Church Rock, Roche, Skipton Castle

I wasn't much looking forward to morning rush hour traffic in Nottingham - but we had a long day ahead and not much choice.

Loaded up the Mercedes and up Mansfield Road we crawled toward Church Rock. The cemetery gates were open, but it was a right turn against busy traffic and I just wanted no part of it. Standing the evening before in the light drizzle at the cemetery's locked gates, we had actually discussed strategy for parking the little blue rascal - instead of trying to turn into the cemetery, we'd actually hang a left and head up Mapperly Rd, at the Victorian Church of St Andrew. An impressive CoE building, but clearly a Victorian enterprise that we didn't have the time to visit, and probably wouldn't have anyway.

Hung another left at Cranmer Rd, behind the church (doubtlessly named after Thomas Cranmer, the Tudor-era Reformation figure executed by Queen Mary for heresy, and regarded today as something of a martyr for the Protestant movement), swung around and parked the car. Someone's cat watched us pile out of the car from across the street.

Church Rock Cemetery - Nottingham

Church Rock Cemetery is a sprawling municipal cemetery, tightly packed and draped over a series of swales and gullies. Impressive stonework, and even in the brilliant sunshine of the morning (yes, the sun came out), the graveyard's weird alcoves and cul-de-sacs teased a sense of mystery about the place.

Church Rock Cemetery- Nottingham

It was actually a difficult cemetery to shoot, the sense of scale being continually thwarted by the heaving topology of the place.

At the bottom of a steep walk was an enclosed amphitheater, embracing a number of ground-level stones and a few bricked up alcoves.

Church Rock Cemetery - Nottingham

We climbed down to shoot some pictures, and happened to spy a ramshackle encampment in one of the alcoves, its resident awake and tucked back in shadow. A Polish gangster maybe, but likelier a homeless person. We knew he was there, he knew we were there, but we ignored each other. Apart from that, we were the only ones in the cemetery.

The drive out of Nottingham was easier than I had feared; we caught a break when the GPS had us slip perpendicular and past Mansfield Road and guided us down a few minor, streetlight governed side roads until we reached the on-ramp to the M1.

Roche Abbey was next, unfinished business from our 2013 trip and an easy hour up the M1. We managed to make a wrong turn (we were perfecting the art of getting lost in defiance of a very good GPS), but eventually found the steep cobblestone road down to the English Heritage site. Like many abbeys, at least the ones in the countryside, Roche is tucked into a wooded valley beside a stream, not altogether easy to find.

There was a small car park outside the site, the same one we had parked at in 2013. I pulled into a space and a older gentlemen in a beret walking his dog came up to my window and spoke to me. His accent was impossibly thick, but with a little translation help from Sharon, possessed of an inexplicable gift for being impervious to dense rural English brogues, I gathered he was cautioning me against parking here, as cars in this little area were subject to break-in's by local kids. Hooligans.

"In the middle of the day?" I asked.

"Criminals keep a schedule?" he countered. Well, yeah....if breaking into cars is your thing, you do it when there are actually cars to break into. Roche closes at 5PM, and there'd be little reason to park down here after that.

So we pulled out and proceeded down the narrow lane to the gated site itself.

Roche Abbey

In-situ grave slab, probably an Abbey patron. 14th century. Roche Abbey

Roche was founded in 1147 as a Cistercian mission, passed through a number of hands and suffered near-total destruction in 1538, during Henry VIII's maniacal Dissolution. Plundered by Henry's commissioners and locals alike, the site nearly dissolved into the forested countryside until the 1920's, when it was excavated and cleaned up.

Roche Abbey

Set deep in the narrow valley, elegant in its skeletal dignity, it will never be considered one of the must-visit's of England's several dozen medieval monastic sites; for us, it was a gem.

The next leg took us northwest toward Skipton Castle. Sharon set a route that would take us around the south side of the industrial town of Leeds, but it did take us more or less directly through Leeds' small satellite city Bradford. A tangle of fast, busy roads with tricky last-minute moves and jammed with impatient delivery truckers, it was probably the hardest single day's drive of the whole two weeks.

Skipton Castle

We had had our doubts about Skipton. An extraordinarily well preserved medieval fortress, founded in the late 11th century, the castle is now a privately owned tourist attraction. Privately owned castles can be a hit-or-miss proposition. Sudeley Castle, which we visited in 2012, was a disappointment - crowded with vendors and costumed performers, the place felt like a Tudor-era theme park, and it was a turn-off.

Lady Clifford (1590-1676)

But Skipton was a more subtle and intimate experience, an intriguing stroll through narrow hallways, yawning banquet rooms and tight stairways, all wrapped around the Conduit Courtyard. Besieged in the English Civil War by Cromwell's forces before finally surrendering in 1645, Skipton was spared the worst of the Parliamentarians' usual slighting, with only the roofing removed upon their departure.

...and her Yew tree, planted in 1659

It is said that the castle's owner, the feisty and stubborn Lady Anne Clifford, planted the Yew tree now standing the courtyard as commemoration of the the castle's restoration after Cromwell's departure.

Got dragons? Coat of arms in the Conduit Courtyard - Skipton Castle

Skipton Castle interior

Counter-intuitively, you have to park up the steep hill from the castle, and walk down to it. It was late afternoon by the time we made our way back uphill to the car, and we spied the bumper-to-bumper traffic down toward the town square with exhausted dismay.  Deep in the reaches of sheep country of North Yorkshire (its name actually derives from the Old English, sceap), Skipton is a deceptively sizable town, and what we were looking at was a kind of rural rush hour. The GPS had anticipated our heading back through town, but forget about it. We made a left out of the car park instead; our little Garmin, by now accustomed to our willful non-compliance to its perfectly reasonable demands, dutifully traced a new route for us through some minor country roads outside town, until we were properly headed toward Cumbria.  

London to York, Day 2: Roche Abbey (sort of), the elusive Church and the Buzzard Sisters

The plan was to hit Conisborough Castle and Roche Abbey, plus both of the nearby churches near each property, before sliding into York to check into Lady Anne Middleton's Hotel, our haunt from last year.

It was probably an overly ambitious itinerary to begin with, but a calendar-challenged reservation clerk somewhere in the bowels of EuropCar's bureaucracy spiked it months earlier beyond any hope. It was obvious that were we going to orphan something. Which, we actually figured, was not a huge deal, since both properties were kind of on the way to Nottingham and we figured we'd just hit them on day 5 when we headed south again.

England was back to being small again.

So, we just cruised up the A1. I was a Highway Star.

We didn't really check to see what time Roche Abbey closed, but it seemed like the best bet for a damaged-agenda hail Mary. We exited the highway at a place called Blyth, caught an unsurprisingly narrow country road and exited it toward the Abbey (getting severely honked at in the process), then eased our way down an impossibly steep, cobblestone lane into a lush valley.

There were a few nature-walkers about - but the Abbey itself was closed, or just about to be closed. The gatehouse was accessible though, and there was a lengthy pathway outside the fenced Abbey property which afforded a decent view of the abbey ruins, so we got a few pictures anyway.

Roche Abbey Gatehouse

Roche Abbey ruins

Roche Abbey - from inside the gatehouse

We made a mental note to come back. (We didn't.)

Sharon had marked the church in Maltby, which was the closest town to the Abbey, but time was running short and after a half-hearted attempt to find the place (which, as it turns out, really isn't that easy to get to anyway, as we will see in a later chapter), we got back on the A1 and blasted toward York.

We entered the city from the south, through the excruciatingly narrow Mickelgate Bar. The used to hang the severed heads of traitors from this structure.

We got to the hotel, checked in and dropped the bags off. We remembered the Surly Desk Clerk from last year.

The smoking garden awaited - I brought out a cider.

At the next table were a couple of heavy set, sixtyish woman, sitting across from each other. They greeted us with an unmistakably American "Hi!", and we got to talking. They were sisters - one from Seattle, the other from Alaska - who were at the leading edge of a ten week vacation that was to take them across northern England, Scotland, Italy, Spain and finally on a boat to Florida. Our two week trip up and down the east of England seemed puny by comparison.

The larger and younger of the two asked, "How are you getting around?" Uh, driving.

"Oh my, I be too terrified to drive over here." Hmmm.

We finished up and headed into town for dinner at Thomas's [sic], our favorite pub from last year.

By the end of the next day, we were referring to them as the Buzzard Sisters.