Visiting Alfoxton Hall

 For the past few years or so, Alfoxton Hall has been a Buddhist Retreat Centre.

Which isn't the worst thing in the world, of course.

And the Buddhists seem to be keeping in spirit with the past of Alfoxton Hall (Wordsworth and Dorothy stayed there for a year in 1797 to be near Coleridge) through putting on productions like the one below, a reading of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

Think that Coleridge's Ancient Mariner is one of the greatest Christian poems ever, with its theme of human sin bringing on inevitable inner torment which can only be somewhat relieved through repentance and forgiveness.

At Alfoxton, we could hear a mower or drill going in the background, and eventually found a young Mexican man, probably a volunteer worker, who very kindly gave us a big glass of water each, as we were thoroughly parched.

The young Mexican man also pointed us towards a huge tree where Wordsworth had liked to sit while staying at Alfoxton Hall between 1797 and 1798:

However, we had to steer clear of a top corner of the Alfoxton grounds as a Buddhist retreat was taking place in a big tent there.

 

While walking down from Wordsworth's favourite big tree, we met a young Buddhist man with receding hair, ponytail, and frizzly beard. 

We had a friendly chat but he looked us over a bit, saying that the Hall still needed a lot more renovation work doing.

Afterwards, I had to get a good, central, full-on shot of the Hall, showing all of its stately grandeur:

And before leaving, we had a bit of a look round the walled garden near the Hall grounds:

Being something of an horticulturalist with a small farm in Ireland, my friend was itching to get inside the walled garden but everything was closed up.

My friend also summised that the spot below must've been used by Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Dorothy while musing over all kinds of things together:

All in all, it was a pleasing 30-40 minutes spent at Alfoxton Hall, but it would've been nicer still to have had a look inside the Hall itself.

To get back to Nether Stowey, we mainly walked on an A-road, although for about a mile, we did go into some adjacent woodland:

And back in Nether Stowey, it was great to see a pub preferring cash to globalist bank cards: