Yorkshire, England trip - posted November 2015
Intro to our trip to Yorkshire, England, in October 2015
return to Yorkshire trip index
We flew from Sacramento to D. C., and then to Manchester, England, arriving about 6:30 am. We had breakfast and extra coffee as we waited for exorbitant commuter hour train prices to drop.
The 90-minute train ride to York passed through Leeds. In historic York we picked up a rental car & drove 20 miles north to our "self-catering" cottage at Kilburn Park, located near Thirsk, a small town pretty much in the center of north Yorkshire, with the Yorkshire Moors & North Sea to the east, and the Yorkshire Dales to the west.
Here are two maps of Yorkshire (what's called Scotch Corner on the 2nd map is the same as Richmond on the first).
|
|
|
Our Yorkshire trip was relaxing, probably because it was small-scale. Most of the destinations were easily reached, on uncrowded roads through flat or rolling-hills terrain. Our only long drives were to Richmond Castle, to Hawes in the upper part 0f Wensleydale, and, to Flamborough Point, on the North Sea, each about a two hour drive away.
Local villages like Thirsk (pop. 5,000) and Helmsley (pop. 4,000) are really small towns. It takes all of five minutes (at 30 mph) to drive through Thirsk from one end to the other and only about two minutes for Helmsley. Pickering (pop. 6,800), is on the major road heading northeast to the Moors, or to Whitby, or Scarborough (all on the North Sea), but has only two traffic lights on the main two-lane road.
Coming from where we live (pop. 173,000+ in E.G. and 1.4M in Sac. area), we found ourselves in a much less densely populated area, unexpected & refreshing. For both of us, this was our first time visiting England.
UK weather, with its predominance of cloudy weather & occasional light rain or sunshine, was fine with us.
Our two-story cottage was 40 miles east of the Atlantic Ocean, and 40 miles west of the North Sea. This meant we had constantly changing weather with exceptional air quality.
Self-Catering Cottage
Kilburn Park Holiday Cottages (link here) has two rental units on a horse-boarding property. The White Horse cottage where we stayed, is the larger one, and was 50 pounds a night ($75 at the time). It was a really attractive cottage, with about 1,200 sq. ft.
Upstairs there were two large en suite bedrooms. On the ground floor was a small living room, with a modest wood stove, and, a modern kitchen & laundry room. The kitchen had radiant floor heating, comfortable to use on the coldest mornings.
The owner Jackie was very pleasant and we came to really appreciate the place, but more on the cottage in a few days.
Our pantry was well-supplied via the Tesco grocery in Thirsk, an easy ten-minute drive. At breakfast & dinner we kept up the same diet as at home. Lunch was a wild card, to be played anywhere.
UK guidebooks warn against driving in the dark when in the country because roads are tiny & are never lit. We were thus home almost every day by nightfall - this being early to mid-October - around 6 pm.
History - background to the Abbeys
Our main historic destinations in Yorkshire were the Medieval Abbeys of Byland, Rievaulx, and Fountains, because of a coffee table book we've had for 20+ years, Monasteries in Europe, which states that these three were the most important of the widely spread out Cistercian Abbeys in England, Cistercians being a French Order of Catholics who traditionally built Abbeys on a grand scale, with elaborate architecture.
Most Catholic monasteries in early England & Europe obeyed the Rule of Benedict, written in 540 AD. Benedict insisted that a monk's life be based on simplicity of lifestyle and frequent prayer & devotion. He expected that Monks would live at poverty level conditions, in Monasteries situated away from population centers, to reduce worldly temptation. This was the ideal.
Instead, by the 1200s, Yorkshire Abbeys became more than a little wealthy. This was due to a thriving wool trade with the Continent, and, from private donations, the French Normans having brought over their tradition of generosity to the Catholic Church, particularly from wealthy Nobles & Barons, whose gifts came with the expectation that the Abbey Monks would pray daily, over the coming centuries, for their eternal souls.
There were other profitable mining operations here, as in metal commodities like lead, tin, and coal. The most lucrative activity was the wool trade, because English wool was very much in demand on the Continent. Thus Rievaulx became a wealthy Abbey.
The official brochure says these Abbeys had impressive libraries, rivaling the best Abbey libraries in Europe. Of course, scribes copying books was an integral part of Monastic life everywhere in Europe, at that time.
Monks at Rievaulx Abbey could read Greek & Roman classics, or The Early Fathers of the Church. In addition, the Abbey's spiritual leaders occasionally attended Ecclesiastical conferences in Paris, usually a 6 week journey (or more) back then, each way, from York.
Life span of the Abbeys
The monastic lifestyle at the Abbeys we visited lasted about 300 years, with the best years being the 1200s, when they were new. After a brief golden age, recurrent bouts of bubonic plague, starting in 1348, and a wide-spread sheep disease (both of which had already spread across Europe) lead to a steady decline in wealth & population both at the Abbeys & in the surrounding communities.
When Protestant King Henry the Eighth's men came around to confiscate any wealth still left at the Abbeys in the mid-1500s, the population of monks was minimal, and, the only item of value was the old lead roofing, which was taken.
Henry mandated that each Abbey be rendered un-usable, or 'sacked', part of his condemnation of Papal-ruled Catholicism. That's one reason why the Yorkshire Abbeys we saw are wrecks, with varying degrees of grandeur remaining.
The other reason is that once-sacked Abbeys become a local source of pre-cut stones, rapidly incorporated into homes and barns. Thus, the Abbey ruins we see today tend to consist of stones which have (historically) been too large to carry off.
Note about Historical Information
At the destinations we read the displays, took ear-bud tours, and, purchased official brochures. All of the historical sites were operated & maintained by English Heritage, or The National Trust. Both sell professionally done brochures with beautiful photos and a lot of info.
Once back at home, I read the historic materials and the dots began to connect. I undertook & enjoyed a small online research project to get the Monastic story right, and amended the text for months after the initial posting.
Addition, April 2018
Another reason for our wanting to see Yorkshire, which I did not mention in 2015, had to do with our fondness for the BBC TV show All Creatures Great & Small, which are stories about large & small animals and their owners. The show aired on PBS in the 1990s, based on a series of books by real life Thirsk Veterinarian Alf Wight, who began to write late in his career.
Alf Wight is known to the world as author James Herriot, who eventually sold 60 million books, translated into many languages.
The stories as written were about the farming population around Thirsk, places like Kilburn Park, with mostly large-animal cases, but the BBC producers realized the value of relocating such charming stories to the Yorkshire Dales, with its quaint & picturesque small towns and eye-popping scenery.
They used actors who portrayed Yorkshire farmers from earlier days, who used to be nearly unintelligible, due to strong local accents. It was a huge TV success in the US.
The series also benefited when veteran stage & movie actor Robert Hardy, who played quirky Vet Sigfreid Farnon, was given permission to modify the script by Alf Wight, to add drama and humor. Those few modifications made it a big TV success.
Like so many others, we were captivated by the footage of gorgeous Yorkshire scenery, and we hoped we could go there someday. Finally in fall 2015, my wife & I did go there, and certainly enjoyed our own exploration of the Yorkshire area.
go to next page - week one, part one - walk to Kilburn
return to Yorkshire trip index