York - Day 2 (5 May)
Good news to start the day - Viator was very apologetic and will provide a full refund. They changed the meeting point for our tour two months ago, but it hasn't been updated in their communications!! So I've booked a 2hr York Walking Tour for Monday - which will help paint the 'history' picture for us.
But what about today? Well, we start with a slow, meandering cruise down the River Ouse at 10am. Lovely peaceful way to commence our day. I discovered the reason the houses opposite the Ouse have not one but a second 'brick' wall with an added 20cm piece of glass, is because in the early 2000's the River peaked at above 5m and was only 1 inch away from flooding them. So they've added the 'extra height security' of the glass in case of future flooding. Sadly I was too busy looking at the 'double walls' and missed taking a photo. But here are some random ones as we cruised:
After an hour, we disembark and walk back to our airbnb to have leftover Chinese for lunch, before heading off to two different Yorkshire destinations - Knaresborough and Ripon (about an hour away and within 15 mins of each other).
Sue snags a car park within spitting distance of Knaresborough's Castle ruins, but I'm concerned as it has a sign that says "Disc parking 1 or 2 hours". Neither of us knows what the sign means. We head off and towards the castle ruins and a couple of ladies hear us speaking and ask if we are Australian. As we converse with them, I ask if they know about 'disc parking'. Thankfully the one I'm speaking with explains as follows "if you ask any of the shop keepers they should be able to give you a cardboard disc that you manipulate to show the amount of time you will be spending in the car spot". Phew. So we hurry on back and the first shop we go into provides us the disc, which we dutifully move to 2hrs and put on our dashboard!! Problem solved 👍.
Apparently this is the only town with this system - and admittedly, it basically means we got to park for free for 2hrs - BONUS!!
Here's six fun facts about our 1st destination Knaresborough:
- Knaresborough is a historic market town located in North Yorkshire, England.
- The town has a population of around 15,000 people.
- Knaresborough is situated on the River Nidd and has a beautiful riverside location.
- The town is known for its stunning scenery, including the nearby Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
- Knaresborough has a rich history, with evidence of human settlement dating back to the Bronze Age.
- The town played an important role in the Norman Conquest, with Knaresborough Castle being built in the 12th century.
Here's my photo of the Kings Tower castle ruins (it was a lovely warmish day):
These photos are within the King's Tower, from the top of the Tower and climbing down the steps:
The main reason I wanted to see Knaresborough was to visit their Old Courtroom Museum (with an original Tudor courtroom) - something I've never experienced before.
In the late 1500s and within the Castle grounds, Sir Henry Slingsby, the Constable and Surveyor of the Castle, had this courtroom built above the existing ground floor level. It is very unusual to have survived so long:
A special court was held here to ensure the rules of the Honour of Knaresborough were kept. The Honour of Knaresborough was a great Royal estate formed after the Norman conquest. It had three parts, the Forest, the Liberty and the Borough. Here's how it worked:
- every three weeks on a Wednesday, a court met to deal with minor disputes and tenancy transfers
- minor criminals and offenders against Forest rules were tried at Easter and in the autumn
- common forest offences included:
- cutting the branches of evergreens such as holly, to feed cattle and sheep 🐄🐑
- taking acorns and apples
- illegal hunting
- milking neighbours cows when they were out on common land to pasture in the summer 🐮
- fines ranged from one to five shillings
- attendance at court was compulsory for all tenants and absentees were fined
- most of the serious criminal cases were tried in York
- court proceedings were written on parchment - the earliest surviving one dates to the reign of Edward III in 1333 and the latest to the reign of Queen Anne in 1707
- by the beginning of the 19th century, the Honour of Knaresborough Court no longer played an important part in the government of the area.
Here's the courtroom:
Having returned our 'disc' to the shop we borrowed it from, we headed off to our next stop in Ripon - Fountains Abbey. When completing my research, these ruins looked quite fascinating, so figured it was a chance to take a squiz.
Fifteen minutes later we'd parked and headed off to the Restaurant to grab a cuppa and cookie. Upon buying our tickets I discover we have two things to see - Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden. The area is also World Heritage listed - nice.
So what is Fountains Abbey - glad I asked!! The ruins at Fountains Abbey are the largest monastic ruins in the UK.
Fountains Abbey History:
- the abbey was founded in 1132 by 13 Benedictine monks from St Mary's in York
- they'd grown tired of the extravagant and rowdy way the monks lives in York and so they escaped, seeking to live a devout and simple lifestyle elsewhere - this was how they came to Fountains
- within three years, the monks settled into their new way of life and had been admitted to the austere Cistercian Order - which was the introduction of the Cistercian system of lay brothers
- lay brothers (what we would now call labourers) relieved the monks from routine jobs, giving them more time to dedicate to God, rather than farming the land
- because of the lay brothers, Fountains became wealthy through wool production, lead mining, cattle rearing, horse breeding and stone quarrying
- throughout the 14th century, bad harvests combined with raids from the Scots signalled economic collapse, which was worsened by the Black Death which struck in 1348
- despite its financial problems, the abbey remained important. The abbacy of Marmaduke Huby (1495 - 1526) marked a period of revival and the great tower built by Huby symbolised his hope for the abbey's future
- the abbey was abruptly closed in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries ordered by (old mate) Henry VIII.
- the abbot, prior and monks were sent away with pensions!!
The Abbey ruins are Gi-normous and very, very impressive. First shot is my first glimpse, not really comprehending what we were walking down into:
Fountains Abbey today:
- the estate was sold by the Crown to merchant, Sir Richard Gresham
- it remained in private hands until the 1960's
- the National Trust bought the estate in 1983
- in the early 18th century John Aislabie has great plans to impress visitors to his Yorkshire estate and turned the wild and wooded valley of the River Skell into spectacular water gardens
- Aislabie inherited the Studley Royal estate in 1693 and when disaster struck his ambitions (he was involved in the 1720 South Sea Bubble financial scandel) he returned to Yorkshire and devoted himself to creating the garden.
- Two estates become one - Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden
- in 1767 William Aislabie bought the Fountains Abbey ruins to complete the garden and create the ultimate vista
- the garden seen today is little changed from the one that would have impressed Aislabie's visitors 200 years ago.
The gardens are vast and as spectacular as these photos hopefully show:
Having been 'blown away' from everything we'd seen thus far, we headed back to the visitors centre. I finally grabbed a sorta OK shot of a pheasant:
Even the walk back to the Visitors Centre didn't disappoint:
After a beautiful day spent in some lovely sunshine, we headed back to York and our 7.30pm 1920's restaurant dinner booking with some live jazz thrown in.
Fantastic meal and music to end a fantastic day.
Tomorrow we have a 2hr York Walking Tour commencing 10am.
I think I'll sleep well tonight 😴🛌
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