ENGLAND - From Hell, Hull & Halifax, may the good Lord deliver us

Because I am travelling on a rover ticket I decided that rather than rush down the mainline to London I would take a slight detour via Halifax so I could check out The Piece Hall.

The Piece Hall is an 18th century building that the local handloom weavers would come to, to sell their "Pieces" of Cloth to the merchants. It consists of a large central square surrounded by different levels of "rooms" or small offices/shops, each one the trading area of a particular cloth merchant. Today it has been fully restored as the centre piece of Halifax's regeneration, the central square hosts events and concerts and the "rooms" are now shops, cafes, offices and bars. 

Generally Halifax looks a nice place, I only had an hour there between trains and the rain was coming down sideways, so I didn't see it at its best but I will put Halifax on the "weekend break" list for the future though. As for the saying "From Hell, Hull and Halifax, may the good Lord deliver us", Halifax's inclusion seems to come from the fact that the town had a gibbet. an early form of guillotine in use until 1650. Halifax was well known amongst criminals for the fact they they would regularly execute petty thieves.

Today though Halifax redeems itself by being the place that Quality Street is manufactured. The Nestle plant is right next to the station

By the time you read this I shall once again be at home, so I think I will round this trip off by commenting on the government's levelling up policy. It works both ways Boris! I have identified a few things I have seen that we want down south! 

PRICES - Things are definitely cheaper in the north or at least better value. I went into a local bakers asked for a filled roll (a largeish one), a small quiche like tart and five cheese straws and got change from a fiver. Cheese straws, proper crispy ones, not those soggy twist things we get in the supermarkets down south are 5 for £1.20 - bargain.

HARROGATE'S BUSES - The buses in Harrogate are electric and rapid charge while they are waiting at the bus station. Note the bus does not have a pantograph like a tram or train, the connector drops down from the hood above the bus bay. The locals think its normal, I'm thinking WOW!

PIES - The pies in Yorkshire are proper pies, there are shops that just sell pies. Pork pies for instance have jelly in them too - just as it should be.

KNARESBROUGH - Knaresborough is impossibly pretty and quaint. Far too pretty and quaint for North Yorkshire, it needs to be scooped up and relocated to Wiltshire.

Now for the big one .........

BETTY'S - Why are Betty's Tea Rooms only in Yorkshire? Why is there not a Betty's on every High Street in Britain? (except possibly in Rye, Dunster and Bourton-on-the-Water where there are enough tea shops already!) Tweet Michael Gove with #BettysDownSouth

See you all later in the year ...........

ENGLAND - What have the Scots got to do with it!

So today I am having a look round Carlisle and the first thing I have to highlight is the smell, they might have called Edinburgh "Auld Reekie" but this place really stinks! The trouble is its a nice smell so you find yourself wandering around constantly taking in deep breaths. You see McVities have a large factory near the city centre that makes Digestives, Chocolate Digestive, Hob Nobs etc and it floods parts of the the city with the rich aroma of baking and biscuits!!

Carlisle is a border city, indeed it is here, that the border and customs formalities are conducted on trains heading into Scotland - OK not quite (for the moment) but travellers are required to don masks before trains head north out of the station! The castle therefore is a very important part of the city's history having been beseiged more times than any other English castle.

The castle has changed hands between the English and Scots many times. King David I (I know, never heard of him, English school kids don't do Scottish history) anyway King David I was Prince of the Cumbrians before he became King of Scotland in 1124 - it seems the border was lower down in those days and he must have spent a lot of time at Carlisle Castle because he died there in 1153 after a long illness.

It has never been allowed to fall into ruin so there are a series of gatehouses, a keep and dungeons etc to explore.

The keep has a leaky roof, hence all the scaffolding

The other notable building in the city is the cathedral, which, like the castle is built of the local deep red sandstone. It is the second smallest of the English cathedrals and has no real nave with all the seating for the congregation being in the chancel / quire area. The cathedral was orginially much bigger but during the English Civil War, the Scots (hang on a minute what have the Scots got to do with the ENGLISH civil war? - It's Oliver Cromwell & Co right?) tore down part of the cathedral to use the stone to reinforce the castle. The Scottish army being presbyterian did not see the point in having cathedrals so were not really bothered about pulling it down.

I'm heading for home tomorrow but - Storm Dudley permitting - I'm hoping to stop off somewhere a bit unexpected, stay tuned.

The biscuit factory is close at this point making a walk on the castle walls enjoyable

ENGLAND - Seaside Time!

I have now relocated to Carlisle, having travelled up here from Yorkshire via the very scenic Settle and Carlisle railway line. The Pennine scenery was superb as we came up, across the Ribblehead Viaduct and stopped at England's highest railway station - Dent. However, the plan I had to jump out at one of the stations en route for a couple of hours was scuppered by the very heavy rain for almost the whole journey.

Today though we are back to blue skies and I have ventured out on another very scenic railway, the Cumbrian Coast Line. Whilst there is very limited rail access to the Lake District National Park, there is a line that follows the coast from Carlisle all the way to Barrow-in-Furness. Its one of those lines that seems to cling on - quite literally on some coast hugging sections - with freight and commuting to the Sellafield Nuclear Facility providing extra revenue to safeguard its future.

My first alighting point travelling south was St Bees, a seaside village that marks the start of the Coast to Coast walk. It is also famous for St Bees Man - the extremely well preserved body of a 600 year old man discovered in the grounds of St Bees Priory during an archaeological dig in 1981. The body has since been reinterred but the shroud that wrapped the body is on display in the church and has the imprint of the mans face on it, like that in Turin.

St Bees Priory - look at that blue sky!

St Bees Head

St Bees beach looking towards Nethertown

From St Bees its an easy walk along a lane running along the cliff top to the lonely windswept halt that is Nethertown station. It doesn't see many passengers (only 254 per year on the last set of stats) and is a request stop where you have to stick your arm out and flag down the train.

Such is the sparsity of the train service stopping there, that even though I wanted to head south, I had to flag down a train travelling north to return to St Bees to get a train back that went through non stop! This was fairly easy to do as St Bees is a passing place on the single track line so both trains meet.

Back at St Bees changing trains

The railway continued to hug the coast with the views out to sea far better than those inland across the industrial expanse of Sellafield and I got out again further down the coast at Ravenglass which is where you can catch the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway. This is a 15 inch gauge steam railway that runs 7 miles through Eskdale. I had forgotten that it was half term here (a week earlier than at home) so hadn't realised the railway was operating this week. I therefore managed to do a round trip on the last train of the day.

There is some snow up there!

Getting ready to head back to Ravenglass

Sunset over Ravenglass

ENGLAND - To Go Or Not To Go

I had planned a trip up to Malham to do some walking but the weather forecast has been a bit dire. In fact yesterday it was expected to be very heavy rain, so I began to make alternative plans. However, this morning it changed to 30% chance of light rain so I decided to give it a go. The train trip to Skipton is relatively easy, but like Fountains Abbey the buses from there to Malham are very random, which is really why I couldn't do this trip on any other day.

A class 158 brought me up from Leeds

Malham is a small village (predictably) in Malhamdale, to be honest on its own there would not be much reason to go there but the fact that it lies in a geologically important area means it attracts many many visitors even in February. There were only 2 of us on the bus from Skipton and the other person got off long before Malham. However, when the bus arrived in the village the car parks were busy and there were plenty of people around despite the fact that the skies were grey and threatening.

From the village it is a short and easy walk up to Malham Cove, a shear limestone cliff formed by a ice and melt water from iceage glaciers - in fact at one point in history there would have been an enormous waterfall here. Now the cliff is dry and Malham Beck bubbles up at the base of the cliff from an underground cave system.

Malham Cove

The beck now comes out from an underground cave system

A long and steep set of steps rises up one side of the Cove so you can climb to the plateau on the top and wow what a sight. Running along the top of the cliff is a huge limestone pavement formed once again by iceage glaciers and melt water. It is stunning to see even if it was a bit windy.

The limestone pavement

A path then continues through a series of fields, gradually lowering you down to Gorsdale Scar. Yet another remnant of the iceage, this is an area of stunning waterfalls and has the bonus of being in full flow during the winter. From Gorsdale Scar an easy path takes you via another waterfall - Janets Foss - back to Malham. All in all the walk took me around 3 hours and I did not rush, its very well signposted and judging by the number of people around in February, there can't be many instances of you being up there alone.

Gorsdale Scar

Janets Foss

With the wind starting to pick up and the air feeling more damp, I decided to quit while I was ahead and after having a bowl of soup in a tea shop (sorry too cold for a cream tea today) I caught a bus back down the dale (only me on it again). With a couple of hours to spare though, I decide to jump off the train from Skipton at Saltaire, Yorkshire's other world heritage site, and have a look at Salts Mill.

Saltaire

Saltaire is one of the "model villages" built by industralists to provide a safe, clean and heathy living environment for their workers.  Saltaire was built by mill owner Sir Titus Salt (where did they get those names from!), with other examples in England being Bournville (Cadbury), Port Sunlight (Lever) and Silver End (Crittall). Sir Titus was a non comformist religious man so the church was a very prominant building and there were no pubs or purveyors of alcoholic liquor in Saltaire. Of course that means there is now a wine bar in the village called "Don't Tell Titus".

Salts Mill

After a period of disuse, the original mill has been restored for use as commercial units and a multi level arts, dining and shopping space. The main gallery houses many works by local artist David Hockney. I very nice place for a wander.

ENGLAND - You thought I had forgotten!

I bet you thought that I had forgotten that York is home to the worlds largest museum devoted to all things trains and railways. Well I hadn't, its just a case that I had to fit a day there around the various amended opening times due to it being February and also the pandemic, and the limited transport to places like Fountains Abbey. But here we are at the National Railway Museum. I could bore you for hours about this place but instead I will just leave you with a few pictures.

The only Japanese Shinkansen (Bullet Train) outside of Japan

Amazing to think that the e300 Eurostars are now out of date and in the national collection

Mallard - still holds the world record for the fastest ever steam loco (126mph)

Inter-City 125 - the greatest train ever built!
One of these holds the world speed record for a diesel train (148mph)

Evening Star - the last steam loco built for British Rail

Stephenson's Rocket - the loco that started it all

ENGLAND - Big Churches

After a couple of days pottering around York it is now time to venture further afield, so a combination of train and bus took me to Ripon. As York Minster is closed all week, it was nice to have a wander around Ripon Cathedral to get a big church fix.

Ripon Cathedral

The screen is adorned with painted statues

Statue of James I on the screen

From Ripon it is a short hop to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, a large National Trust property that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Getting to Fountains Abbey by public transport is a bit tricky as the bus only runs on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays (Sundays in summer too) and there are only three of them each day. Having said that it is an easy well signposted walk from Ripon through the Studley Royal Deer Park so the best way to do it is to get a bus out there and then walk back at your leisure.

The site is one of two halves, the ruined Cistercian Fountains Abbey and the Studley Royal Water Gardens. Once one of the biggest and richest monasteries in the country, Fountains Abbey of course, fell foul of Henry VIII and the reformation. After being seized by the Crown it was sold to the Gresham family who plundered it for stone, timber and lead resulting in the abbey becoming a ruin.

Eventually the land the abbey is on was absorbed into the Studley Royal estate which is famous for its water gardens formed by damming and channelling the River Skell as it flows through the park. It was the River Skell that provided fresh water for the abbey and power for milling grain for both bread and ale production by the monks.

Folly on the Studley Royal Estate

The Studley Royal Water Gardens

The site was quite busy even for a mid week in February so I can imagine it gets very busy in summer. As usual the National Trust is very geared up for it all with shops and food outlets at various points around the property. Note that you come to visit the abbey ruins and the gardens, there is no Studley Royal mansion on the estate as that was destroyed by fire in 1946.