Saturday 28th September 2019, Constable Burton
Hawes was teeming with visitors and parked cars because of the week long International Cycling Championships taking place all over Yorkshire with the finals on Sunday. Roads were closed, decorated bicycles of all sorts lined the streets in every village we passed through and there were diversion signs all over the place. Once parked in Hawes we visited the Dales Countryside Museum in a former railway station opened in 1979. Galleries provided information and exhibits on the dairy industry, lead mining, social history of railway carriages, two Roman milestones, a beautiful bronze age spear head, looking as good as new and a Viking gold ring.
Hawes.Yorkshire.
Hawes.Yorkshire.
Sunday 29th September 2019, Whitby
The ground was soaked when we arrived at Constable Burton and it rained for much of the night. We squelched round Modestine in the morning, raising her supports and disconnecting the electricity and struggling with the soggy screen we had mistakenly enveloped her in the night before and which was now ripped and torn, clinging with the wet to her windscreen as we tried to peel it free! We feared that she would not be able to leave the pitch, sunken as she was in the slippery mud. But she surprised us both and we set off through the continuing rain for Northallerton, a market town with a wide main street but no suitable places to offer us a comforting coffee and cooked breakfast.
Guisborough Priory like many such ruinous monastic buildings is an inspiration for artists, but more attractive for us was the local Wetherspoons. We swallowed our principles and patronised Tim Martin's establishment for a brunch with a bottomless coffee mug, glancing at intervals through the windows to ascertain that the rain was continuing before refilling our mugs. On to Whitby in continuing wind and rain, thanks, we gathered, to storm Lorenzo! We found ourselves violently rocked and buffetted on our exposed clifftop with yet another grass pitch to negotiate in the morning! With a few other foolhardy and obdurate individuals in camper vans we were scattered across the wide windswept expanse of the clifftop.
Priory. Guisborough. Yorkshire.
Priory. Guisborough. Yorkshire.
Priory. Guisborough. Yorkshire.
Monday 30th September 2019, Seamer
We drove to the Whitby Park and Ride and took the bus into Whitby where we spent a wonderful sunny day, with a cloudless sky. It was almost a shame to be inside, in the James Cooke Memorial Musuem. It is housed in the home of the Walker family with whom Cooke was apprenticed as a seaman. Apart from Banks and Solander, scientists on his expeditions included Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George - subjects researched by our East German friend Hubert in his younger days for his academic doctorate.
James Cooke Memorial Musuem,Whitby. Yorkshire.
James Cooke Memorial Musuem, Whitby. Yorkshire.
Harbour, Whitby. Yorkshire.
Johann Reinhold Forster. Naturalist. Cooke Memorial Museum. Whitby. Yorkshire.
Johann Reinhold Forster, Naturalist. Cooke Memorial Museum. Whitby. Yorkshire.
Johann Reinhold Forster, Naturalist. Cooke Memorial Museum. Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire.
Whitby. Yorkshire
In the evening we struck lucky for once discovering an inexpensive, friendly little campsite in the village of Seamer on a bus route linking Scarborough in one direction with York in the other! Even better, the rain stopped - well almost! The campsite was much cheaper, smaller and more informal than yesterday's. In the site's bar that evening a group of seven folk music exponents were exchanging and sharing tunes and songs and we were invited into the snug, cosy bar to listen as we enjoyed a glass of the local beer and the rain returned once more, as we discovered when we had to face the weather and run back through the dark and the rain to return to Modestine. The rain set in once more and continued throughout the night.
Tuesday 1st October 2019, Seamer
We caught the bus, from the end of the little side road leading from the campsite, into Scarborough using our seniors bus passes. The rain continued until mid-morning. We walked down to the beach and across the sands to the Spa complex which opened, like so much of Scarborough's seaside development, in the 1870s. The open-air stage was of course closed - on a previous visit we had listened to tea-room music as we had coffee and cake. We were amused to discover a fraudulent painting of a royal visit to the cliff railway! The artist had given the crowd greeting Royalty prominence in the painting in accordance with what they were prepared to pay him for inclusion! There are three Victorian cliff railways, well used even on a chilly October day. Back along the promenade, past the cheesier seaside delights of coin-in-the slot machines, children's rides, gambling machines and shops selling plastic tat, into the old town with the world's smallest heritage centre in a phone box as well as many old houses dominated by the castle on the headland between the north and south bays. We returned through the pedestrianised shopping centre which seemed to have less empty buildings than many other towns and it was good to see the impressive market building reinstated with somewhat sparsely scattered stalls but including a craft bookbinder busily at work with his standing and laying presses and a fine display of half leather bindings in the window. Of more immediate use to us was an excellent and cheap cafe before we explored the Aladdin's cave of small shops in the vaults below. We ended the day with a visit to Woodend, at one time the home of the Sitwell family and housing the Sitwell Library which we had visited before, fortunately, as this time it was in use for a meeting. So we had to content ourselves with a photogaphic exhibition of everyday minutiae in Scarborough, rubbish skips, footprints on the sand, notice boards, architectural details. We were able to add one of our own - the Victorian handles in the exhibition gallery for operating the massive windows.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Cliff railway, Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Cliff railway, Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Scarborough's local history booth with sound recording. Yorkshire.
Timber-framed house, Scarborough. Yorkshire.
Backstreet, Scarborough. Yorkshire.
But is it art? Window closure, Scarborough. Yorkshire
Passing through the suburb of Falsgrave on our return bus journey we noticed a sign for Falsgrave Funeral Services and pondered whether customers might be put off by the name. And might there be similar concerns amongst funeral directors in Bury and Burnham?
Today we took the bus in the opposite direction to York, hoping to see our Local Studies Libraries Group friend Elizabeth, but there was nobody at home and we found the River Ouse in flood, reaching almost up to Skeldergate but fortunately leaving her house above the flood level. We wandered the medieval streets of the town centre, through the lively open-air market with a few hardy souls braving the fine but chill morning taking an al fresco coffee and snack. Then into the Shambles which seemed to be suffering from Pottermania with broomsticks hung outside shop doorways and wands in the windows. This, added to the plentiful array of ghost related activities, fantasy paraphenalia, skulls and skeletal bits and pieces, perhaps enhanced by the approach of Halloween, made the place feel more gothic even than Whitby. Added to this was the presence of Guy Fawkes, born in York with shops and eating places dedicated to him. We found a quiet non-fantasy place in the Shambles for a coffee and wandered round the Minster area, visiting the Treasurer's House which had a wonderful view from the main entrance across the beautiful formal gardens to the Chapter House. The Treasurer's House is rather a sham, but an impressive one. It was given to the National Trust in the 1930s by Frank Green, grandson of the inventor of the Economiser and joint inheritor of the massive fortune accumulated by the family through patent rights on an invention which reduced factory fuel bills by 25%. He was unmarried but a great art lover and spent much of his fortune on the acquisition of three houses in the Minster Close, knocking them into one, demolishing floors and moving walls to create a fake mediveval baronial hall and attached reception rooms, including three state bedrooms to receive members of the royal family in 1900. He seems to have been an unattractive person in many ways, very much a nouveau (tres) riche tradesman anxious to impress and make his mark on high society, in which he seems to have been very successful. His collection, around which the house was largely designed, contains some remarkable pieces but also some very ordinary ones - perhaps the dealers saw him coming. We walked a section of the city walls, passing an ice-house, unusually above ground, and a corner tower of the Roman fortress, something to add to our "I-Spy Romans in York" points gathered on previous visits.
Flooding on the Ouse, York. Yorkshire.
Flooding, York. Yorkshire.
York Minster Yorkshire.
Back streets inYork. Yorkshire.
Stonemasons at work, York. Yorkshire.
Treasurer's house, York. Yorkshire.
York. Yorkshire.
York. Yorkshire.
Treasure's House, York. Yorkshire.
Treasure's House, York. Yorkshire.
Treasure's House, York. Yorkshire.
Treasure's House, York. Yorkshire.
Treasure's House, York. Yorkshire.
York. Yorkshire.
Then back to our campsite on the luxurious bus which had the strange name of Coastliner, although the bulk of its journey was decidedly inland across the gently rolling and beautifully manicured countryside of North Yorkshire, through beautiful brick-built towns and villages without a hint of pebble-dash.Thursday 3rd October 2019, Beverley
We were some time in getting away from the campsite in Seamer as people were so chatty. From the Filipino lady who was cleaning the toilets - a second job to the 60 hours or so she spent each week working as a nurse seconded from BUPA to the NHS, to the couple in the large van next to us who came here regularly from Leeds including over Christmas when the campsite organised a splendid dinner with the leftovers available free on Boxing Day.
We drove west towards Pickering, stopping at Thornton-le-Dale, a picture postcard village where everyone greeted us, including the band of yellow-jacketed men on ladders who were already putting up the Christmas lights. A good place for a coffee break where the waitress chatted to us about the relative merits of Yorkshire and Devon where she had spent happy family holidays in her childhood.
Thornton-le-Dale, Yorkshire
Thornton-le-Dale. Yorkshire.
Only a couple of miles further on was Pickering. Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul with one of the finest collections of medieval mural paintings in the country dating from the 1450s. The North Yorkshire Steam Railway is based here and the town has an excellent and well patronised bookshop with much railway material and a well organised fiction collection which was used by regulars like a lending library, leaving with armfuls of titles and the cheery promise to return for another load next week!
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Pickering. Yorkshire.
Our next stop, when we finally found it hidden away in the flooded back roads, was Nunnington Hall, a medieval manor house with a hall dating from the 15th century and many alterations and additions carried out in the 17th century. Neglected then refurbished largely as a hunting lodge by the Fife family. Many of the rooms were very gloomy and wood panelled. There was no lighting in use and it was difficult to appreciate much in the deepening gloom of an autumn afternoon. There was an extensive collection of mezzotint portraits including many after Reynolds. There was also a collection of miniature rooms.
The following day we continued towards Beverley and our family. Along the way we called off at Rievaulx Terrace overlooking the remains of the Abbey below which we had already visited on a previous visit. This time we explored the terraces, managed by the National Trust and included with our annual membership card. Once through the woodland, the path emerges onto a lawn of mown grass,currently being browsed by sheep, liberally scattering their droppings as they munched, and leaving cloven hoofprints in the soft damp grass.
The stroll along the lawn offers a vista across the surrounding countryside while at either end of the lawn stands a small pavillion in classical style. From some 10 or 12 selected viewpoints specially prepared and maintained the visitor can admire different aspects of the ruined abbey romantically set out below, shrouded sometimes by trees, at others offering a bird's eye view inside its ruined walls. When we visited the browsing sheep had, to the National Trusts considerable annoyance, escaped from a neighbouring farm and were revelling in the tender flavour of the NTs freshly tended lawn! We felt it added considerably to its charm.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
Rievaulx Terrace. Yorkshire.
