An American in… Shaftesbury
Jonathan Thomas tells the tale of a journey from his first glimpse of Shaftesbury's Gold Hill to his first visit fifteen years ago
Published in September ’19
The poster, bought in a rural Indiana hobby store that became the inspiration for Jonathan’s Anglophilia
It was in a hobby store in rural Indiana that I first saw Gold Hill, and it was love at first sight. We all have totems – objects or places or people that we look to in times of struggle – and my totem was a poster that I found at that hobby store of a charming English village. It didn’t say which. It simply said: ‘Cottages of Dorset’.
I was in my angsty teenager phase, I was usually miserable, but this poster made me happy. So I bought it, took it home and hung it next to my bed. For the next few years, I would wake up next to that poster and think that life cannot possibly be too bad because that village scene is a place that exists and one day, I’m going to go there. It became a reason for living.
I’d grown up always having an interest in all things British, and this poster became the focus of my Anglophilia. It came to represent everything I loved about Britain, and it also came to represent everything I hoped Britain would be. I used my pocket money, whenever I could, to buy books about Britain. One day I bought a big glossy guidebook in which I came across a full-page image that looked very familiar. Sitting at my desk, I held up the book to the poster on my wall. I finally had a name to go with the image. It was called Gold Hill, and it was located in Shaftesbury, a small town near the border between Dorset and Wiltshire. It was a real place, it had a name, and the name was absolutely wonderful. I was going to go there.
Jonathan and his then fiancée Jackie on their first of many visits to Shaftesbury
It took a long time to make that happen. I’d never really travelled internationally before; I’d only visited Canada briefly on a school field trip when I was ten. The idea of going across the ocean to find a small town was intimidating, but I was going to do it. I was (and am) a big believer in setting goals and achieving them, so I set the goal: I will visit Shaftesbury, Dorset.
It turned out that I wouldn’t get the chance until 2004 – and it almost didn’t happen at all. By the end of a week in London that had included a day-trip to Paris, we were exhausted. The plan had been to and journey out to Dorset on the final day to visit Shaftesbury. But we were tired, we’d never taken the train into the English countryside before and we’d also been pick-pocketed while in Paris. We were now just scared young college students a long way from home. The idea of the whole thing was just too daunting. ‘I don’t want to do it,’ I told my then fiancée, Jackie.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she reasoned. ‘We came all this way, and it’s your dream. We’re going.’ She did something then that still amazes me to this day: she picked up the phone and booked us train tickets to Dorset. ‘Sorted,’ she said after hanging up.
Reader, I married her.
I couldn’t believe it. We were going to Shaftesbury by public transport. Nothing could stop me now.
The next day, we set out early and went to Waterloo station to catch our train. We retrieved our tickets and weren’t unduly alarmed with the ticket agent told us: ‘You have to change at Woking.’
A youthful Jonathan at the top of his beloved Gold Hill
When we arrived in Woking, we were told to get off the train and we then learned about a uniquely British phenomenon for the first time: the railway replacement bus. We stood around in suburban Surrey, having no idea what we were doing, but dutifully followed the queue. Eventually, we got on a bus. It took us on a journey through the English countryside that seemed like it would go on forever. Eventually, we were deposited at another train station: Basingstoke. The road journey had taken so long that we’d missed the next train. Eventually, a train arrived, and we were finally on our way to Gillingham.
Weeks before, I’d written to the Shaftesbury Tourist Information Office and asked how one gets there by train. They sent meticulous directions (I’d asked about walking but they were clear that this was ‘not a good idea’). ‘Take the train to Gillingham,’ we were advised, ‘then ask for a taxi outside the station and they will take you to Shaftesbury. Have them drop you off outside the Town Hall, and Gold Hill is right behind that. Give the driver a time, and he’ll return to collect you back to the train station.’
The train arrived in Gillingham, and the advice had been right: there was a taxi right outside the station and the friendly driver agreed to take us to Shaftesbury. I was bubbling with anticipation as we drove through the hills of North Dorset. I thought it was the most beautiful place I’d ever been to.
‘I don’t know why you’d come all this way,’ said the taxi driver on hearing our accents. ‘This landscape is just boring old Dorset. I much prefer Sussex.’ He just didn’t understand; this place was special.
The drive didn’t take long, and the taxi driver dropped us off in front of the Shaftesbury Town Hall and agreed to come back in a couple of hours to return us to the train station. ‘Gold Hill’s right behind there,’ he said before he drove off.
With the nervousness of finally achieving an ambition I had dreamt of for years, we made our way gingerly down the cobbles and around the Town Hall. The alleyway became a steeply cobbled road. There it was: Gold Hill.
It was a real place. And I was finally there.
It was a rainy and dreary day but the hill still shone with a golden glow. It was magical. The air was silent and still. A church bell rang in the distance. I’d arrived in the most wonderful place I’d ever been to.
It started hailing.
Sheltering from the weather, we had tea and cake at the Salt Cellar café at the top of the hill. We both admired the view, and I couldn’t believe that I was there. It was everything I had hoped it would be. It was as perfect as the pictures, but it was so much more real now. It was no longer a poster on my wall or just a picture in my camera; it was a place where I’d walked, had seen with my own eyes. There I’d breathed the cool fresh air, I’d smelt the flowers and I’d touched the abbey ruin stone wall with my own hands. I’d had a cup of tea with the view before me. I’d sojourned in my English paradise.
The picture Jonathan took of Gold Hill on his first visit to Shaftesbury
I have spent every day since that time in 2004 trying to get back to Gold Hill and Shaftesbury. I have been back many times since and the place still has me in its spell. It’s still my totem. Now I have a poster on my wall of a picture I took myself. I’ve even stayed in a cottage on Gold Hill (for a total of 38 nights over 15 years). Gold Hill is an important piece of my life and I miss it when I’m not there. What’s remarkable is how much Gold Hill hasn’t changed over the years, and that’s exactly the attraction; it’s a permanent thing in an increasingly impermanent world.
Oscar Wilde, in An Ideal Husband, wrote: ‘When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers,’ but Wilde wasn’t always right. Finding a poster in a hobby store in Indiana and then visiting the place I dreamed about, only to find out the place really was as wonderful as the picture, proves it. Gold Hill is a very special place that becomes a part of you, a place you think about going back to every day, even if you’ve never had Hovis bread or even seen the famous commercial. I hope to be back soon. Until then, please look after it.
• Jonathan Thomas is the editor and publisher of Anglotopia.net, the website for people who love Britain.
