Rolling around England

You need wheels to travel through England’s heart and history.

We started with a rather sizeable one — the giant London Eye — a gondolagarlanded Ferris wheel overlooking this hub of history clinging to the Thames.

As you clamber aboard for a 30-minute flight, you’re carried slowly up a football field and a half with a view directly toward Cleopatra’s Needle and Charing Cross Station with Waterloo Bridge a bit farther upriver. And you soak in Piccadilly Circus, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and so many more venues you’ve read or heard about.

Your descent presents a clear view of Big Ben and the New Palace of Westminster, better known as the Houses of Parliament. A royal palace has existed on these grounds since Britain was in the hands of the Viking King Canute. But it was Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror who enlarged it in the 11th century to its currently dynamic proportions — 1,200 rooms covering eight acres.

After debarking, a short walk across Westminster Bridge got us to the renowned abbey of the same name enroute to Victoria Station to board our most-used wheels during our visit in Britain — the train.

It trundled us back to the

George Hotel in Crawley, less than an hour’s ride south of The City. The train station is one stop from Gatwick Airport and a five-minute walk from the hotel, nestled among a sizeable shopping mall, pubs that date back to the mid-1400s, and the 800-yearold Parish Church of St. John the Baptist that serves as a shortcut, parking lot and quiet stopover for those who wish to talk to God or listen to history whisper from the walls.

The George has been around since the 15th century. It became a major halfway house after the LondonBrighton Road was built through Crawley in the late 1600s. Queen Victoria stayed there and Charles Dickens acted there.

It was a third set of wheels that got us out into the countryside. Grahame and Frauke Leon-Smith, who graciously served as both hosts and guides, took us on a couple of quick jaunts we would never have tried to drive on our own. Besides having to drive on the “wrong” side of the thoroughfares, signs are difficult to see because many of the roads through this region — Sussex, Surrey and Kent — are paved-over country lanes winding through leafy forests.

At Windsor Castle we stood in front of the tower built in 1056 by William the Conqueror across from what is now a curving street burgeoned with Burger King, Pizza Hut, McDonald, Starbucks and Haagen-Dasz.

Minutes later, we crossed the Thames into Eton and strolled past the Cock Pit Restaurant, which was established on the site in 1420.

Then we slid by Ascot, the playground of royalty, and Runnymede, where King John signed the Magna Car- ta. “This is where democracy was born,” said Grahame. “For the first time in history, people were ruled by law, not the whim of the king.”

On our last day, we visited Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s home in Kent.

“Churchill bought this house — it had 80 acres at the time and he added to it later — in 1922 for 5,000 pounds with proceeds from his first book” said our guide. “He earned his money from royalties as a writer. He used to say, ‘If your outgo outdoes your income, increase your income.’ ”

We also learned that Winston Spencer Churchill’s middle name was Leonard. But no one could explain why he dumped it in favor of Spencer, his mother’s family name.

“He used to sign some of his letters with the drawing of a pig,” Hatter said. “He said, ‘I like pigs; cats look down on human beings, dogs look up to them, but pigs just treat us as their equals.”

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