We are back on the Heritage trail in
Yorkshire and our first stop was Pickering Castle. It wasn’t much to look at today but William the Conqueror
himself built the first “bailey and mote” castle on the site in 1068 to
encourage obedience to his Norman laws.
Scarborough Castle had no parsley,
sage, rosemary or thyme. And not
much else. It was pretty much
destroyed during the Civil War and came under fire again in the early days of
WW I by German gunships. Its
location is spectacular, high on a peninsula overlooking the sea on both
sides. We could stare down on
surfers waiting for that perfect wave.
Who would have thought of surfing in the UK.
Connie usually saves the best –
and the most distant –for last. The
road out took us through Flyingdale Moor where the heather was in full bloom
and we could see the abbey long before we reached town. It too sits above the harbor and was
also shelled by German warships during WW I.
We got lucky once again with the
weather; it rained only when we were driving, not when we were at the
sites. But the wind at Whitby was
relentless. Unlike most abbeys,
Whitby didn’t have an abbot but and abbess. Like many others it was built over a Norman church. It was one of the most impressive we
have seen and it must have been truly stunning in its day.
