Today we ventured out of Weston into the countryside.....

and came across a neat little community called Uphill Village—so named because it is at the base of a large hill overlooking the ocean. The village is very old—in fact it dates back to the Romans which is first century AD. By the 11th century the Danish Vikings had established the town here and in the year 1088 a Norman church was built above the village. Today the church is called St. Nicholas Church.

After class two of my company’s instructors from the States drove over from Bristol where they are doing classes to meet me and we did the quick tour of Weston then drove back to Uphill Village and walked up the hill to look at the church. Over the years the church has been used for many functions including a lookout for Napoleon’s navy attacking the coast—which never happened—to a lookout for German bombers—which did happen. During the war the British set up runway lights on the hill but never built a runway. When, in the early years of the war, German bombers made night attacks, they turned on the runway lights and the Germans dropped load after load of bombs on a runway that didn’t exist.

Nearby is a stone tower that was originally built in the 13th century as a grist mill and did in fact grind grain for over 500 years. Today the windmill blades are gone but the tower dominates the horizon and today cattle graze around the structure—very picturesque!

At the bottom of the church path is an old pub called Ship Inn and, since 1620 it has been serving food and ale to sailors and tourists. We ate supper there and it was a real British pub—good food, drunk patrons, dart throwers, and a roaring fireplace even though it’s summer. Today turned out to be another very good day and I’m over half way through this job and trip…..