Little Adventures

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Monument

August 3, 1990 - We arrived at Chester-le-Street in northern England about four o'clock, after a long day spent on the road. In our usual fashion, we started looking around for a bed and breakfast that would suit us. We saw very few as we drove about the town, and none of these struck us as being particularly wonderful. The previous two nights we had stayed at a dairy farm in Wales, and the smell of the barnyard beneath our window and the lowing of the cows through the night, had failed to impress either Pam or Pete. We were now looking for fancier digs; someplace to compensate my wife and son for having endured the rigors of farm life.

As we drove along, Pam spotted a laundromat, and since we were due for a wash day, we stopped to investigate. While Pete examined the driers with their loads of spinning laundry, Pam sought out the manager to discuss the hours of opening and the coins required. I studied the bulletin board in hopes of finding a notice for a nice B&B. As I stood there, a woman came bustling in and posted a notice for a luncheon on the board. The notice was decorated with a strange looking snake, and I chuckled at this and asked why she had used a snake to advertise a luncheon.

She looked at me and said, almost pityingly, "That's not a snake. That's the Lambton Worm!"

This was even less appetizing to me, but we fell into conversation, and I told her that we were from Pennsylvania and in the area to visit the National Garden Festival. I also described the sort of B&B we were looking for, and she told me that she knew of just the place.

Back in our car, we did the best we could with her complicated directions. To our dismay, these led us out of Chester-le-Street and into the surrounding countryside. Soon we came to a farm lane with a sign advertising a Bed and Breakfast. Pete and Pam groaned in unison, but I pointed out that this seemed to be a wheat farm and convinced them that the place was at least worth a look. We drove down the lane, leaving a great plume of dust behind to mark our passage, and pulled into the farm yard. There stood a large and elegantly built old stone house which looked out on a sweeping landscape of green pastures and distant hills. Here and there a fine looking horse grazed contentedly in the early evening sunshine. I looked over at Pam and she smiled. This place would do just fine.

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August 4, 1990 - We woke up in our elegant farmhouse, and as we ate the light breakfast, which was brought to our room, we gazed out the window at the bright new day. Far, far away, on top of a hill, we could just make out what appeared to be a large Greek temple, and this added just the right finishing touch to the magnificent view. We looked for this temple in our guide books and road maps, but could find no trace of it. Having eaten, we got in our car and drove to the National Garden Festival in Newcastle, where we spent the day enjoying this marvelously eccentric event. Among the many sights was a clever fountain which splashed out of a model of the Lampton Worm. I was becoming interested in this beast, but no one could tell me much about it, except that it was one of the legends of this part of England.

By five o'clock we had returned to Chester-le-Street, where we bought some sandwiches. We sat and ate these in the park, and once again, way off in the farthest distance, we could just catch a glimpse of that strange temple. Pam and I were much intrigued and so after dinner, we got into the car and made a bee-line for the place. As we drove along, Pete gave us constant reports on its position out the car windows, Pam kept track of where we were on the map, and I did my best to keep on a straight course toward the temple. After twenty minutes, we came to rugged park land that stopped our forward progress, and the temple was nowhere in sight. Then Pam pointed to a pub sign across the street, and we knew we were very close… the pub was called The Monument, and beneath these words was a picture of our temple.

Nearby there was a dirt pathway leading out into the wilderness, and at its end, high up on a hill, was the old stone temple we were seeking. It took us forty minutes to hike through the waning daylight up to the monument. Along the way we met a man walking his collie. We talked to him for a minute, and he told us that our Doric temple was built long ago, as a monument to Lord Lambton from his tenants. On seeing how much money was being spent on the monument, Lambton decided that he could raise the rent, and this so angered his tenants that they never finished the monument. Here it still stands to this day, of interest to no one except the local people. This particular hill was chosen for the monument because, in medieval times, the Lampton Worm was said to have spent its afternoons wound nine times around its summit. As our friend departed, he looked at the sun and cautioned us that the Penshaw Monument was still considered to be a pretty spooky place on a dark night. We stepped out onto the summit of the hill just as the sun was just setting. The temple was huge, and its stones almost black in the dying light of the day. We climbed up into it, and found it to be empty, and so we gazed from its huge steps, far out over the countryside to where a river wandered worm-like through the twilight. A chill wind sprang up and the place felt wonderfully eerie and surreal. As we turned away, back down the hill toward our car, we congratulated ourselves on having had an interesting adventure and resolved to do some research at the town library the next morning to learn the real and true story of the Lampton Worm.