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England > Yorkshire

Page 2 - Continuation - Yorkshire, Britain's largest county.

Castle Howard, located 16 miles northeast of York off the A64, became familiar to millions of television viewers worldwide when it was used as the setting for the TV version of Brideshead Revisited. Brideshead author Evelyn Waugh visited Castle Howard in 1937 and it might well have been the original model for his novel, published seven years later. The initial sight of it is quite breathtaking - it's one of the most magnificent, best preserved and architecturally stunning palaces in England.

Ancestral home of the Howard family, the palace was created by Charles, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, who commissioned Sir John Vanbrugh in 1692 to design it. Vanbrugh was a remarkable man - a trained soldier and a capable playwright. The only thing he lacked was architectural experience - but looking at Castle Howard you would never believe it. Clearly, Vanbrugh was a genius. The Temple of the Four Winds, with its dome and four ionic porticoes was his last work. It stands at the end of the terrace.


Eden Camp was originally built in 1942 as a POW camp for Italian and later German POW's. It has now been turned into an interesting museum, which includes walk-through exhibits and tells the story of "The People's War".


The Devil's Arrows are three massive stone monoliths, the largest about 30 feet high, standing a few hundred yards east of the town of Boroughbridge on the B6265 close to the A1 motorway. Their name comes from an ancient belief that the Devil hurled them in a fit of pique. The stones are believed to have been set in place about 3500 years ago by Neolithic people, who dragged them many miles before tilting them upright. Neolithic people were always doing things like that - perhaps because they had no television. Stone Age folk were a lot better at hauling rocks than keeping records, so nobody knows what The Devil's Arrows symbolise. Invent your own theory!


Fountains Abbey and Nearby Studley Royal are two of Yorkshire's most impressive treasures. The sandstone ruins of Fountains Abbey, four miles southwest of the town of Ripon, lie in a wooded valley by the River Skell, a peaceful and truly lovely place. Founded by Benedictine monks in 1133 and adopted by the Cistercians shortly afterwards, Fountains Abbey was the wealthiest abbey in Britain (the monks were skilled traders in wool) before the Church fell foul of Henry VIII. Henry ordered all abbeys wound up and their treasures seized. The landscaped water-gardens of Studley Royal were designed in the 18th century to provide an artistic setting for the abbey. Nearby Fountains Hall was built in the early 17th century with stones from the abbey ruins.


The market town of Ripon has a fine market square and a 12th century cathedral. It also has a stridently loud hunting horn, blown at 9pm each night in the square by the Wakeman, the town's official horn blower. The horn has been blown since Alfred the Great granted Ripon a charter (and an ox horn) around 886 AD. There's nowt so queer as folk.....


The North York Moors, covered with pinkish-purple heather in season, is a wild and romantic region traditionally associated with the shooting of grouse. The shooting starts on August 12, when men in baggy trousers carrying shotguns attempt to outwit small ground-dwelling birds. The birds often win. The moors have now become the North York Moors National Park, covering 553 square miles. The park is ringed with small stone villages and offers a wide variety of exhilarating walks.

The pleasant little village of Coxwold is the site of Newburgh Priory, where a tomb contains the reputed body of Oliver Cromwell. No one is sure quite whose body it really is, but rumours persist. Oliver's head is certainly not with it, but then, it wouldn't be - Oliver's head is buried at Sydney Sussex College in Cambridge, after spending a period serving as a tabletop conversation piece at dinner parties. England is full of such Gravestyles of the Rich and Famous. The talented but eccentric 18th century novelist Laurence Sterne (1713-48) lived in Coxwold at Shandy Hall, now a museum dedicated to his works. Here, Sterne wrote his celebrated A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, along with his other notable work, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

The latter book is considered a precursor to stream-of-consciousness novels. Here follows an astute observation by Tristram Shandy:

"Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; - they are the life, the soul of reading! - take them out of this book, for instance, - you might as well take the book along with them; - one cold external winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; - he steps forth like a bridegroom, - bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail."

 Sterne died in 1748 and was buried in London. After his funeral, rumours spread that his body had been stolen by body snatchers and sold to anatomists for dissection. When his body was exhumed in 1969 from its resting place in London for transferral to Coxwold, five skulls were found in the grave rather than the customary one, indicating that something rather odd had taken place. Forensic pathologists identified the skull most likely to be Sterne's, which was duly transferred to Coxwold for interment. Where better to contemplate such vagaries of mortality than over a foaming pint of ale in the Fauconburg Arms, a wonderful old ivy-covered pub in the village. "Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God's ways to man" a wise old saying observes.


Helmsley is another pleasant village - a useful base for walking the moor (the Cleveland Way walking track runs past here) and for visiting Rievaulx Abbey (pronounced Reevo). The ruined 12th century Abbey (another founded by Cistercians) has a placid atmosphere and presence, particularly if you approach it in the early morning before tourists start to turn up. It's one of Britain's most majestic monastic ruins. Nearby picturesque Helmsley Castle was bought in 1689 by Sir Charles Duncombe, who went to live in a mansion he built in the grounds and let the castle fall into ruin.

Hutton-le-Hole has a charming name, and why not - it's a charming place! This perfectly photogenic little village has become quite a tourist attraction, but it's not so crowded that you can't find secluded aspects.


The fishing harbour of Whitby in North Yorkshire is a delight, its cobbled main street (Church Street) having changed little in appearance since the 18th century. The town, bisected by the River Esk and hemmed in by steep cliffs, was a former Roman outpost and later one of Britain's first Christian enclaves. Whitby provides a link between renowned English navigator Captain James Cook and that sinister Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula. Cook, who put the finishing touches to the world map by discovering Australia and New Zealand, served his apprenticeship in Whitby.

Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, visited Whitby on holiday in 1890 and was inspired to set his classic vampire tale in the town. So Whitby has a stake in Dracula (ouch!) as well as a stake in Cook. In stormy weather, wild waves still crash over the harbour wall, just as they do on the night Dracula disembarks in the form of a black dog from a ship steered by a dead man. The grounding of Count Dracula's ship Demeter of Varna on Tate Hill Sands was an actual event, reported in the newspapers. (Reporters missed the fact that a vampire was aboard!) Stoker used a mixture of fact, fiction and real places in his novel.

The cliff top ruins of Whitby Abbey are dramatic and eerie in fading light. Not all the damage here is due to the ravages of time or to Henry VIII - the Abbey was shelled by the German fleet in 1914. Perhaps make your way up to spooky St Mary's church, high on the cliffs. One of the graves surrounding the church is marked with a skull and crossbones and is said to belong to a suicide. Dracula makes his lair in just such a grave in Stoker's novel, claiming his first victim on British soil, Lucy, in St Mary's churchyard.

For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St Mary's Church… Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the Abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and the churchyard become gradually visible... [It] seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, either man or beast, I could not tell. The dark figure, you may have guessed, is the sinister count. To cash in on its Dracula links, Whitby has established a Dracula Trail. "And how do you like your stake, sir?"


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