Summer Pilgrimage

My summer holiday this year has taken me to Somerset, the Land of Summer.

Camping in an ‘alpine’ campsite in Chard kept me cool under the relentless sun.  I waited for the cooling at the sun’s eclipse, and in the early hours, glimpsed up through the canopy at the stars, knowing the Perseid meteors were busy somewhere above.  

As I mentioned in a previous post, when at home, I sit below an old Joan Blaeu map of Somerset.  Subtly, over the years, the spirits have been trying to tell me that Somerset is significant.  I found that a branch of my forebears leads to Chilton Cantelo, Limington, Ilchester and Yeovilton.  Then, my literary interests were intercepted - firstly by John Cowper Powys, on a trip to Hay Festival in 2023 where a book in one of the second hand bookshops grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go.  Shortly after that came the discovery that TS Eliot had often visited my house and wrote his Old Possums Book of Practical Cats poetry for the children here.  

Thus began my pilgrimage back to my roots, then to East Coker and St Michael & All Angels, where Eliot’s ashes reside, and on to Powys territory at Montacute.  It culminated in a final stop at Glastonbury and Street for the 2026 Powys Society annual conference.

It was hot.   I congratulated myself on booking a woodland campsite, and I actually slept really well, as London has been impossible this summer.  Another smart move was finding myself connected to writers for whom the Church played an integral role, arguably in very different ways.  A pilgrimage to churches in 33-degree heat was very wise; they are so cool, calm and serene.  I thought about how lucky we are to have them and how much we take them for granted - or even forget about them entirely. Everything is so noisy, busy and honed to consumerist principles.  No matter how you feel about Christianity, what a sanctuary a church is.  We should treasure and protect them much more than we do.  

As I reached East Coker, I asked AI about parking and about how best to reach the Church.  As usual, it hallucinated and tried to convince me that walking for 10-15 minutes under the beating sun (the long way round) was the most sensible thing to do.  Feeling the strength of the sun’s heat, I ignored it and parked right outside.  The pathway up to the church door led me past Coker Court - an impressive mansion next door.  I smiled as the first image to hit me was an old Defender parked outside, in view of the gates.  In my stories, Dulcie Dodo has rescued an old Defender and got it working again.  Then just as I continued, the bells of the Church rang on the hour and I felt so welcome.   

It was luxuriously cool inside, I sighed with relief and then I immediately saw Eliot’s resting place.  I was struck by how humble it was.  He was there with his wife, Valerie and to my delight they were at one end, overseeing a children’s play area.  My Eliot is the playful Old Possum and this spot seemed perfect.  He loved the children in this house and the children of his colleagues at Faber.  His letters to Polly Tandy and her children are so playful, often illustrated with little drawings.  To Polly, he would often ‘talk’ in a ‘Zummerzet’ accent.  Those letters are so very different from the Eliot found in his other correspondence.

I sat myself down and spent a while just contemplating.  I didn’t feel him there that day, like I feel him sometimes in my house.  I sound crazy but I have sensed him - and before I knew who he was.  No matter what anyone thinks, I know that John Cowper Powys would understand me, which brings me on to the next part of my journey to Powysian territory.  

In their lifetimes, I don’t think these two giants saw eye-to-eye exactly.  I find it a little bizarre that I have been enchanted by two such male forces.  I had just been reading Gwerful Mechain for goodness’ sake!  Then I was interrupted by these two and I wasn’t sure about them at all to start with.  But I went with the flow and was drawn in and somehow they reside in my mind quite comfortably together.  I will eventually find the thread that joins them, I know it.  I sense that Eliot, despite his outwardly buttoned-up ways, was deeply spiritual.  And John Cowper Powys wore his wildness inside and out - untethered, close to nature rather than against an urban wasteland.  So, in the end, I think it’s just a question of style and how we choose to navigate ‘society’.  On the other side, I think they are likely to have far more in common. 

Montacute was surprisingly close to East Coker; I was there within minutes. I sat in the pews of St Katherine’s Church where the Powys children’s father was vicar, and contemplated again, in the cool of the thick, stone walls.  If people know of the Powyses, it is of the three brothers: John, Llewelyn and Theodore.  I wondered how such atheist brothers could come from such a religious and nurturing background? 

But then it came to me:  the very fact that the Reverend Charles and Mary Cowper Powys had produced eleven talented but vastly different children demonstrates that they had given them the confidence and freedom to go off, be different, be curious and be rebellious.  Those ‘detested pews’ where I now sat, paradoxically encouraged them to go out and find ‘spirit”. 

Montacute was stunning.  Bathed in unrelenting sunshine, the beautiful Hamstone buildings hummed with warmth.  I’ve always liked rocks; as a little girl, I was never without torn, dusty Tesco bags full of them. 

I took a drive up to Ham Hill to find the source of the stone.  Finding a shady tree, I looked out.  The Powys children may have grown up in a small community but they had a huge expanse of nature as their playground.  It teaches you to notice.  

Next stop was the Isle of Avalon, the myth-making realm of Gwyn ap Nudd, King of the Tylwyth Teg and Lord of the Otherworld (Annwfn).  Home to King Arthur and, of course, to Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail.  Heady stuff - and I had been reading Penguin’s newly re-released A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys in preparation for my very first Powys Society conference.

I would be fibbing if I said I wasn’t intimidated by attending the conference.  The Powys Society has been in existence since the late sixties and is filled with highly interesting members: writers, poets, philosophers, artists and scholars.   The talks were full of treasure.  I had my usual panic attacks of not knowing enough and being impatient for knowledge but my brain cells haven’t been that engaged for a long time and it felt really good.

Despite my insecurities, the members were all friendly, generous and welcoming.  I sensed kindred spirits so I can’t wait to see them again.

Glastonbury Tor was calling me.  The following day was reliably scorching, so I waited until evening to set out.  I visited the ruined Abbey which was much larger than I expected.  Then later, I took in the town, bustling with witchy paraphernalia.  As I passed St John the Baptist Church, the bells pealed as if to say ‘hello’, just as they had in East Coker.  I made my way to the Tor, using my phone, as my sense of direction is so appalling.

I wanted to see and experience Gwyn ap Nudd’s domain within Ynys Wydryn—to climb the steep hill up to St Michael’s  and sit and wonder at how Mr Geard, of the wide girth, managed to run down the Tor to calm the baying townspeople at his Pageant in JCP’s novel.  Eventually, as I reached the summit, a cool wind surrounded me and suddenly I was looking down at the Levels all around, seeing what countless people have seen and experienced for centuries.  I could quite imagine the ground below filling with water for the Tor to earn its Welsh name, the ‘Isle of Glass’.  I had no sense of fairies, which is probably good because they can be malevolent if they take a dislike to you.  It certainly felt like a place of magic but I was left in peace to sit and wonder at the beauty and the mystery, and to watch the sun set.

Sitting here, writing, beneath that old map of the summer lands, I feel as if something has shifted.  At the start of this journey with JCP, my curiosity sparked which was then amplified by the Eliot & Tandy discoveries - a slow and steady return to the ‘hope’ that I had lost.  Slowly, ‘faith’ and spirituality have been building and I’m in a much better place than I have been for the longest time.  This pilgrimage was not to visit ‘idols’, rather, they have served as unlikely companions.  They are companions that you wouldn’t automatically put together, but there is something that binds us - something we are all too quick and ready to forget.