Steve and Mary USA Trip: North Bennington, Southern Vermont (27 -29 Sept)

Pulp Mill Bridge built in 1820
This is a 195 foot long two span Double barrel Burr Arch.
It carries Pulp Mill Bridge Road over Otter Creek near Middlebury.

From Burlington we travelled down to Bennington via the Green mountain trail. This was very picturesque but had been badly affected by Hurricane Irene. Many roads had a been washed away and had only just opened again that week and then only as single track dirt roads. We were a bit disappointed that the Fall hadn’t quite reached this area yet because the weather had been too warm and wet but the countryside was beautiful all the same.

Pulp Mill Bridge from the river

We passed through a small place called Middlebury where we encountered this two lane covered bridge. local folk law has it that the bridges were built covered so that if they came into disuse they could be used by the farmers as barns - sounds like a bit of a lame justification to me but looks good all the same.

Middlebury Summer College

Also in Middlebury we came across this college. It consisted of about 15 buildings like this plus lecture rooms, a club, bar and refectories. the weird thing was that it was totally deserted. We met somebody walking around the grounds who said it was only used for summer literary courses because non of the buildings were insulated except the communal facilities which were also used in the ski season. It looked pristine but how the economics works is any ones guess.

Middlebury College - all a bit Stepford

The road through town was lined with houses like this - we didn't stop long just in case they invited Mary to a coffee morning!

Rochester Village Green

The next place along was a more normal looking town called Rochester in the middle of the forest with a coffee shop and deli in an antique book shop. It was great – order your coffee and just pick a first edition off the shelf – purchase optional.

Eventually we reached North Bennington where we stayed for 3 days. It is only a small village but it had a pub, restaurant and coffee shop and famous for its covered bridges – what more do you need!

We stayed at Eddington House, a nice little B&B right in the middle of the village run by a lovely lady called Patti. The house was old by American standards (150 years) and she lived in the attached converted barn.

There were only three guest rooms and we had a cosy bedroom and sitting room on the first floor as well as the run of the house. The breakfasts were a highlight – one morning we had fresh baked French toast bread and butter pudding with cream and maple syrup; the next a goats cheese soufflé - bit decadent but very tasty and we didn’t need lunch.

Powers Market - 175yrs old

The coffee shop and deli had a ‘recombobulation’ station – that’s where you put your milk and sugar in. You could also get Yorkshire Tea, the only one we found in the New England area. After our M&S (gold) tea bags ran out at Bar Harbor, Mary had been on hot water until now so she filled her boots – not literally though but given the chance……(you can take the scouser out of Liverpool, etc)!

The weather was hot and humid for most of the time and we were again plagued by voracious mosquitos especially in the forests. Walking was good though and we saw a number of covered bridges on our
ramblings.

Old First Church from the
top of the Monument

Bennington Monument

We also visited Bennington Monument – yet another edifice to the War of Independence which is an impressive 300ft high obelisk financed (to add insult to injury) by the French! It is an impressive structure though; we got a lift to the top with views of Massachusetts, New York State, Vermont and the Green Mountains.

We visited the Old First Church in Old Bennington (as viewed from the top of the Monument). It was the first Protestant church in Vermont built in 1762 and the oldest in continuous use. The church was rebuilt in its present form in 1805. The building has interesting architecture - it was built by shipwrights and all of the columns are made from single tree trunks as a ships mast would have been made. The box pews are similar to those in St Mary's in Whitby; box pews were designed so that families could keep warm in the winter - it was common for members of the congregation to heat a rock in the fire at home and then take it with them to huddle around. Sermons tended to be short in those days!

Screened Organ Loft

Old First Church - box pews

The organ loft has much higher screening than the rest of the church. This was because before the organ was installed it was originally used to seat prisoners (mostly people who had stolen to feed their families) and black people (before emancipation) to hide them from the rest of the congregation. So things do change for the better just takes a long time!

The church currently has an active congregation of about 30 regulars which was in line with most of the churches we visited in the area.

The village, like much of the area had a thriving artist’s community with sculptures on show all over the place. One of the ones we liked were this couple on the now defunct North Bennington railway station called ‘waiting for the train’??

They even have their version of the mighty Lambanana (see blog #1) but these are in the form of 100’s of moose dotted all over the place in prominent spots, sponsored by local businesses and decorated by differently by schools and other groups in town just like the lambananas.

It rained on the Wednesday so we decided to have a day out in Manchester which turned out to be an upmarket shopping strip. We didn't stay long then we went to the Norman Rockwell museum in Arlington. He was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works had broad popular appeal in the United States, where Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for more than four decades. The tour was really interesting because he used mostly people from Arlington to model for him and the guide had little stories about them all