Antiques Roadshow Leeds and Knaresborough rowboats

I wanted to get this blog done before we left for the USA as there are a couple of really fun things that happened in early September. Although it was also when Noeline made a successful escape to Paris and then home, before she went we had the excitement of going to a recording of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow which had been scheduled to come back to Leeds Town Hall after some 7 years. Last time the AR was in Leeds they discovered, among other treasures, an Arthur Streeton painting of a ghost gum valued at about AUD$70,000. Apparently the family had inherited "loads of them" from an uncle who had toured Australia years ago. We will have to watch the show we went to to see if anything equally astounding came in. We didn't see anything of that grandeur but we didn't stay for the 13 hours it was in production either. To get into the show Gail had an old gold watch (metal value only as it turned out) which we used as our excuse to gain entry and have a good look round. It was very well organised, well, you'd expect that, it is the 32nd series they have run. It was interesting to see that the presenters and experts still get a huge kick out of discovering treasures and histories suitable for broadcast. It was a real treat to watch the show being put together as well as having a good old sticky at everybodys trash and treasure. There is a bit of queuing involved but we escaped most of it by choosing to arrive early avoiding the external queue and when we got in the line for clocks and watches was relatively short.

Lastly for this blog entry, the Wednesday morning when we took Noeline to Leeds airport was a cool but spectacular late summer Yorkshire day. The sort of stuff we had presumed as legend. Anyway, after farewelling Noeline and after Gail had done some catch up work on the computer back at home, we could not resist the call of the outdoors on a sunny day and headed off to Knaresborough, this time it was my intent to take out a row boat, like what I had seen others doing on the day Noeline and I went to Mother Shiptons cave .... By the way, if you want to buy it, England's oldest tourist attraction as described in last month's blog, it came on the market at 1.6 million pounds last week.

I am tempted to say that the rowing was long, taxing and tiring in a rewarding sort of way but,,, it wasn't. In fact the length of the river navigable by rowboat is only about one short kilometer of almost still water. Never the less, we did take with us a bottle of fine Cornwall wine (Camel Valley) nicely chilled, a couple of glasses of which added more to the enjoyment than a long row could ever have.

We grounded our vessel on the upstream reach, supped our wine, played with the ducks, sat back and enjoyed the view. Following a humorous start Gail expertly rowed us back to the downstream weir where we tied up near a kiosk and finished off our bottle.

I only mention these two days out as they were such an "English" thing to do and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute.

Noeline, Ripley Castle, Patley Bridge, Grassington, Chester, Gargrave, Kirkby-Longsdale, Ribblehead, Clitheroe, Hawes. The August almanac.

WELCOME to the AUGUST SUMMARY. I hope you have an hour or so spare to join us on our rambling recollections of a very active month. So much has happened because we are trying to inject every corner of Yorkshire experiences into Noeline's stay, she leaves us early September and there is much left to do! Thankfully we are all enjoying ourselves, as you can see. The first August outing was to Ripley Castle. Gail and I had been there before but August 2nd saw the grounds dedicated to a classic car show. I thought it a good reason to return. While I wandered enthralled through the lines of stunniing vehicles and stayed to watch the concourse de elegance judging, Gail and Noeline left to stroll the grounds and do the tour of the castle. I have written of this tour before but as you can see this day the weather was wonderful it sort of makes the experience that much more pleasurable.

After our respective strolls we met up and set off for a lunch in the Ripley village pub which I only mention because it was a lovely and rare experience to be sitting in the sun, outside and eating our meal..

After Lunch , and a famous Ripley Ice Cream, as it was staying such a nice day, we headed off to Patley Bridge and Grassington for a drive through the dales on a sunny day.

By chance there was an MG classic car rally at Patley Bridge... what a surprise!

Grassington was, by the time we arrived, mostly closed but we did have a lovely chat to a local artist and walked the streets of this charming village before a picturesque sunset drive home.

Gail was scheduled to work south west of Manchester on August 5 so Noeline and I decided to take the drive with Gail (me in the back of the MINI,,,, that will never happen again) to Tameside. We planned to drop Gail at work and drive to Chester so Noeline could see this ancient walled city. I have covered Chester here before but, not being a great church type person, I have never thought to enter the Chester Cathedral. As we walked around seeing the town from the top of the city wall Noeline wanted to know if we could see the cathedral's huge stained glass window from inside. Chester Cathedral is in fact one of, if not the only totally surviving Abbey in the UK, as HenryVIII didn't destroy it but used it as his northern church base. The head Abbot even converted and stayed on as top god botherer, I guess because he didn't want to leave his life's work.... But http://www.chestercathedral.com/ will give you more pictures and the church's version of history. I particularly enjoyed the Monks Garden in the centre of the abbey as seen here. Lovely sculpture and peaceful gardens. Noeline and I sat here, on a sunny bench, in an alcove garden and about an hour slipped quietly by.

The Chester day also included a river cruise, watching some street entertainers, shopping, lunch by the river and general walking and idling about.

From the minute Noeline arrived in Wetherby we had been talking of a trip to the Lakes district as part of the must do list. On finding out Gail's work schedule for the month I had booked a room at Ambleside to overnight in. We headed off on August the 9th via Skipton for a morning tea overlooking the Leeds/Liverpool canal.

A stop at Gargrave so we could watch some narrow boats and barges use the roadside locks. And then a drive up through the peak district, and into Kirkby-Lonsdale for lunch at the Avanti Restaurant and a walk to Ruskin's view. This is supposed to be the finest view in England with the balance of river, mountain, woods and fields....http://www.kirkbylonsdale.co.uk/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71&Itemid=91

Turner painted a famous version as have many others. I have not seen all England's views but this one over the River Lune is fine.

We also passed by Ribblehead, a 17 arch brick built viaduct to carry the Settle to Carlise railway , http://www.visitcumbria.com/carlset/ribvia.htm has good photos.

Then into the beautiful Lakes district.

It rained all the next day. Well, it is the Lakes and fine weather is rare. But we managed to do a lot of sight seeing , had a fantastic meal at the Oak Bank Restaurant, a lovely drive and a short walk through Clitheroe where the John Ruskin museum is (he was a renown scholar and patron of the Pre-Raphelite artistic movement)

Our return route to Wetherby took us through Hawes, home of Wensley Dale cheese factory (Wallace and Gromit may have made this cheese famous recently but it is wonderful cheese to be fair) finally stopping off at one of the steam railway stations. We had seen the engine puffing and pulling through the valleys on our way so it was good to catch it as it rolled into the station. Quite a nice weekend. Our August held many more adventures and they can be glimpsed in the following blog pages. I hope you have the time to join us on our recollecting of these travels and that you gain some insight as to why, despite the frequent cold and wet, we quite enjoy this part of the planet.

Noeline, Mother Shipton's Cave, Castle Howard and Yorkshire sculpture park

MOTHER SHIPTON'S CAVE After our return from the Lakes and Dales adventure we all took a couple of days rest, well, Noeline and I managed one day at home. On the Tuesday, leaving Gail behind to do some computer work, we took the car and drove the few miles to Knaresborough http://www.knaresborough.co.uk/ , a very pretty and historic town which is, if you like, Wetherby's neighbour to the north. It has a lot of claims to fame including providing homes for Guy Fawkes and Oliver Cromwell. It is blessed with one of the greatest English river views from up near its ruined castle and parklands but is also is home to England's oldest tourist attraction... Mother Shipton's cave and petrifying waterfall. http://www.mothershiptonscave.com/main.htm There is a long story of legend associated but the key things are,,,, it is a beautiful riverside walk through a forest, there is a waterfall under which you can leave things suspended and over 3-4 months they become "petrified" (limestoned or turned to rock by the minerals in the water), there is a cave where Mother Shipton lived and made astounding prophesy, and a wishing well where wishes are granted if you place your hand in the water, wish, and let the water dry on your hand.... Noeline and I both made very secret wishes. I have included the two web sites as I didn't take the camera that day. It was a lovely relaxed day out and we returned to take Gail out to Wetherby's Ask, a riverside pizza and pasta restaurant which is always a reliable nosh.
CASTLE HOWARD
If the photo here looks familiar you have probably seen the film Brideshead Revisited. Castle Howard is the setting of the story and the film. I am not going to go into a history session on the Castle, that can be found on http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/metadot/index.pl . What I do want to do is in just a few pictures give you a sense of what we saw . We travelled about an hour north from Wetherby on August 17 to walk in the huge grounds, gardens and to tour inside what is a magnificent, regal building. The construction of these large country English homes were either funded by sucessful traders, manufacturers using child labour, importers of sugar, spices, tea, or slavery while others like Howards Castle were built from the wealth generated from being the family of a victor on the field of war and receiving a royal grant of lands from the king in appreciation of valour and service . This first piccy is of the rear of the Castle. This next shot is the Boar lawn (Boar statue) overlooking the lake and with a view and a sky of romantic proportions. The rest of the shots here are just to let you see some of what we saw and to explain why we got so engrossed that we missed lunch, yeah I know, sounds impossible but there it is..

YORKSHIRE SCULPTURE PARK

For those of you who remember our Cornwall adventures last June you may recall our visit to Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden in St.Ives. She was a Yorkshire lass, as was Henry Moore (he of the big bronze statues outside NSW Art Gallery in Sydney as shown here from our last Sydney visit).

One of the biggest collections of large Moore statues are displayed at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park just south of Leeds, as well as a few fantastic Gormley works (angel of the north sculptor) about 40 minutes south from Wetherby. http://www.ysp.co.uk/view.aspx?id=3

A few of the photos we took on the day are included below but the real treat was walking miles and miles through fields and woods, stumbling across major sculptures in a natural environment, it was astoundingly good fun. We went there on August 18th. Gail and I had driven past the place (lost again) shortly after we arrived in the UK and while we were out looking for somewhere to live near Leeds, ,, that all seems like a lifetime ago...... Anyway, Gail has been wanting to return ever since and I am so glad she convinced us to go. We can all thoroughly recommend it as an adventure for one, perhaps two, maybe even three days out. There are sculptures you can puzzle over, learn from, climb in, sit, lie and sleep on, all while either watching the wonderful scenery or while being watched by the sheep and cows. The wonder is being among the scale and variety of sculptures. The whole concept and the expanse is inspiring and on a sunny day it is even more amazing. There is a wonderful cafe for a snack, a wine, or as we did, a rather too large a lunch. Before you go on to read what else we did in August, do click onto the YSP website above and have a browse.