilgrims sailed from here)
Stonehenge
on the double-decker tour bus in London
Big Ben
The London Eye and Big Ben
The White Tower at the Tower of London
St. Albans Cathedral
punting in Cambridge
more punting
King's College, Cambridge
teatime in Cambridge with the Menopausal Mafia
York Minster
York Minster windows
The Shambles, York (the medieval part of the city)
Ladies Night Out in York
Hampton Court Palace
statues at the gates of Hampton Court
St. Mary's College, Twickenham (where I did my junior year abroad, twenty-five years ago)
17 Waldegrave Park, where I lived in 1978-79 (my room was on the top floor on the left)
Big Ben again, at the end of the tour of the Houses of Parliament
our Big Yellow Bus
the whole group at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire
