Day 13: A Day Out in Richmond

Subtitle: Easy Peasy in Easby

Downtown Richmond, Yorkshire, UK

What's better than a good night's sleep? Not much. (Okay, maybe a shower when you are really filthy!)  We had a wonderful breakfast in the morning room of Millgate House delivered by various teenagers. The three whippets of the house snoozed on the floor near our table (presumably available should scraps materialize.) You can be assured that Paul and I disappointed the dogs.

Breakfast "nook"

We then ran some errands--washed our laundry, bought toothpaste, went to the post office to mail back all the clothes we are not wearing (which is code for making room in suitcase for local beer), and bought a bottle of wine as a thank you for the "family men" who are our hosts. Then it was off on the adventure of exploring Richmond. Tim and Austin and two other guests assured us we would be wasting our efforts if we went to Richmond Castle ("It's really not one of the best castles." We're not castle snobs, so who are we to say?) and suggested we spend our afternoon in Easby. It was a 1.5 mile walk (three round trip) which is usually verboten on the 'rest day', but as they say, "Rules were made to be broken." And break it we did.  They told us to cross the bridge over the Swale River and head for the old railway station. The railway has found Richmond to be lacking and so no longer comes here, but the old station is really lovely and has a plethora of shops purveying local goods as well as a brewery. We got to see a really amazing photographic exhibit in there sponsored by Nikon that included both professional and amateur photographers. Most of the exhibit was really stunning. I wish I could have pilfered a few onto my camera!

All it takes is chocolate and mint chocolate chip to make this man smile (or smirk at least!)

Oh my! It's pie!

The perfect start for an Eton mess.

Cheesy photography

The River Swale. Very lovely but unfortunately always reminds me of the "virgin Connie Swale" on the Dragnet movie. City of Richmond in the background.

After sampling the local ice cream, we walked down the old railway tracks (a rail-trail) to the town of Easby. The features there are the 12th century St. Agnes church, still in use and the Easby Abbey. According the Venerable Beade (I have always wanted to use the VB in a sentence and now, only 50+ years after hearing about the esteemed one, I've done it!), there was a Christian conversion of the Saxons around 700 AD. Some sort of worship facility has been on the site since about 790 and the oldest parts of the St. Agatha church was built in 1150 AD.

St. Aggy inside and...

Out!

The oldest part of the church is the bench in the back which was the only place for anyone to sit down and predates church pews. The baptismal font also has been around that same amount of time. There were paintings from the 13th century as well. I am not sure when the organ dates from, but the details on the pipes were really gorgeous.

For your christening pleasure since 1150 AD

For your viewing pleasure since the 13th century

Get out your magnifying glass and check out the carving on these pipes.

Anyway, Paul and I have been regular churchgoers on this trip, rivaling the three times a week of my childhood and the zealous five times a week of my college years! (Yes, I probably did knock on your door and ask you to come to Bible study.)  In many of these villages, there's only a few houses and an amazing old church. It's been really enjoyable to see them.

Next we moved on to another religious site, the Easby Abbey. This place was in ruins, but absolutely fascinating. When it was established, there were orders of communal non-ordained priests, many of whom served the community, and this was one such residence. It was very large and had many buildings, remnants of which remain intact.  Nearly all of these abbeys were given up to private owners during the reign of Henry the VIII who apparently really got p.o.'d with the pope over his desired change in marital status. The community in Easby supported their priests, but good ole Henry (never a Willie or a Sam), threatened to hang them if Easbyites didn't desist. In fact, no one knows what happened to the priests there. Hopefully, they escaped with their cervical vertebrae intact.

Easby Abbey. A big place!

More views of the Abbey

The communal dining hall of the abbey. Note the beautiful windows. The priests ate in silence.

From the Abbey, we ambled back across the Virgin Connie Swale River along the old railbed. We passed a stone dedicated to the "drummer boy." This tale is so sad, I hate to repeat it, but since it appears to be ingrained in the folklore of Richmond, here it is.  A battalion of the kings soldiers encountered a secret tunnel in the Richmond Castle. They were too large to fit into the opening, so they implored a young drummer boy to go down into the tunnel and beat the drum whilst they followed him on the surface. They followed quite a distance, almost to the abbey, when the drumming ceased and the boy was never seen again. The rock we saw is his headstone. It is believed the tunnel was an escape route to the abbey for the royals in the event of raids by the nearby Scots.

Paul reads the Legend of the Drummer Boy while sitting on his tombstone. (He ain't afraid of no ghost.)

Eventually, we returned to our home away from home at the beautiful Millgate House. We walked up the street to Ken Warne's upscale grocery and secured a local beer and some cheese and had a snack in the garden.

The Cheeseman of Richmond grocery!

We finished off this fine day with a magnificent meal at Richmond Brasserie and Grill: Oysters on the half shell, cod for me, spaghetti with crab for Paul and two great desserts--a caramel cheesecake for the man and I had a lemon posset. It's sort of like a mousse...very zesty. To this point in my life, I had eaten more possums than possets!

Holy Posset, Batman!

Paul's Ponderings:

A very relaxing day in Richmond.   The abbey was huge and it's hard to imagine what life would have been like during that period -- cold and quiet perhaps.   We had some local Richmond ale in the garden and then the best meal since Manchester at the local brasserie.  A nice change from pub-like food, which has been good, but one can only eat so much lamb and venison.  The locals we've encountered are very nice folks....I've been coming here since 1991 (or to various parts of the UK anyway) and have always enjoyed the people I've met along the way.   Tomorrow it's off to Danby Wiske.....another place never visited before.