Easter Excursion Day 2 - Feeling Sheepish

Fortified by an early supper back at our AirBnB in Walton...

 We set out on a stroll past the ubiquitous pheasant...

... and down the Hadrian's Wall path just outside the village. We didn't really expect to find the Wall itself because Wikipedia said it was covered, but it was lambing season and the view was pretty:

We noticed that the sheep are all numbered ...

... apparently so that the ewes can recognize their lambs. (Those smart Cumbrian sheep!)

After walking along a public footpath through a farm yard, we eventually did locate the wall in what is now a dip in the ground:

The wall led to a waterfall...

a bridge...

... and a well-positioned imperative:

Easter Excursion Day 2 - Naworth Castle and Lanercost Priory

On September 10, 1649, a twenty-seven-year-old Anne Murray—known to us by her married name, Anne Halkett—left London for Naworth Castle, where she stayed nine months. Naworth Castle was then the home of the twenty-one-year-old Charles Howard and his wife and cousin Anne Howard, Halkett’s childhood friend. (How convenient not to have to change your last name when you get married!)

Charles Howard

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (and Wikipedia), Charles Howard successfully tacked with the changing political winds of the tumultuous 17th century. He was brought up as a Catholic and sided with Charles I during the English civil war, but then “distinguished himself” in battle on Cromwell’s side and served in parliament during the interregnum. After the restoration of Charles II, he was knighted and appointed ambassador to Russia, and then governor of Jamaica. By the end of it all he had amassed a fortune large enough for his grandson to build the palatial Castle Howard.

Today the 14th-century Naworth Castle is still in the Howard family, serving as the residence of Philip Howard, the second son of the twelfth Earl of Carlisle.



This means, unfortunately, that it is not open to the public, unless you can afford a private guided tour. But since the castle is just down the road from where we were staying, we decided to get as close as possible on our return from Housestead's Roman Fort. Here are the castle's front gates, both ancient and modern:

Since we qualify as the "public," we continued down the lane (driveway?) past the castle, where I took another photo:

The castle website—still under construction after all these years—does have a few nice pictures of the interior.

We were looking for the public footpath that runs through the back of the Howard estate where we hoped to getting a better view, but the footpath we chanced upon once we located a "car park" took us along the other side of the River Irthing to the ruins of Lanercost Priory:

The Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene:   

The vicar of the Priory Church is a shepherdess. I wonder, are these her sheep?

We decided against paying the fee to see the English Heritage section of the Priory ruins, and entered the restored part of the 12th-century church instead, where we were treated to the equivalent of a free guided tour.

In brief, the Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene and adjoining Augustinian Priory were built in the 12th-13th centuries at least partly out of stones from Hadrian’s wall. (This is apparently common in Cumbria. Our “guide” explained that you can tell Hadrian’s wall stones both from the colour of the local stone and the size: they had to be small enough for Roman soldiers to carry one at a time.) King Edward I made the Priory his home in 1306-7 when he tried to conquer Scotland; in 1538 the Priory was dissolved by Henry the 8th, and both Church and Priory were mostly left in ruins. Unlike Leicester Abbey, these ruins survive, and unlike the rather thorough iconoclasts in our area, the Cumbrian reformers missed a statue:

In 1649, when Lady Halkett visited Naworth Castle, the local parish church met in the old church's north aisle. I am given to understand, however, that she most likely attended services in the Castle’s private chapel, which had its own Anglican chaplain at a time when the Anglican order of service was proscribed from use in local churches. For some reason, the list of Lanercost ministers has a gap between 1637 and 1651, so we don’t know who would have officiated if she did visit the old Priory.

The nave of the old church was re-roofed in the 18th century, and then beautifully restored in the 19th by George Howard, the 9th Early of Carlisle, and his Pre-Raphaelite friends, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. (I do regret not paying the requested £1 donation so that I could take pictures of the restored church’s beautiful interior, but you can sample Google’s offering here.)

Of greater interest to us at that moment was the walking map our guide produced, indicating the public footpath that might have afforded us a better view of Naworth Castle. Alas, by the time we had rested our feet by the old Lanercost bridge and helped rescue a wandering puppy ...

... there arose a protest against venturing any further.

Easter Excursion Day 2 - Hadrian's Wall Part 1

We chose Walton as a vacation destination so I could cross Hadrian's Wall off my bucket list of places to see in the UK. Walton takes its name from the Wall that apparently ran through the town, but Wikipedia informed us that the surviving bits of wall along the Hadrian's Wall Path in our area are now covered with dirt to preserve them, so we drove 30 minutes east to the National Trust's Housestead's Roman Fort in Northumbria, where views of the Wall and surrounding countryside are spectacular. I will let the pictures do the talking...

By the time we returned from our little hike along the wall, the Roman Fort, Vercovicium, was crawling with school children, so we left much of it unexplored. Compared to better preserved Roman ruins in Turkey, Greece and Israel, there is not really much to see in the Fort itself except for a gatehouse, which--if memory serves--had been converted into a bastle house in the 17th century by a family of cattle "reivers":

The fort is also known for its exceptionally well-preserved toilets:

Easter Excursion Day 1 - Castles, Moors, and Walls

On what may be our last multi-day excursion before our return to Canada at the end of July, we sampled three more medieval castles, many miles of stone walls–most of which were rather too close to the side of the road for comfort–and some breath-taking views. Our destination on Monday was an AirBnB in Walton (“Wall Town”) in Cumbria, but instead of heading straight north on the M1 as Google directed, we took a few roads less-traveled by.

Our first diversion was an early lunch break at Pontefract Castle, the site of Richard the II’s death in 1400, under suspicious circumstances, and one of three castles on S’s bucket list. 

According to our road atlas, the castle is not far from the highway, but it was more difficult to locate than I anticipated. Locating parking was more difficult still. Entrance is free, which is good, because there was not much left after Oliver Cromwell finally crushed the Royalist forces who had withstood a four-month siege in the winter of 1648-49.

Cromwell's troops also ruined the nearby All Saints church:

The 19th-century restoration--creating a church within a church--is striking:

Since it was more-or-less along our route, we decided to make another stop at Middleham Castle, the long-time residence of Richard Neville, the king-making Earl of Warwick, and one of the favourite haunts of “King in the Car Park” Richard III (1452-1485).

From Middleham we opted for one of Google’s lesser alternatives that would, I thought, shorten our trip by seven miles and let us see more of the Yorkshire Dales to boot. So instead of returning to the main highway, we set out northwest into the national park. I neglected to consult our road atlas, which labeled the route across Redmire Moor from Leyburn to Reeth a DANGER AREA. Now, however, we know what a moor looks like; we can also confirm that moors are indeed prone to  impenetrable fog.*

From Reeth we abandoned Google for what our atlas indicated was a more established road through the villages of Healaugh, Feetham, Low Row, Gunnerside, Satron, Muker and Thwaite, among others. The one-way lane bordered on each side by stone walls was certainly scenic.

Unfortunately, since we were anxious to get to our destination before nightfall we didn’t stop to take pictures, but pictures wouldn’t do justice to the experience.

*Full disclosure:  The "Danger Area" sign is to let passersby know they are driving through a military shooting range not to warn them about unsafe roads or treacherous fog. Does that make you feel better?

Punting

My nephew's visit a couple weeks ago provided an occasion--finally!--to try punting on the River Cam. It's harder than it looks...

It was a crowded Saturday afternoon...

But the ducks didn't seem to mind:

Fun was had by all who participated....

Though the one who did not participate has no regrets.