Mount Grace Priory, Cod Beck and Marmion tower

Day three in Yorkshire continued the sunny theme, thankfully, but with a hint of dew on the ground.  I took a few photos of the area around our holiday cottage.

With a packed lunch and some cake and biscuits, we set off for Mount Grace Priory, an English Heritage managed property around 20 miles from where we were staying. 

It was so quiet, we wandered around the manor house

 which was complete and decorated with William Morris wallpaper

Outside, we meandered around the ruins, mainly lovely high stone walls around the cloister with doorways into what would have been individual monk's cells (detached two storey houses with proper toilets, gardens, covered walkways and a glass walled room overlooking the garden, an early type of conservatory!) Those square holes next to each doorway are where food and other things were passed to the monks living in the cells, they lived solitary lives with no contact.

There is a rebuilt cell to show what the living quarters would have been like, and they were very luxurious by modern standards, I think.

Here's a photo of the information board from in front of the reconstructed cell.

The actual cell showing the garden and covered walkway to the loo (far left)

                    Him indoors, trying the loo for size (not literally, you understand!)

The conservatory area

Inside, and upstairs in the spacious workroom, spinning wheel anyone?

Gratuitous shots of the beautiful ruins

We headed back to the car for our picnic, in one of the most peaceful car parks I have ever parked in.  This hen turned up to scratch around by the cars

After lunch. we drove around for a while and I spotted an interesting body of water on the map. We arrived at beautiful Cod Beck, and walked through the trees to a picturesque reservoir

 Over the stepping stones

                                                          Through the trees, and

posed by the water's edge!

I even managed to flick my hair in this shot!

Driving back to the holiday cottage, him indoors spotted a brown tourist sign pointing to something called Marmion Tower.  We followed the sign.

We found a rather nice 15th century Gatehouse in pretty good nick.  Just look at the colours in the stone, not a bad oriel window either! 

With a nice twisty stone staircase that went right to the top, I insisted on climbing it, of course!

We have been so lucky with the weather so far, pity the suitcases were full of woolens.