The Oldness of Britain

For those of you who haven't been to the UK or pretty much any of Europe before, you might vaguely realize that the British Empire (and indeed the Roman and others) have been around for quite a while, and have been building things for just as long.  Sure, you can go to a castle and think "Wow, how cool, this thing was built in King Arthur's time" (not that they actually know that King Arthur was real or when in time he might have actually existed) but what you might not comprehend is that buildings that old are fairly common and most of the English don't think of this as unusual.

In the US, we protect 'old' buildings that are famous landmarks, such as Betsy Ross's house (though they think it might actually have been the house next door now), despite their being less than two hundred years old.  In the UK, they remodel the bottom story (storey here, but I haven't gone completely British yet) into a typical store but keep the upper level old-fashioned.  It's quite the odd effect.  But most downtown buildings in any established city or town in England are as old or older than those in the US, and if they want new businesses in, they need to make those changes.

Everything is just very different here, which I had realized on my previous visits, but I think now that I've actually kind of settled down into a non-touristy position in a town not London, it's really sinking in.  These are the buildings these people see every day, and they think nothing of it, where I would marvel at it.

Steve's being very patient with my pausing taking pictures of what he considers to be normal streets, anyway.  :)  Here are a few more photos taken around town.