England IV: York and more Yorkshire
Aug. 25th, 2006 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakLast entry before Startford.
The farm in Northern Yorkshire, in the middle of the moors, where we spent the night from Wednesday to Thursday also played host to an American couple whom we had met upon arrival – they showed up just a few minutes after us, in a dramatic rainstorm. So we had breakfeast with them the next morning, which was lovely since they were charming people (from Baltimore) and could give us useful tips, such as to avoid Whitby which they described as completely overrun. (Hence no Dracula locations for me.) So instead we went to Staithes, which they had recommended and which turned out to be an actual small fishing village. Lots of baskets for catching crabs and other sea creatures standing outside of the houses, though given that the sea on the East Coast seems to be far dirtier than the clear Atlantic at Cornwall, I wonder what they’re catching.
Staithes was still cloudy, but we had hardly left it behind and reached the motorway in order to make the somewhat extended trip to Haworth when the clouds grew thinner and then disappeared altogether, leaving the sun to shine and remain that way for the next two days. Haworth,like Stratford with Shakespeare, is all Bronte, all the time, and you have even all the preceeding villages calling everything with Brontean names, down to models for clothes. The sisters would have been shocked; Branwell probably would have found it funny.
Colour me stunned when we actually found a free spot in the parking place for the parsonage, which of course made things easier. The AP, not being a Bronte fanboy anymore than he is an Austen one (though I did make him read Wuthering Heights, which is my favourite; alas, the opening chapter was enough to convince him that it is “one of your horror stories”), somewhat raced through it, and of course there were several other visitors, but it wasn’t overcrowded, and thus I got a sense of atmosphere anyway – the living room where the girls walked and debated at the time they were writing their novels, Emily’s arm around Anne’s waist, Patrick’s bedroom where Branwell spent the last weeks of his life as well because the Reverend couldn’t leave his self-destructive son out of sight, and the sketch Branwell made in a letter of the bed and death grabbing himself hangs there; the children’s room, where Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne created Angria and Gondal, their realms which started their writing. In the room devoted to Charlotte you can see one of her dresses, her shoes and her gloves, and they bring the point home what a tiny, elfin woman she must have been. Speaking of tiny – there are several examples of the Angria novels, one in this particular room, and it is really so small dolls could read it, and yet I’ve read the story in question, and it’s almost sixteen printed normal size pages. It seems incredible Charlotte at 14 – which is what she was when writing this particular story – had the patience to write tiny, tiny letters in this size.
Branwell’s room shows his portraits – other than the famous ones of his sisters which are in the National Portrait Gallery in England, though there are reproductions at Haworth – those few portraits of local merchants he managed to get as clients, and you know, he did have talent; they make their subjects look interesting and alive.
Once one gets to the shop, there are two oddities exhibited – the gravestones of Catherine Earnshaw – correctly called Catherine Linton there – and Heathcliff, made for one of the film versions, but actually out of stone. Dad and self rambled a bit through all the blooming heather of the moors behind the parsonage, but didn’t have the time for the walk to Top Withens, the place which supposedly was Emily’s model for Wuthering Heights. Instead, we walked back, fetched the car and drove to nearby Mytholmroyd (about 18 kilometres away; I knew it had to be in the area, because Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes walked to Top Withens from there) , where, as is pointed out at the stone in front of the town, Ted Hughes was born. It was odd, reading the names on the way and recalling them from poetry, like Hardcastle Crags, for example. The small houses at Mytholmroyd are all blackened stone, but even here, decidedly no place a tourist is likely to visit, you have the flowers around posts brightening up the place.
Sylvia Plath’s grave is in nearby Heptonstall, which you’re not allowed to drive through if you’re not a local. Once I had reached the cemetary, I encountered a group of hikers who had the same destination, which was lucky for me since I probably wouldn’t have found the grave otherwise. It’s not in the old cemetary directly next to the church but in the newer grounds. The gravestone is grey and bears the inscription all the biographies mention – “Sylvia Plath Hughes – Even among the burning flames, a golden lotus is born” (I might be slightly misquoting there) – with the grave framed by small rocks. Someone had put a pencil on the grave; I put a sprig of heather I had gotten at Haworth earlier, admittedly because Charlotte did it for Emily. There was a pearl necklace hanging around the gravestone; who knows who put it there, or whether it was fake or genuine.
We made it past Leeds before the traffic jam and arrived shortly before 6 pm at our hotel. After two weeks of B&B, Dad had decided he was in a spending mood and gotten us a room in an old country house called Middlethorp Hall, which turned out to be directly opposite the racing course of York. Which we hadn’t known when we booked it while in Edinburgh; nor had we known the races had just started. So while I was washing my hair in order to look representable again, the AP strolled around and reported high society types in suits and costumes with the requisite extraordinarily large hats were all over the place, and very tipsy to boot. By the time I came down, there were only two hats left, and I couldn’t spot anyone waving champagne bottles. Such is life.
Friday started with cloudless sky and sunshine and a swim because Middlethorp Hall has a swimming pool. Then we started exploring York. Which, this being a journey with my Aged Parent, meant the first thing we did was climbing up the tower of the Minster. I was profoundly grateful we were apparantly the first visitors to said tower, because the stairways were so small that two way traffic seemed impossible. (Notre Dame solved this kind of thing better – you climb up one tower but climb down the other.) Anyway, the view is magnificent, so if you’re there, by all means, up you go.
The Minster of York is another exercise in Gothic elegance, made of white-appearing stone, and a lot of beautiful glass windows. John Sentamu, the Achbishop of York – which makes him the Number 2. in the Church of England, with only Canterbury above him – had build a tent in one of the chapels and fasted and prayed for seven days and nights this last week, for peace in the Middle East (and as a gesture of protest at his government’s politics). The week is over now, but the tent was still there, and of couse the cause as urgent as ever.
In the chapterhouse, we encountered several „green men“ again, but what knocked me out with admiration were all the male and female heads as ornaments hanging from the ceilings. Every one was different, and they were so incredibly vivid and unstylized. Fantastic, in several senses of the word.
Walking through York later, with its mixture of old and new – and if I say old, I really mean old; one of the signs points out proudly the road in question is the old Via Praetoria and in daily use since 1900 years, since the days of Eboracum – was great fun. At noon we bought crepes, enjoyed the sun on our faces and listened to someone playing the guitar while we ate them. Rounding of York with a walk on the old city walls, I found a small museum devoted to Richard III, which thrilled me to no end, Ricardian that I am. It really does a good job not just presenting the pros and cons on the big Princes-in-the-Tower question, but the background of Richard in general, down to details about friends such as Francis Lovell. And it has a sense of humour about the whole thing – there is a series of fake “Sun” headlines about the case. What cracked me up most was: “Woodie: My Son May Never Be King!”
Getting on the road again, we headed towards Castle Howard. Started in 1699 by one Sir John Vanbrugh, it’s the seat of the Earls of Carlisle and probably best known to the public at large because it served as a location for Brideshead Revisited. Even I, who am not a Baroque girl at heart, was struck by the beauty. You get the impression one English nobleman went to France, saw Versailles and thought “I’ll show you, Louis!”. Anyway, this is Baroque at its best, with several parts private because the family still lives there, aka The Honourable Simon Howard, his wife, and their twins Merlin and Octavia. (Merlin and Octavia? Did they want to put their kids through torture at school?) Those rooms accessible to the public include of course the central one with the gigantic ceiling right out of a Roman palace which I recall Jeremy Irons looked rather decoratively against. No prices for guessing that the souvenir shop boasts of teddy bears. The huge grounds outside are open to the public for free and one feels peaceful and oddly idle walking through them, occasionally encountering a peacock. The peacocks awere the final surreal touch and completely fitted with the rest.
“This makes some Royal residences look poor,” Dad said, making a few more photos, “but who paid for this? How did they get the money? That’s what I’d like to know.“
We bought a few apples and milk and improvised a picnic on the grounds, and then went back to York. After all, there were suitcases to pack. Tomorrow, we’re off to Stratford-upon-Avon, and you know what that means...
The farm in Northern Yorkshire, in the middle of the moors, where we spent the night from Wednesday to Thursday also played host to an American couple whom we had met upon arrival – they showed up just a few minutes after us, in a dramatic rainstorm. So we had breakfeast with them the next morning, which was lovely since they were charming people (from Baltimore) and could give us useful tips, such as to avoid Whitby which they described as completely overrun. (Hence no Dracula locations for me.) So instead we went to Staithes, which they had recommended and which turned out to be an actual small fishing village. Lots of baskets for catching crabs and other sea creatures standing outside of the houses, though given that the sea on the East Coast seems to be far dirtier than the clear Atlantic at Cornwall, I wonder what they’re catching.
Staithes was still cloudy, but we had hardly left it behind and reached the motorway in order to make the somewhat extended trip to Haworth when the clouds grew thinner and then disappeared altogether, leaving the sun to shine and remain that way for the next two days. Haworth,like Stratford with Shakespeare, is all Bronte, all the time, and you have even all the preceeding villages calling everything with Brontean names, down to models for clothes. The sisters would have been shocked; Branwell probably would have found it funny.
Colour me stunned when we actually found a free spot in the parking place for the parsonage, which of course made things easier. The AP, not being a Bronte fanboy anymore than he is an Austen one (though I did make him read Wuthering Heights, which is my favourite; alas, the opening chapter was enough to convince him that it is “one of your horror stories”), somewhat raced through it, and of course there were several other visitors, but it wasn’t overcrowded, and thus I got a sense of atmosphere anyway – the living room where the girls walked and debated at the time they were writing their novels, Emily’s arm around Anne’s waist, Patrick’s bedroom where Branwell spent the last weeks of his life as well because the Reverend couldn’t leave his self-destructive son out of sight, and the sketch Branwell made in a letter of the bed and death grabbing himself hangs there; the children’s room, where Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne created Angria and Gondal, their realms which started their writing. In the room devoted to Charlotte you can see one of her dresses, her shoes and her gloves, and they bring the point home what a tiny, elfin woman she must have been. Speaking of tiny – there are several examples of the Angria novels, one in this particular room, and it is really so small dolls could read it, and yet I’ve read the story in question, and it’s almost sixteen printed normal size pages. It seems incredible Charlotte at 14 – which is what she was when writing this particular story – had the patience to write tiny, tiny letters in this size.
Branwell’s room shows his portraits – other than the famous ones of his sisters which are in the National Portrait Gallery in England, though there are reproductions at Haworth – those few portraits of local merchants he managed to get as clients, and you know, he did have talent; they make their subjects look interesting and alive.
Once one gets to the shop, there are two oddities exhibited – the gravestones of Catherine Earnshaw – correctly called Catherine Linton there – and Heathcliff, made for one of the film versions, but actually out of stone. Dad and self rambled a bit through all the blooming heather of the moors behind the parsonage, but didn’t have the time for the walk to Top Withens, the place which supposedly was Emily’s model for Wuthering Heights. Instead, we walked back, fetched the car and drove to nearby Mytholmroyd (about 18 kilometres away; I knew it had to be in the area, because Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes walked to Top Withens from there) , where, as is pointed out at the stone in front of the town, Ted Hughes was born. It was odd, reading the names on the way and recalling them from poetry, like Hardcastle Crags, for example. The small houses at Mytholmroyd are all blackened stone, but even here, decidedly no place a tourist is likely to visit, you have the flowers around posts brightening up the place.
Sylvia Plath’s grave is in nearby Heptonstall, which you’re not allowed to drive through if you’re not a local. Once I had reached the cemetary, I encountered a group of hikers who had the same destination, which was lucky for me since I probably wouldn’t have found the grave otherwise. It’s not in the old cemetary directly next to the church but in the newer grounds. The gravestone is grey and bears the inscription all the biographies mention – “Sylvia Plath Hughes – Even among the burning flames, a golden lotus is born” (I might be slightly misquoting there) – with the grave framed by small rocks. Someone had put a pencil on the grave; I put a sprig of heather I had gotten at Haworth earlier, admittedly because Charlotte did it for Emily. There was a pearl necklace hanging around the gravestone; who knows who put it there, or whether it was fake or genuine.
We made it past Leeds before the traffic jam and arrived shortly before 6 pm at our hotel. After two weeks of B&B, Dad had decided he was in a spending mood and gotten us a room in an old country house called Middlethorp Hall, which turned out to be directly opposite the racing course of York. Which we hadn’t known when we booked it while in Edinburgh; nor had we known the races had just started. So while I was washing my hair in order to look representable again, the AP strolled around and reported high society types in suits and costumes with the requisite extraordinarily large hats were all over the place, and very tipsy to boot. By the time I came down, there were only two hats left, and I couldn’t spot anyone waving champagne bottles. Such is life.
Friday started with cloudless sky and sunshine and a swim because Middlethorp Hall has a swimming pool. Then we started exploring York. Which, this being a journey with my Aged Parent, meant the first thing we did was climbing up the tower of the Minster. I was profoundly grateful we were apparantly the first visitors to said tower, because the stairways were so small that two way traffic seemed impossible. (Notre Dame solved this kind of thing better – you climb up one tower but climb down the other.) Anyway, the view is magnificent, so if you’re there, by all means, up you go.
The Minster of York is another exercise in Gothic elegance, made of white-appearing stone, and a lot of beautiful glass windows. John Sentamu, the Achbishop of York – which makes him the Number 2. in the Church of England, with only Canterbury above him – had build a tent in one of the chapels and fasted and prayed for seven days and nights this last week, for peace in the Middle East (and as a gesture of protest at his government’s politics). The week is over now, but the tent was still there, and of couse the cause as urgent as ever.
In the chapterhouse, we encountered several „green men“ again, but what knocked me out with admiration were all the male and female heads as ornaments hanging from the ceilings. Every one was different, and they were so incredibly vivid and unstylized. Fantastic, in several senses of the word.
Walking through York later, with its mixture of old and new – and if I say old, I really mean old; one of the signs points out proudly the road in question is the old Via Praetoria and in daily use since 1900 years, since the days of Eboracum – was great fun. At noon we bought crepes, enjoyed the sun on our faces and listened to someone playing the guitar while we ate them. Rounding of York with a walk on the old city walls, I found a small museum devoted to Richard III, which thrilled me to no end, Ricardian that I am. It really does a good job not just presenting the pros and cons on the big Princes-in-the-Tower question, but the background of Richard in general, down to details about friends such as Francis Lovell. And it has a sense of humour about the whole thing – there is a series of fake “Sun” headlines about the case. What cracked me up most was: “Woodie: My Son May Never Be King!”
Getting on the road again, we headed towards Castle Howard. Started in 1699 by one Sir John Vanbrugh, it’s the seat of the Earls of Carlisle and probably best known to the public at large because it served as a location for Brideshead Revisited. Even I, who am not a Baroque girl at heart, was struck by the beauty. You get the impression one English nobleman went to France, saw Versailles and thought “I’ll show you, Louis!”. Anyway, this is Baroque at its best, with several parts private because the family still lives there, aka The Honourable Simon Howard, his wife, and their twins Merlin and Octavia. (Merlin and Octavia? Did they want to put their kids through torture at school?) Those rooms accessible to the public include of course the central one with the gigantic ceiling right out of a Roman palace which I recall Jeremy Irons looked rather decoratively against. No prices for guessing that the souvenir shop boasts of teddy bears. The huge grounds outside are open to the public for free and one feels peaceful and oddly idle walking through them, occasionally encountering a peacock. The peacocks awere the final surreal touch and completely fitted with the rest.
“This makes some Royal residences look poor,” Dad said, making a few more photos, “but who paid for this? How did they get the money? That’s what I’d like to know.“
We bought a few apples and milk and improvised a picnic on the grounds, and then went back to York. After all, there were suitcases to pack. Tomorrow, we’re off to Stratford-upon-Avon, and you know what that means...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-08-25 07:08 pm (UTC)And Stratford next, can't wait for the report!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 05:10 am (UTC)Much enjoying the travelogue.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 02:56 pm (UTC)Francis Lovell, heh? We do tend to get stuck on the same small details, don't we?
*stops to hug bunny, having been brought bunny by the VSP, who makes bunny throw himself into my arms, shoting "I missed you so much!"*
*makes bunny wave at you*
Did you see Micklegate Bar and the Mithraeum discovered under York Minster? I would love to see the Mithraeum.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 03:50 pm (UTC)*waves back*
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 03:55 pm (UTC)Stratford: I bought a little present already for you and
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 03:58 pm (UTC)I aim to please!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 03:58 pm (UTC)