Yorkshire

Alright, I'm finally keeping my promise and posting about our time in Yorkshire. First of all, let me just say that the Yorkshire Dales were as cool as I wanted them to be, and I'd love to someday spend more time up there.

After Manchester, we were invited to stay at Old Maid's Farm in the village of Brompton-on-Swale by Grant and Mary Carnegie Brown, friends of Dave and Linda in Manchester. They had never met us before, but Linda had said that we wanted to visit the Dales, and they welcomed us warmly. Mary met us in Clitheroe, at the Open Arms International Banquet, where we were working, and drove us two hours back to their home.

We got there well after dark, but this is the view we had of the house the next morning. The place is beautiful, and old stone house that Grant and Mary have been fixing up. Our favorite part was the giant kitchen, and the Aga cooker that kept us all warm.

I'd heard of Agas before, in books, but I didn't really get the concept. It's a big oil burning stove that is just on all the time. It's actually fairly efficient, and keeps the kitchen warm all winter long, which in an old stone house, is a great thing. It is ready to cook or bake anytime. To make a pot of tea, you just open up the lid to the burner on the left, put the kettle on, and in no time the water is boiling. Same thing for the ovens. I think there were three different ovens, each having different heat, so you can bake in one, and keep something warm in another one. As you can see, it's also great for drying your clothes.

This is the view from the kitchen into the dining room and entryway.

We had a great time with Grant, Mary, and Cameron, Kate and Tom, their three kids. It's a lively household, and lots of fun.

(Here's the family, out in the wind- Tom's missing because he was playing at a friend's house)

The first day we were there, Grant drove us over to Easeby Abbey, a twelfth century abbey that had been torn down by Henry the 8th because of church power struggles.

This is the 11th century parish church on the Abbey grounds that Henry 8 apparently had no problem with.

Inside the church.

I loved the decoration on the walls.

The abbey proper. It was a windswept, rainy, stormy day, and the old ruined abbey was lonely and haunting and beautiful, in all the right proportions.

We walked into Richmond after the Abbey. It's a fairly large town right on the River Swale, where Swaledale gets its name. (A dale is apparently a valley- so swaledale is the Swale river valley) We poked around and then headed back to the farm for a big dinner with the family. (The kids had friends over that night- it got pretty lively!)

Next post: Hiking in the dales, James Herriot museum