Fabulous Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal water garden

Our second full day in the dales saw him indoors celebrating his birthday.  We set off for Fountains Abbey with birthday boy attempting to suppress his excitement in case it wasn't what he was hoping for.

He wasn't disappointed.  If you've never been to Fountains Abbey, you only need to know it was very high on the list of abbeys to be obtained by Henry VIII, due to the scale and the wealth created by the monks who lived and worked there.  Fountains Abbey is a UNESCO world heritage site. 

Big huh?  The tower you see to the left is around 170 feet high and was completed just before the dissolution.  The two storey lay brothers accommodation to the right is allegedly 300 feet long, and has a fab vaulted cellar. 

There are beautiful views and fab medieval windows all over the place, it is so atmospheric.  I could happily spend one day a week roaming around this enormous site, just discovering new nooks and crannies.

I love this window in the warming house (see the large walk-in fireplace to the left).  I do like having people in shots sometimes, him indoors is over six feet tall so gives a good indication of scale.

 All the pretty colours of the local stone are visible on the pillars in this shot, those arches are approximately 25 feet high. 

Looking towards the East of the church, and through to the window in the chapel of the nine alters

The huge archway into the perpendicular tower from the main church via the North transept, the last part of Fountains to be built in the early 1500's

View from the nave towards the chapel of the nine alters at the East of the church, at an estimate that window is over 60 feet high, and would have been filled with glass.  It is also over 700 years old!!

 View of the East side, through to the West side.

 The cloister (and me!)

View looking West to South, note the use of artificial turf in front of the West door

Him indoors, modelling the Nave 

View through the West door.  I find it staggering that these buildings were constructed over 700 years ago with no machinery or metal scaffolding.  At Fountains, as you walk along the pathway next to the Perpendicular tower, you can actually see where they cut the stone out of the ground.  If you use Google street view you can actually visit Fountains yourself and see! 

I took a staggering amount of photos at Fountains, there is so much to see.  From the abbey we had a look at the mill, which was in operation up to the early 20th century.  The wheel has been put back into operation and generates electricity.  The original wooden door is encased in perspex as a previous tenant miller carved his name in it over 200 years ago!

  

After the dissolution of Fountains, the stonework was re-used nearby to construct a grand house, Fountains Hall, which is still habitable, despite being 400 years old.

 From Fountains Hall we went back to the car for our packed lunch.  Then, we drove to the other end of the Fountains site to visit the water gardens, yes, the place is that big!

 Wide canals stretching as far as the eye can see, follies and statues dotted all around

Little bridges, waterfalls and statues were to be seen all over the place.  Lots of wildlife too, taking advantage of the tranquility

Unbelievably, there were still more things to explore, so we returned further on in our holiday to finish our visit to Fountains.

When we arrived home, our little alarm clock was waiting for us!  More of him later....

 

Up t'hill and down t'dale, off to Yorkshire again!

We are just back from a glorious week in the Yorkshire dales, an area I've visited briefly but not actually stayed in or explored before.  I favour the moors side, as mum is from that side of Yorkshire and I spent many happy holidays there as a child.    It was, of course, beautiful. It was also hot, not quite as hot as Curtise in the latest edition of VOGOFF, but almost! 

We stayed at Pott Hall cottage, a holiday cottage a few miles outside of Masham, and completely surrounded by countryside. 

  
This was the view from the cottage when we arrived, no traffic, no neighbours, no internet, not much of anything.  Just beautiful scenery, animals and fresh air.

We had a quick walk around the area, and settled down for the evening. 

Sunday brought more good and unexpected sunny weather so we set off to explore Masham.  There was a thriving international Sunday market in the large market square, lots of food and several South American stalls selling pan pipes and knitted goods.  We resisted the goodies, including the kangaroo sausages, I really wasn't sure if it was literal or not so thought it best not to sample! 

I saw this poster in the town hall craft market, I'm disappointed that we will miss the racing sheep!

We drove on towards Thirsk in the search for Sunday lunch.  Him indoors has a theory that if we drive till lunchtime, we will arrive at a nice pub.  So we did, and we found this place at noon, spooky!  It is The Carpenter's Arms in Felixkirk.

Of course, we had roast beef and Yorkshire pudding!  The Yorkshires were just like my grandma used to make, so I was thrilled.

After lunch we had a little walk around the village, then, realising that we were not too many miles from the picturesque Helmsley, we set off again.  After a stroll around, we headed for the Ryburn tea rooms, set back down a side street so not so packed as all the other tea rooms on a Sunday afternoon!  We had tea for two, and two large slices of Victoria sponge with cream.

Obviously, after all this food, we needed a walk.  So what better way to exercise than a gentle meander around one of Yorkshire's stunning abbeys?  The 12th century Byland Abbey (another victim of Henry VIII's dissolution of the monastries) was nearby, so we headed on over.  

Byland has stunning examples of medieval floor tiles, these are just a few photos of the  designs.  Hard to imagine these have lain in the ground for over 600 years!

I did love the shadows cast by the sun 

and the way a shaft of sunlight caught the beautiful York stone, and lit it up!

This interesting seat was in the pub across the road, obviously not from the time of the abbey (the carvings show the abbey in ruins), but certainly old

Phew, that was quite a busy first day!

Slim pickings - the August charity shop bargain round-up

I'm posting this early as I am determined not to buy anything else until September.  Who knows, maybe by that time I'll be too busy sorting out my new house!

Trying to buy very little is mildly annoying when I've been used to having whatever I fancy as long as it meets my budget.  However, now the house is sold, and I am madly throwing out things I no longer need, or will need in the future, I have to show restraint.  At first it was quite difficult, deciding what to part with, but now I think, oh, what the heck, just get rid and wipe the slate clean!  We are moving from a high ceiling Victorian terrace to a low ceiling detached cottage in a village, with no loft space, so getting rid of stuff is necessary.  Most of my furniture and belongings were bought or sourced (cheaply or just free!) to fit into a high ceiling house so will just not go in our new cottage.

I actually managed to fill two cardboard boxes with knick nacks that were adorning the shelves in the kitchen.  When it was all gone I was unable to spot the difference, there was still stuff on the shelves, just not as much, so I could see the bits and pieces I still had.  

It does make you think about what you actually need in your life.  I vaguely remember a programme a few years ago where they analysed life at the turn of the 20th century, comparing it to life at the start of the 21st century .  The average person back then had 200 possessions, sounds a lot?   Mmm, not if you think it included furniture, linen and kitchenware, all clothing and footwear, toiletries, the odd book, maybe a couple of pencils and a pen, hairgrips and possibly an item of jewellery!  I think I have over 200 cooking implements alone, and don't even think about looking in my shoe cupboard and glove/scarf storage area, eek!  Apparently, nowadays we average around 20,000 possessions each, I can agree with that!

Anyway, aside from that food for thought, I have purchased some bargains this month. Although the weather here has taken a sudden Autumnal dip, I did manage to steer clear of jumpers, as I have too many, and jackets, although all the lovely wintery things do appeal to me, I love snuggly clothes.

A local charity shop is still getting rid of stock for £1 or less and I managed to grab this delightful bias cut and embroidered Laura Ashley white linen fully lined skirt for £1, woohoo!

The next whoop was for this gorgeous Coccinelle pink and brown leather handbag, found in the reduced basket of my local animal rescue charity shop, also a pound.

Next, literally, something I have been after for an absolute age, a cute short denim skirt from Next, which fits both my hips and my waist, hurrah!  Another pound from the closing down shop.

Couldn't resist this silk and rayon mix devore scarf for just 50p from the same shop, amazingly my only impulse buy of the month.

There we are, a total spend of £3.50, aren't I a good girl!! 

An appeal to all bloggers!

Does anyone know what happened to Style over 60? 

I was happily following this blog after spotting a picture of Louisa on Stylecrone's July hat attack.  I realised recently there had been no new posts and on clicking the link, found the blog account had been closed down.

If anyone out there knows what has happened, please leave a comment!

Packing it all in at Packwood House

The other day we popped over to nearby Packwood House, which is a favourite haunt of ours, and where the bugs find OH tasty, he always gets bitten at Packwood!  It was mum's birthday, so we took a picnic and had a wander around in the house and outside through the trees, avoiding the scorching sun.. Afterwards, we had a cream tea in their new tea rooms.

Those lovely new blue and white tiles were made by Fired Earth and feature Packwood scenes. They are in the new cafe area.  

I'm wearing; charity shopped M&S linen trousers £1, Matalan top, 50p, slightly tatty Furla leather bag, 50p, old BHS straw hat and crocs slides, sale bargain.  

I never tire of taking photos of Packwood, it is so beautiful.  Hard to believe that the clipped Yew trees here date back to the 17th century, and there are over 100 of them, laid out to represent the Sermon on the Mount.  More info here on wikipedia 

The gardens are so pretty, so nicely laid out.  There are lots of sundials at Packwood, I've never counted them but they are everywhere

I would just love a walled garden, with a tower at each corner, and doorways through to the outside.

The inside isn't bad either.

This huge tapestry hangs in the hall

The guide in the dining room told us they once had over 100 guests for dinner, must have had lots of separate sittings!

All the rooms are well proportioned, you can easily imagine yourself living there

Can you see the huge (fake) spider in the plughole?  Eek!

Thanks again Packwood, for recharging our batteries in such a beautiful and relaxing environment.