0 Easby Abbey

 Easby Abbey is near Richmond Castle, so it rounded out our day. 

Across from the ruins themselves sits the ruins of the gatehouse.  Next to the gatehouse is a field which was full of adorable lambs!  (Yeah, the ewes were there, too, of course!)

 The gatehouse.

 The east window.

 

The east window from the interior.

 A section of the west range.

0 Richmond Castle

Richmond Castle sits in Richmondshire, part of North Yorkshire.  A stronghold in the North, it is a great example of a Norman fortress.

The tower is still standing, and provides a great example of the twelfth century architecture.

The town from the great tower.  Historians believe that the current circular layout of the town is a preservation of the original eleventh century layout around the castle.

The tower at the top left center is the Gold Hole Tower.  The building next to it is known as Scolland's Hall, named after the castle constable who died in the mid-twelfth century.  He is believed to have been constable for sixty years, which may be why this honor was bestowed on him.

A close up of the Hall and Tower from the ground.

A view of the postern gate and tower from the Great Tower roof.

A bridge over the river next to the castle.

The Great Tower, with the ruins of Robin Hood's Tower to the right.

Castle Gardens.

Sloan says it was a great day out in North Yorkshire!

0 Leeds United Football Club

 Some friends of ours invited us to a LUFC match, and, as that's high on Paul's list of enjoyable activities, we went.  This was the first English football match either of us has attended, and was, to put it mildly, a different experience.  Fans yell, chant, and sing in unison at various moments in the match, which in a way is similar to the cheers at a UGA football game, but seemed very, very different, especially when you don't know the words to the chants!  We had amazingly good seats, just to the right of the goal on the front row, and as the pitch is raised, there were no visual barriers between us and it.  I, of course, was armed with my camera, and even had my telephoto lens along.  About a third of the way into the game a steward came and told me I needed to put my camera away, as "those types" aren't allowed.  Later in the match I asked one of the head stewards if it was because of my telephoto lens- he said no, that NO photography is allowed during matches.  I looked around a bit, and sure enough, there were no other cameras out.  So, since it took me a bit to figure out which settings I wanted the camera on and then I was told to put it away, these are the best of the contraband shots I took- oh, well.

0 Byland Abbey and Rievaulx, revisited

Byland Abbey is about an hour from us, so we headed out one day to visit it and stop over at Rievaulx, as Paul hadn't been there yet. The church's great rose window has mostly fallen away in ruins, but the lower frame of it speaks to it's size.  The church was completed in the 1190s, and was the largest Cistercian church in Britain. 

The central door under the rose window.

The footing of a pillar.

Re-erected arcading in the presbytery.

The fireplace in the warming house, the only room allowed to have heating during winter.

View across the cloister and into the nave, rose window ruin is on the left.

View from the northwest area.

Detailing.

I've already posted on Rievaulx so I won't go into overview images or detail words. These images are slightly redundant to each other, but I love the beauty of the arches' architectural form and I hope you enjoy it as well. 

Sloan, posing in the cloisters.  I tried to get her to smile... this was milliseconds after she stuck her tongue out at me.  I'm trying not to anthropomorphize that action, but it's hard not to, given how annoyed she was with me!!

0 York again, but there's always more to see!

We went back to the National Railway Museum, where I re-posed my engineering.

ummmm... some engines.  I don't really know anything about them.

A Pullman car!  I actually know that name!

This is in a door on the Minster, the exit from the gift shop.   I love this letter slot!!

Another view from the top of Clifford's Tower.  Well, the same view as the previous post, but a much clearer sky!

0 Sweetheart Abbey

Sweetheart Abbey, while a beautiful ruin, has a very unique story behind it.  In 1268, Lady Dervorgilla of Galloway lost her beloved husband, Lord John Balliol of Barnard Castle.  In her grief, she had his heart removed, embalmed, and housed in an ivory casket, which she placed on her dining table, inviting the poor and needy.  When Lady Dervorgilla died in 1289, she was buried with her husband's heart at Sweetheart Abbey, which she had established in 1273.  Some say romantic, I say creepy. 

Like most border abbeys, Sweetheart was repeated damaged during the Wars of Independence.  It survived, however, until the demise of all religious houses following the 1560 Reformation.

The west front of the Abbey, from the interior.

The east end of the church.

These ducks actually live outside of the New Abbey Corn Mill, near Sweetheart Abbey.