The Traveling Idiots-Where The Tuck Are They Now?: Who cut the cheese?

It would certainly be easy to spend more than one day exploring the city of Bath. However, there are so many interesting places in this area we decided that Sunday would be spent in some of the smaller cities and villages. Again we had quite a few to choose from but ended up selecting Wells and Cheddar. They were only a short drive from where we were staying and close to each other. The rolling green countryside was quite spectacular. It was chilly and a little misty but we decided that made for an appropriate setting, especially since we couldn't change it.
Wells bills itself as "England's Smallest City". I'm not sure what makes a village a village, a town a town or a city a city but it's a nice tagline. It also seemed to be an accurate one because we discovered a busy little city center surrounded by nice houses and a very prominent cathedral.
Although there is evidence that people lived there long before, the city itself dates back to the 12th century. It gets it's name from a natural spring located in the Bishop's Palace which is adjacent to the cathedral. The spring water served as a great resource for the people and provided water for a moat that surrounds the Bishop's Palace.
The Bishop's Palace is over 800 years old and as the name implies served as the residence for the Bishop of the Church. It's massive and contains over 14 acres of gardens within the compound. Now I'm really not sure why he felt a moat was necessary unless he wasn't a very good bishop or he was concerned the parishioners might figure out how much of their tithes went to building the palace.
https://bishopspalace.org.uk/attractions/palace/
Like the palace, the cathedral is quite spectacular. However, it does look disproportionally large for a city the size of Wells. Inside, the cathedral was much brighter than many of the old cathedrals that we have visited. The stained glass windows were really nice and allowed in plenty of natural light even on a very overcast day.
The most interesting feature of the cathedral was a clock installed on a wall. This is no ordinary clock. It was installed around 1390 making it one of the oldest medieval clock faces in the world. The clock still functions and until recently was wound by hand. On the quarter hour the knights at the top of the clock circle several times like it's a jousting tournament. Every time they go around this one poor knight loses the bout and falls back on his horse. Poor guy gets beat about 8-10 times every fifteen minutes. He's been doing this for over 600 years. That's a lot of getting beat and getting back up. You gotta admire his resolve!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggT6Eon6OV0
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1304404/Wells-Cathedral-clock-wound-human-hand-replaced-electric-motor.html
We found a nice paved footpath that lead from the area near the Bishop's Palace to a small village a couple of miles away. Not ones to miss out on a Sunday stroll we joined quite a few other folks on a leisurely walk. The "public footpaths" as they are called are so nice and easy to access. Like the South West Coast Path in Cornwall this network of paths could take you for miles and miles.......over 600 miles if you felt so moved.
Our other destination, Cheddar is a village with a big claim to fame. As you have probably guessed by now this is where cheddar cheese was first developed. Like most things historic in England it dates back quite a few centuries. In this case to the twelfth century when the local folks started storing their cheese in the local caves of the cheddar gorge while it matured. Magically, mystically cheddar cheese was born and the cheddar cheese made locally is still stored in those very same caves today. So yes, cheese is being cut in Cheddar every single day and has been for centuries!
But wait, there's more!. In 1903 Britain's oldest complete human skeleton was found in one of the caves. His estimated age, over 9,000 years. He was appropriately given the name "Cheddar Man"!
You can't make this stuff up!