Carlton - Oh The Serenity

Friday 25^th August 2017

Our usual reasonably early start but it’s not that surprising as one of the high up windows in our room has no curtain.  We packed up our things and then headed across the road to the Travelodge to treat ourselves to a cooked breakfast.  Very average to say the least – let’s just say the best thing about it was the free Wifi.  Had a quick chat to Kate who was just walking home from school but didn’t get through to Ben so just sent him a message wishing him good luck for his very last concert tonight.

Back to our room for a final tidy up and then we walked back around the city walls to the Europcar office at the railway station and picked up our silver (just knew it would be silver) Vauxhall Insignia – bigger than we were expecting – thought we were getting an Astra and this is more the old Vectra size.  Still, we’re not complaining as the boot easily fits both our suitcases plus the overnight case so we are not so obviously tourists.

It was a fairly tortuous trip out of York as it was not only peak hour but a truck had broken down in one lane of the ring road so it took us a while to get out of town.  At one point we recognised our laundrette of the first day – wow, we did walk a long way!  The traffic was a bit stop start most of the way and we guessed it was people heading off for the Bank Holiday weekend and worried it was going to take much longer to get everywhere than we had planned.  We made it to Castle Howard by 10.30am though, which was fine as it doesn’t really open until then anyway.  We made a tour of the gardens and admired the house from the Atlas fountain and then did a tour of the house.  Whilst the gardens and exterior are breathtaking I must say I found the inside a little disappointing.  It’s certainly grand and all, it’s just a little painfully obvious that quite a lot of money needs to be spent inside and that these enormous stately homes must suck the families dry.  It was just all a bit shabby and the tour generally takes you through these shabby areas plus the wing that was burnt out in the 1940’s and still hasn’t been renovated.  They cover this by saying how that made it so much easier to be used for the film set for the recent Brideshead Revisited movie and have left the set decorations hiding one room.  The other has large photo displays of the previous Brideshead TV series with Jeremy Irons which is the one I watched and gave me a secret wish to one day be invited to stay in a stately home.  I still have a secret plan of marrying Kate off to some English lord so that my dream can become a reality!

Back in the car and up the road to the Eden Camp where the original POW camp huts have been turned into a very well done exhibit of life during the wars including one where you feel you are actually in a U-boat attack and another where you are made to feel you are on the streets of London during an air raid.  Very well done and you just couldn’t help ducking when an explosion went off over your head.  We didn’t get through all the huts as it was just information overload and we were also getting hungry so we headed to the canteen for a pastie and the world’s longest sausage roll. 

Refuelled we headed north towards the North Yorkshire moors and turned left at Pickering and headed west.  Made it to Helmsley, which is a very pretty looking Yorkshire village, and then turned off to Rivaleux Abbey.  What a gorgeous little hamlet of houses and then the striking ruin of the abbey sitting amongst them in the valley.  We didn’t go in but just walked around the hamlet admiring the houses with the abbey in the background with the sound of sheep bleating in the background.  Just lovely.

Headed on to Sutton Bank where we parked up at the visitor centre and then took the 500m (metre?  Too long.  Mile?  Too short) to the viewing point to see the view that James Herriot famously called the ‘most beautiful in England).  It certainly was spectacular and, although a little hazy, you certainly could see a long way across the Yorkshire Dales.  It’s also a fantastic place for a gliding club and we watched a couple of them come into land whilst there.

Continued west and the GPS sent us a rather convoluted way around Thirsk and towards Masham.  We were going there as Jenny had read there was a dairy nearby which made its own ice creams but there was not advertising for it as we headed near and through Masham and we despaired that we had missed out but another five miles out of Masham we finally found it and had a very nice ice cream.  Unfortunately we arrived there at exactly the same time as a bus load of Doncaster pensioners so it took a bit longer to get served than it should have (ie the old bloke who told us ‘I’m not pushing in I’m just getting to my friends’ as he pushed in for example).  It was a lovely ice cream and worth the wait.  Feeling refreshed we pushed on towards Middleham and its castle which was home to Richard III.  The town is now home to a number of racing stables and there were a few long legged horses in the fields.  We were stressing about not being able to find Carlton, which the GPS wouldn’t recognise and we had no phone reception so we pushed on.  Luckily we pushed on in the right direction and drove down some narrow country lanes through classic Yorkshire Dales countryside of stone fenced fields and white fluffy sheep until we found the little village of Carlton and the welcome sight of the Forester’s Arms.

Checked in and Larry carried the suitcases up the steep narrow steps to our upstairs room.  We have a fabulous view across the valley and it is really quiet as we are so remote.  Once the pub quietens down tonight we will sleep well.

Nowhere else to eat or drink in the village than the pub so time for another gin – this time rhubarb infused – and then a beef and Masham ale pile with chips and veg before retiring to our room so that Larry could doze off and Jenny could write the blog.