TRAVELS ABROAD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 148, 26 June 1934, Page 2

TRAVELS ABROAD

FOUNTAIN’S ABBEY RUINS MISS A. CURRIE ’S EXPERIENCED -A. graphic account of some experiences while on a trip abroad was given members of the Wanganui Rotary Club yesterday at the weekly luncheon by Miss A. E. Currie. She told of salmon leaping in the Wye, of banks of primroses and wild violets n> the Mendip Hills and of the caves of Cheddar, where cavemen lived before the coming of the Celts to England. She took her audience to Warwick with its castle and drawbridge and green lawns sloping to the river, covered with cedar trees and peacocks showing their plumage. Miss Currie also told of Fountain's Abbey, built by the monks in the twelfth century after they had left St. Mary’s in Yorkshire. There was still to be seen the old yew tree under which the monks had sheltered while they had quarried the rock to build the abbey, she said. The tree was supported by iron rests, and every effort was being made to keep it alive. Fountain Abbey was roofless to-day, but, was hardly a ruin, although the floors that were once stone were now covered in grass. Long vistas of stone pillars were to bo seen, and there was an atmosphere of old forms of worship. “The abbey is one of the most beautiful thingy anyone could wish to see,” continued the speaker. “It still carries a tremendous atmosphere of peace and worship.” Leaving the ancient building in Warwick, Miss Currie told of a houso in Perth in which she had stayed with cousins. At one time it had belonged to Queen Mary,, and its walls were four feet thick, that all who entered were warned to take two steps before turning! In Scotland Miss Currie said she had visited the Castle of Dunkeld and the Valley of Killiecrankie, with its memory of the blood that had been spilt on the cliffs and in the River Tummel in the cause of Prince Charlie. Edinburgh, lit up by floodlights, is as also dcsciibed to Rotarians. The speaker said she had stood on the bridge at the loot of the castle hill and had looked at Princes Street blazing in light beyond the deep, dark mistiness of the valley. The castle, also lit by floodlights, looked ethereal and exquisitely beautiful as the beams shono on its grey stone, so that the building looked almost transparent. The speaker described the war memorial of the castle, built out of the stone which at ouc time had co-mprised the kitchen quarters. It looked as if it had been there for all time. Nothing connected with the war was left out of the memorial. There were even minute carvings of mice and birds, which had proved instrumental in acquainting soldiers with Knowledge as to whether the air wax nt to breathe or not. The omy personal thing in the memorial was a small medallion which had belonged to Earl Haig. The shrine was built in the living rock of the castle. It was composed of granite and was guarded by four angels Round the semi-circular walls was a bronze sculptured fnezc depicting men of all ranks and departments that served in the war. Their faces were turned to the central east towards a Gothic window, and they were all pressing forward, their expressions being of determination and the absolute certainty that they would do whatever they had made up their minds to. From Edinburgh, Miss Currie moved on to Bruges, and down to Lausauno in Switzerland, where she dined on the Swiss side of the border and went to the French territory foi dessert, the grapes being grown in that country. Naples was described by her as being the loveliest place in Italy, with its sapphir© blue lake on which tho speaker had seen fishermen honouring tneir patron saint and giving a display of fireworks. At the conclusion of her address, the speaker was accorded a hearty vote of thanks on the motion of Archdeacon J. R. Young.