11.5.11 Colden in Yorkshire.

I’m not sure when I last blogged. It feels like ages ago, but I’m hoping it was only a couple of days.  As the title states, we are just out of a tiny village in Yorkshire, called Colden, parked at a “hardsite” (campervan talk for a patch of gravel or lime-chip at a camping ground with a power socket). However this place could only loosely be described as a camping ground. It is beside the car park of a rural pub called the “New Delight”, a piece of concrete large enough for 3 closely parked campervans, and three bollards with power outlets.

Having said that I’m not complaining, the pub has hot showers we can use, there’s always a beer or cider available (I presume), it’s very quiet (apart from the bleeting of sheep, and the occasional pigeon sound or chook cluck. Very spasmodically a car will drive past, but that is very rare. The only drawback is that it is partially in a valley (just climbing out of a dip, but with rolling but quite high hills) and consequently we can’t get cell-phone or internet coverage. I think if we step outside and walk about 50metres up the road it might be OK because there was a bloke wandering around out there with a cell-phone stuck to the side of his head last night, but that’s all very well with a cell phone, not quite as easy with lap-top. So here I am, lying in bed, drinking hot tea, listening to the sheep and lambs, writing on Word at 7 am on a clear but at this stage cool, Yorkshire morning.

                    Photo of Colden area


I’ll start with yesterday and see what happens.

Yesterday we started the day at a beautiful, very modern camping ground in (or just out of) a place called Teversal which is in  Nottinghamshire a few miles north west of Nottingham and northeast of Derby.

                                                          Teversal camping ground

We stayed there because it wasn’t too far from where we ended up at “coming to rest for the evening time” even though it did mean back-tracking a few miles. The campground was very flash, heated floors on the bathroom tiles, very nice facilities, but of course that did mean it was a bit more expensive (£23) which is quite a lot of money for a hot shower, and a night of electricity, but that’s just what you have to do. The good news is that we have bought an electric flex so we can now run all our equipment off 240 volts when at a camping ground, so we can use our electric jug and recharge all our cell phones, computers, camera batteries etc each night. The biggest most exciting news though is that I’ve got the fridge going, not on gas, that just isn’t a happening thing, though I’ve done everything in the manual about a hundred times and it has defeated many a camper we have asked about it. So during the day we run the fridge off the main battery (only when the engine is going) and when 240 volts is available we use that!!!! Oh having a fridge is great!!!! We also have hot water, and a hot water cupboard, very useful for finishing off those “nearly dry but just need a bit of airing”, freshly washed “smalls”.  I did some hand washing at the flash camp-ground, (I resent paying £3 to wash a load, and another £2 to dry them, call me tight, but that is about $13 or nearly 4 cups of coffee, and it isn’t that difficult doing it by hand, and as I’ll show you, we have a washing line arrangement for drying clothes on the go).

                                       

                        

Anyway when we left Teversall we headed north, we had wanted to visit Hardwick Hall, but unfortunately it isn’t open Monday or Tuesday, so we had to bypass it and headed instead to Bolsover Castle an English Heritage property. We arrived at about 9.30 so grabbed a few groceries and a top-up for our dongle (I can’t quite get used to that word) before the castle opened at 10. An interesting place, they are restoring it, but I think that might be a job for many generations as the work to be done is immense. Bolsover was originally a medieval castle, bought by Sir Charles Cavendish in 1612. He started to build the Little Castle (which is the most intact part of the property) and his son, William took over the role when he it inherited it in 1617. William is described as “playboy,  poet, courtier”, which really translates to “self-indulgent rich-boy”  I suspect.  He was into horses, and so built an amazingly cavernous “riding house” where he trained dressage horses, described in the English Heritage (EH) book as “among the finest surviving indoor riding schools in the country and  a landmark in British equestrianism.”

                                                                                                 The Riding Hall


 

Photos of Bolsover Castle

From Bolsover, we headed north to Brodsworth Hall and Gardens another EH property described as “a mansion which has grown comfortably old over 120 years”. The last resident, Sylvia Grant-Dalton, died in her bed, in 1988 (they say her ghost is still there at times, though I felt or saw no evidence) and though she had one daughter (who died 6 years later, childless) EH took the property over. The family wealth ran out with or before Sylvia, so the place she lived in was pretty run down, with bits of it falling out of use. EH have decided not to restore it to its original beauty/grandeur but to conserve it “as is”  - not a bad idea- a statement in itself of the decline of wealth and corresponding decline of lifestyle. When Sylvia died she had a few villagers who did cleaning and gardening just as people of today do, rather than the multitude of live-in servants that her forebears had, and the wall-paper was faded and peeling, as the book says, “the house appears as she used it, making do and mending as funds and numbers of servants dwindled”.

 The garden was pretty, though a bit early in the season for the blooms of roses which predominate.

Garden photos

Again, lived in though, with the local croquet club (I presume) playing out on the lawn just beside the Hall.

Hilary had a nice play in the playground, sailing the yacht and other imaginative play.

From Brodsworth we headed towards Hebden Bridge where we are going to catch up with  a friend, our exact route depended on timing. We left Brodsworth just after 3, the National Coal Mining Museum closed at 5, if we had time we would stop, if not we would not. It isn’t very far from Brodsworth to Overton where the museum is but we came upon many traffic jams, the first a few miles long because they had one lane closed (so you had to take turns with oncoming traffic)  while they did a few patch repairs of asphalt, others trying to get through Huddersfield in the now “rush hour traffic”. It was after 4.30 by the time we neared the Coal Museum so we gave it a miss, though the brochure makes us keen to visit at some stage.  It was just as well that we didn’t stop because we couldn’t find the camp-ground we planned to stay at. We drove up incredibly steep, narrow lanes to minute villages looking, but to no avail. We then followed a very narrow and at times steep road up into the “crags” area following a sign of a caravan and tent, only to find nothing other than a pub in the middle of nowhere, like something out of  a Jane Austin book or perhaps that movie I can’t think of its name (you’ll know it) is it “Misery”? where the woman takes in the weary traveller but she is a psycho, and breaks his ankles with a hammer??? You know all bleak, well no not bleak, just incredibly remote, but beautiful with frolicking lambs, green pastures, stone walls, brightly coloured pheasants……. Anyway, we turned back and fought our way back, waltzing with tractors down the not much wider than one lane country road. We stopped and asked a local for directions to a campsite, hence, here we are. It was about 6.30 by now, I think. I never really know the time as I don’t wear a watch, and apart from closing times, it doesn’t really matter. We had dinner and it started to rain. That wasn’t an issue, we were snug in our home on wheels, but it created superb vistas with golden light sparkling on the wet green grass, battleship grey sky and a brightly coloured rainbow. I tried to get photos, but yeah, you guessed it, “the photos don’t do it justice”.

We went to bed and slept like logs, not waking until after 8.

The day before yesterday, (9^th of May) we drove from Greetham in Rutland (due east of Leicester) up to Yorkshire. We had the task of driving around a small area of Leicestershire looking for evidence of our relatives. I had a list of village names, and some suggested surnames. It wasn’t far geographically to travel from our campsite to the area we wanted, though it was made longer by a slight detour to Grantham where we had been told there was a caravan and camping supplier where we could buy an electrical flex to hook up our camper to a power supply. Obviously we were successful because we are now running off 240 volts when we are at camp-sites. We also got a coffee at McD’s and a few groceries before heading to Stathern, Harby, Hose, Goadby Marwood and Wycomb. All these villages are in close proximity but the roads are very narrow, and at times not too well sign-posted so the journeys between each were often more tortuous than they needed to be.

Our first sight of the valley where they all are situated was looking down from a steepish hill up above Stathern. Down below was a very widespread valley dotted with small stone clad buildings amongst the green, yellow and brown fields.

            Photo looking down into the valley.

We stopped in Stathern first, located the church (on Church Lane no less) and went hunting amongst the ivy clad tombstones for Barkers, Morleys or Shilcocks. There were a number of Barkes and a few Barkers, I had to pull a lot of ivy off one in particular to find the name, and not being up with the play have no idea whether they are related or if so how.

I took pictures of the church too, a quaint and very quiet little place called St Guthlac.

Church photos.

There has obviously been a problem with theft of the metals from the churches because all the village churches we went to in this area had notices to lead thieves about the protection on the lead?? And how it can all be identified?? As well as information about the connection to the local policeman, and the undertones of just what might happen to anyone found thieving it!!!!

From Stathern we drove just down the road to Harby. This was a slightly bigger village, with not very good signage. At first we didn’t think there was a church there (which we found hard to believe), but then on one turning around manoeuvre spotted a (what’s it called? Not a steeple, but the square church turret? Like on a castle?) is it turret? through the trees.We used the turret as our guide, found a place which was almost wide enough to park, and walked down the lane to the Church.

Lots of graves but none of relevance that we could find. We did watch a pheasant wandering in the sunshine about 15 metres away when we walked back down the lane to our van.

It wasn’t straight-forward finding Hose from Harby. We did it by a process of elimination, there was a well signposted walking trail between the two villages, but the road signage was less clear. A case of coming to a t-intersection and making a decision about which way to go, we invariably choose the wrong one first. 

At Hose we knew there was at least one relevant grave, we actually found at least 3, buried together under a thicket, (why are our relatives always hidden under bushes, or should it be hidden under bushels?)  - again I took some photos, scrabbling around under scrapey branches, some known relatives, others with slightly different spelling probably no relation at all, but easier to delete later than find again. 

I couldn’t get into this church, the roster posted on the door stated it should have been opened by Mrs ….. I can’t remember now.  There were sheep grazing in the cemetery which added to the nice rural feel, and a park/play-area next to it. We parked up and had lunch in the campervan, Hilary had a post lunch play at the play-area (as did I), and then we continued our journey.

We had a bit of difficulty finding our next village, it felt as though we were going around in circles, but very pleasant scenery, so not bad at all. Goadby Marwood was another quaint little village, with quaint church, and village hall and cemetery which appeared to be bereft of relatives.

Photos of church and village hall

From here we drove to Wycomb, a minute gathering of houses, very narrow streets, a dog which didn’t like strangers (just came up to me and barked a bit, he was more nervous than I), and some narrow streets and a few nervous looking vaguely suspicious people.                                                                             

Photos of Wycomb.

I was getting pretty weary by now, so we drove on to Ab Kettleby which is on the main road, but didn’t stop here. Again it was really small, no sign of a church just a gathering of buildings on a relatively busy road.

From here we made progress up the country (only slightly) visited an old ruin, Sutton S…..

with stunning views across to Bolsover Castle and I believe Hardwick Hall, though I couldn’t locate it on the horizon, before back-tracking to Teversal for the night.

9.5.11

We spent this day in the Rutland area, our campsite for two nights was just out of Greetham, not that far south east of Melton Mowbray.

We drove south to visit a couple of places of interest we had spotted in the brochures. The first port of call was Kirby Hall, we hadn’t intended going there necessarily, but it was nearby after we had taken a few wrong turns looking for a huge viaduct that looked worthy of a visit. Kirby had a group of resident peacocks and peahens who made a lot of noise as they strutted about looking regal, and posing for the camera. 

Hilary and I did a very quick poke around the Hall, bits of it are intact, but there is a lot of work that needs doing. It is pretty much a lined shell at best.  The garden is beautiful in a very orderly, French sort of way though, with tightly clipped buxus forming the partierre?

From there we went straight to the viaduct having received very good directions from the ladies at Kirby Hall.The viaduct is 3/4 of a mile long has over 80 spans each of 40 feet....really impressive fading into the distance.

In the afternoon we went to the Rutland Owl and Birds of Prey Centre. I'm not sure if it was an OK situation or not to be encouraged. 70% of the birds were rescue birds, the others bred in captivity from other zoos or aviaries. The cages were dubiously small, and all the birds were tethered. Some of them, but not many had occassion to go for a flight. They were beautiful though,lots of different owls,many reminded us of our dear Tortie cat, especially when they looked at you with attitude.

Hilary and I each had a turn at holding an owl, Hilary a little one,me a big one. They are so soft, downy, and very much enjoyed having the tops of their heads scratched, very cat like.

I am having real problems uploading my photos here, so I think I will stop now. Post what I've done here and carry on with another posting once the server stops rejecting my pictures.

These are some photos from near our current camp-site. I went for a walk up the hill behind the campsite, and found these little lambs. The campsite is down below the cluster ofbuildings on the left of the picture.