I hope that this will be the first of several posts this week as there is a fair amount for me to write about. Between our trip down to visit our family in Barnsley last week, an interesting week in the university, our first taste of English Halloween, and today’s hoped for jaunt to go watch the salmon jumping in the Wear, it has been an eventful time for the Claviers.
This picture was taken at Richmond Castle last Saturday. We stopped there on a cold and very blustery day as we made our way through the Yorkshire Dales to south Yorkshire. I’d only ever been through the outskirts of Richmond but many had told me that the town was well worth a visit. It used to be a
prsoperous, medieval market town, and one gets the impression that little has changed since then. The river Swale flows rapidly through it and Richmond Castle, one of the oldest in England, towers over all and particularly over the spacious market square. We had a quick look round the castle (from the top of which my hat blew away!), walked a little in the square, and had lunch by the river. It really is a lovely town that, because of the weather and our need to move on, we didn’t properly see. It definitely is at the top of our list of places to revisit…in more clement weather.
After lunch we pushed on through the lovely Yorkshire countryside. The gentle rain eased to an occasional shower and there were even moments of sun. It was a lovely jaunt along narrow roads. At the last minute, we made a holy pilgrimage to Masham, the home of Theakston Brewery that produces some of the finest ales one could ever savor. I purchase a case of “Old Peculiar” as a sacred memento of our journey.
After the all too brief visit there, we pushed on through the delightful city of Ripon to one of my favorite places on God’s green earth: Fountain’s Abbey. After one has been to the ruins of that once majesty Cistercian monastery, every other ruined abbey seems a poor copy. Some of that is, of course, due to the architectural skill of the white monks themselves. But their work was ably set into the Yorkshire landscape by William and John Aislabie, two of the greatest 18th-century English landscapers. It really is a magical place with the haunting ruins overlooking an ordered garden surrounded by woods thick with oak and beech.
The cellarium (pictured here) has been a fixture within my imagination ever since I first visited it right after
my high school graduation. The size of the place, with its pillars and fluted arches, and the color of the light reflecting off the stonework transports one back in time. You almost expect a Cistercian to emerge from one of the doorways to welcome you to their abbey. Really, the whole ruined complex is remarkable. As always I was filled with a sense of wonder tinged with a slight melancholy when I considered what greed and ambition had done to this once powerhouse of prayer.
We walked along the path through the autumn woods by the river towards the garden. Soon, we were transported from medieval England into the 18th century’s idea of a place out of Greek myths. Instead of Gothic buildings, now the landscape was dotted with small Greek temples and classical statuary. Geometric pools rested still in a long expanse of green lawn upon which people done up in 18th century formal garb once perambulated. I wonder what the ghosts of the old Cistercians thought of that!
Finally, we arrived at the deer park, in which now stand the old Jacobean Hall and the oddly out-of-place St.
Mary’s Church. Along the edges of this wide area, colorful pheasants darted in and out of hedges while within the park itself herds of deer grazed. We were treated to one impressive sight: a spledid stag with kingly crown of antlers chased off a competing male. Afterwards he turned towards us an let out a roar the likes of which I’ve never heard from a stag. No one could be in any doubt the claim he was staking! The thought of Animal from the “Muppet Show” yelling, “woman” came to mind.
It was now time to get on to Barnsley and so we regretfully bade farewell to Fountains Abbey. I’ve a feeling we’ll be back often, hopefully on warmer and drier occasions! The rest of the trip was uneventful, though the return to bustling traffic and urban sprawl was a bit of a shocking contrast. As always, we were warmly welcomed by “uncle” Dave and “aunt” Lorraine. But more about that in my next post.
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