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Published: February 11th 2015
23 December
This was another early start road trip that saw us on the road for nearly 12 hours - we're on our way to Ripon Cathedral, Fountains Abbey / Studley Royal and finally Rievaulx Abbey.
First stop was Ripon Cathedral, and its 1300 years of continuous use and history. Highlights included:
1. a stop down in Wilfrid's whitwashed crypt from the original stone church on the site (672 AD).
2. The 15th C. timber carved choir - one of England's oldest and best preserved. These choir stalls were ornately carved (especially the misericord) depicting highly imaginative story lines from biblical and popular folklore. the highlight is the stall said to have been Lewis Carroll's inspiration for the white rabbit of Alice in Wonderland (his father was dean at Ripon).
3. This is one of the most interesting, yet least touristy working cathedrals that I've ever visited.... I enjoyed watching the volunteers set up the nave for xmas service.
Next stop was Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal (World Heritage Sites). The abbey site is a ruin of what would have been one of England's greatest/wealthiest abbeys at the time. Founded in
Historic Ripon Cathedral
A Cathedral with a 1300 year history.1132 by thirteen monks that came to the valley the abbey had it's ups and downs over 400 years, until the reformation and Henry VIII's change in religious direction of the country. The roof and the abbey's treasures were torn down and the rest left to deteriorate over the centuries of seasonal change. The ruins are amazing to explore and extremely photogenic... just go on a warm day 😊
In the same valley lies Studley Royal, a spectacular water garden created in the 1700's. I'd read about Studley Royal in my art and architecture history courses and had always wanted to visit - I'm glad I did. I can't recommend highly enough the gardens to anyone who enjoys landscape architecture and planned gardens.
Next stop was further north in Rievaulx Abbey - which had a very similar story to Fountains. Unfortunately, due to the late hour the site was close and we could only see the ruins from the carpark.
We closed the road trip with a visit to the Fairburns, friends of Madge and the people that had raised and trained Julia's first horse, Trigger.
24 December
Lewis Carroll's inspiration for Alice In Wonderlands White Rabbit down a hole
Example of Ripon Cathedral's 15th C. Choir Stall Misericords... amazing detail! For the sake of brevity I'll keep this day short... we went to the sea side community of Withernsea for last minute grocery shopping - this is a town that once was a fantastic spot for English weekend holidays, now it is filled up with state homes and swarms of mobility scooters. The afternoon was relaxing and food prep for Xmas dinner.
25 December - Xmas
We started Xmas day with a stroll along the cliff tops and adjacent fields (near Tunstall) - Rob, Lou, Al, Ju and Rocky (dog). This part of Yorkshire is glacial till material (very fine loose material) that is highly susceptible to erosion by the wave action of the stormy north sea 20 metres below. All along the cliff tops signs of slippage and avalanches of material in the sea are apparent. Al mentioned that only30 years before there had been a 40 acre field where now there was only the north sea - every few hundred meters or so we could see the upturned ruins of WW2 gun placements that had slipped into the sea years ago. This is supposedly one of the fastest eroding coastlines in the world loosing metres
Ripon Cathedral Interior
One of the best working cathedral's I've seen of land into the sea.
We returned home to Roos for present opening.... I got some great presents including socks, but sadly no new underwear (an xmas classic). Ju was at the height of ecstasy... six months of waiting for 30 minutes of rummaging under the tree and tearing through gift wrap paper.
Gifts were followed up with an early afternoon stop into the Blackhorse Pub. It's local tradition that the publican gives everyone their first drink on the house - I had a local Tetleys ale.
Pub tradition completed we returned home for mid afternoon lunch and kiwi Christmas crackers from the Warehouse - possibly the most well travelled xmas crackers ever. Yum delicious..... sometime after lunch I passed out for a few hours - a combination of ale, lunch, head cold, jet lag and complete disorientation by the lack of sunlight in December (I've been in the southern hemisphere perhaps too long).
Boxing Day
Boxing day saw a late morning delightful brunch at Amy's parent's house in Burstick. There I met Amy and John's son Frankie (18 month old) and became "Uncle Paul"...
more on that in the next travelblog.
That evening we had drinks and cheese with Ju's school friends and from there went to "top pub" (Roos Arms), I should explain at this juncture that Roos has all of two pubs in the village "top pub" and "bottom pub" (Black Horse) the description seems to refer to the fact that the village main street has a very imperceptible slope to it and it is easier to start your night at top pub and stumble down the street to bottom pub after you're third of fourth pint of the night.... no point in expending energy walking "uphill".
Anyway I digress, that evening at the "top pub" we finished off a late night while debating a range of topics - the only one I remember was whether the ..... no I don't remember (something about films and travel in Australia)....
27 Dec
The day's activities revolved around getting the house and food ready for Al's 60th birthday party. At the height of the party we must have had close to 40 people and we ran through 90 pints of beer+, an innumerable number of bottles of wine,
a couple bottles of whiskey and assorted non alcoholic drinks. Al was in great form!
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Wano
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Wano
God Dammit didn't even get a mention ;-( Made an impression there then !!