Sheep Henge

With this week’s weather report seriously depressing me (rain, rain, rain, rain. Oh, and snow in Wales where we were supposed to go hiking), I decided to use yesterday’s good weather for the northern part of Cumbria to my advantage and set out for the town of Penrith. Penrith’s train station is one of the stops for the train to Edinburgh, so I had seen a bit of the city (and the castle ruins directly adjacent to the station) on my two trips up to Scotland. Since I LOVE castle ruins and Kevin thinks they are all basically the same, I thought this might be a great thing to do while he was at work. I’m glad he wasn’t there because he would have gotten very annoyed at me when once again my supposed short walk around town turned into an adventure.

Sitting on the train, I found four things that I definitly wanted to visit in Penrith – the castle ruins , King Arthur’s Round Table, Mayburgh Henge and Brougham Castle. According to the English Heritage book, they were all located near each other and were less than a 2 mile walk outside of town. I figured I would start with the Penrith Castle, then find a better map and head out for the other three locations.

When I stepped off the train – I immediately regretted not bringing a winter coat (I don’t even have one in England). So, I ran across the street to the castle and then proceeded to hop around the grounds checking it out. (Seriously, I was so cold I was hoping from one foot to the other to warm up). While the castle is an English Heritage site, it was lacking in any real information about it. usually, at sites like this there are signs everywhere telling you what it used to look like, what it was used for, who built it, etc., but all I could find was a reconstruction of what the castle once looked like. Based on a little internet research (thank you Wikipedia) I discovered it was built between 1399 and 1470 to counter the ever present raids by the Scots. (Penrith is really close to the Scottish border). While still the Duke of Gloucester, King Richard III lived here. Therefore, when he became King, the castle became property of the crown and remained Crown property until William III gave it away to a friend.

By the time I was done exploring the castle, I was thoroughly frozen. I thought to find a teashop and grab a cup of tea to warm up and maybe something to eat when I looked across the street and saw McDonalds! Unfortunately, they were only serving breakfast so I could not grab a delicious double cheeseburger, but I did get two hash browns and a coffee. Once I had thoroughly warmed up, I headed into town to check at the information center for a map.

Map in hand, I headed out for my 1.5 miles walk to the first location – King Arthur’s Round Table. After I walked about 1.0 miles, I consulted the map. According to the map, I wasn’t even close. I started cursing the English Heritage book, which apparently was not accurate with distances. I then walked over a crest and saw a huge traffic circle where the A66, A6 and M6 all meet. I had to cross the traffic circle! If Mumsy was there, she would have panicked. Granted, there was a pedestrian walking area, but I had to quickly run as cars were coming screaming off the M6. I then had to repeat this at the A6 crossing. Racing heart aside, I had finally arrived in a location that was close to King Arthur’s Round Table on the map. A short 1/2 mile walk later, and I had found it! The guidebook claimed that the henge was not well preserved, but I was pretty impressed with it.

Although built in the Neolithic period, it is referred to as King Arthur’s Round table as local legend has it that the henge was used for his jousting tournaments. It once consisted of two circular henges. Today, half of henge sits next to a farmer’s field, with the other half located under the B5320 road.

I stole this ariel photo to give a better sense of what it looks like.

As I wandered around the henge, I noticed sheep droppings everywhere, especially at the center of the henge. I imagine that the neighbor’s sheep must be pagans who sneak into the henge at night to perform ritualistic dances.

The next item on the agenda was Mayburgh henge, a henge built of tiny stones rather than earth. The guidebook told me it was adjacent, but really, it was about 400 meters up the road, and 500 meters down a side road. This henge was much more impressive than the previous one, as some of the walls were a good 10-15 feet high. There has been no archaelogical excavation at the site to determine its age, but it is estimated to be from the Neolithic or Bronze age due to some artifacts found just outside the circle.

Once again, I stole an aerial photo to give a sense of what it looks like

Once again, evidence of sheep ritual existed in the center of the henge, especially around the standing stone at the center. What are these local sheep doing??

Henges out of the way, it was time to head out to Brougham Castle. I had seen a sign pointing to a public footpath to Brougham, so I decided to try that, rather than go back out to the main road. Something you need to know about England (and Scotland) is that public right of way is a given here. If there is some attraction that people want to go to on the other side of your field, they are allowed to walk through it. Or, if you live at the bottom of a fell, people can walk through your yard to get to the hiking trail. This is a bit strange for me as an American where you could be shot for walking though someone’s yard without permission. I’ve walked a good number of public footpaths in the area. When they go through a farmer’s field, there is usually a ladder to climb over the fence, or a kissing gate. To use a kissing gate, you walk into the enclosure, and then close the gate behind you. Since the gate you closed was originally closing off the entrance to the field, you can now enter the field. This is especially used in fields with sheep. Kevin claims sheep are very dumb and thus would never be able to figure out the gate. I think he’s a bit harsh towards the sheep myself. Now I’ve been on a public footpath through many a sheep field and through fields for planting, but this trip marked a first – right through a field full of cows!

I jumped down off the fence, turned around and was a bit taken aback to see a good 100 cows in front of me. Now I am not afraid of cows, but it was a little disconcerting to be so close to so many huge animals. Some of them barely moved out of my way as I walked down the path. As I took out my camera to take some pictures for my cow-loving dad, one of them walked right towards me (probably thinking I had food). Being the daughter of Gary Deal, I naturally reached out and pat her on the head a few times before continuing on my way. I kept laughing to myself that had my dad actually been on the walk with me, he would have visited ALL the cows in the field.

My new friend, who I named Mooney (kind of like Rooney)

A good 45 minutes from the time I left Mayburgh Henge, I finally caught site of the castle, and boy did it look cool! I picked up the pace and made it to the gate in record time, only to yell “BOLLOCKS!” once I got there. Brougham Castle is one of the English Heritage sites staffed by employees. However, it is only open from 1April to 30September. I was extremely mad since I hoofed it all the way out there, it had now started to rain, and I really, really REALLY wanted to go in the castle. Hopefully, I can find some time in between nursing school next year to come visit Kevin because I am dying to go inside the castle.

Brougham castle, why must you torture me so!

Dejected, I headed back a more direct route to Penrith, starving and mad at English Heritage. According to the guidebook, the castle was 2 miles from the center of town. Based upon my walking speed of 15 minutes per mile (hey – my mom is a fast walker. If you didn’t keep up as a kid, she left you in the dust), I estimated it should take me approximately 30 minutes. However, it took me an hour! Even if I was walking tortoise-paced (normal people/20 minute mile), this would be at least 3 miles. I need to write to the English Heritage people and complain about their distances.

I’m off to run and get ready for my tea with the Admiral. Cheers!

Sandstone and Bogs

Saturday turned out to be a perfect fall day – bright blue skies and that crisp fall air that I love. Since the weather was so nice, Kevin and I decided to head down to Furness Abbey in the morning before he had to work at the Beer Fest.

Furness Abbey is located in Barrow-in-Furness (where Kevin works). Back in the winter when we came on our house hunting trip, we had stayed in a hotel located just up the hill from the abbey. Unfortunately, the abbey was closed the day we walked down.

At one point, Furness Abbey was the local powerhouse, with the Cisternian Monks owning most of the land in the area. ( As a side note – years of watching The Sound of Music had me falsely believing that Nuns lived in abbeys, and Monks in monasteries, but apparently Monks also lived in abbeys. Who Knew?) The abbey was founded in 1123 and originally belonged to an order of Monks called the Savigny, but fell into the hands of the Cisternians roughly 25 years later. The sandstone abbey was remodeled and added to over the next several hundred years until it became one of the most glorious Cisternian Abbeys in England, being shadowed only by Fountains Abbey. The monks of Furness Abbey were the owners of Piel Castle that Kevin and I visited on Friday as well as vast stretches of land on the Isle of Man and across the peninsula where Barrow-in-Furness lies today.

The abbey was disestablished in 1537 during the period of English Reformation under my favorite monarch Henry VIII and gradually fell to ruin. However, the ruins still give a sense of how huge the abbey must have been in its day. Even though only a small portion now remains, you can look across the field and get a sense for how much space the abbey once took up. Additionally, there are several sections of the abbey that still tower in the field. I pulled a Don and made Kevin stand in one of my pictures for perspective, and you can barely see him standing up against the abbey wall.

It’s like “Where’s Waldo”

Kevin had made plans to spend the afternoon with Allister (one of his pub friends) pouring pints at the Swan’s First Annual Beer Festival. Luckily, Allister’s girlfriend Sarka invited me to come for a walk with her and her dog Floss, and thus allowed me to avoid spending the afternoon bored and watching Kev and Allister pour pints. We headed up to High Dam and started our walk by heading up to a lovely lookout point over Windermere.

We then decided that Floss would be a perfect guide to lead us down towards High Dam. However, this turned out to be a serious error as Floss lead us straight into a giant bog. We then decided trusting a dog was probably not the smartest idea, and Sarka took over. She kept apologizing for leading us into bog after bog, but I think we just never left the original bog. I also kept tripping on the high ferns and falling into the bog (big surprise, me tripping). We finally managed to find the path back down to High Dam, and as promised it provided lots of brilliant photo opportunities.

Floss is a bad guide

Sarka and Floss take in the scenery

Regardless of the mess I wound up in, it was a great way to spend a perfect fall day (much better than watching pints being poured in my opinion). Also, the muddly mess I became was (in my opinion) my retribution for laughing hysterically when Cailin got stuck in the mud in South Africa.

The Cold War Comes to York

On Sunday, Kevin and I decided to spend the morning visiting another English Heritage attraction quite different from the normal castle and crumbling ruin. A short distance outside the city center sits the York Cold War Bunker. Part of a collection of 29 bunkers built in 1961, it was designed to hold a crew of 60 Royal Observer Corps volunteers who, in the event of a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom, would gather data and coordinate with the other posts to determine the bombs location and predicted radiation fallout in order to warn the public. It remained in commission until 1991.

Along with the 29 bunkers were a huge number of “listening posts” dug into the ground throughout the country that would have been manned by a crew of three volunteers, also part of the ROC. The posts would communicate with other posts and with the listening station by telephone and radio. While this all seems a bit dramatic to an American, you have to remember that England was hit hard during World War II, so the threat of a bomb attack was still fresh in many people’s minds.

An example of the sheer devastation during WWII – St. Paul’s Cathedral in London

The Bunker is a guided tour, which was really quite informative as our guide was very knowledgeable and went through how the post actually worked from how they got information that a bomb had been dropped to how they triangulated its position, determined the expected radiation fall out and tracked the actual falling radiation. Luckily, the Bunker never had to be put to full use but full scale drills were completed by the crew 4 times a year for the 30 years it was functioning.

My favorite part – the board where they mapped the radiation fallout on the left and the ever changing predicted fallout on the right. Looks like it came straight out of a movie.

In all, the York Cold War Bunker should be a definite stop on anyone’s tour of York. What started out as a free way to waste the morning before we drove back to Ulverston turned out to be one of our favorite things in York.

York – Where Old Meets New

When getting advice on what to do in York, the most common answer given was to walk the city walls, so Kevin and I decided to do just that. Originally built more than 1900 years ago by the Romans (seriously, what in England wasn’t originally built by them?), a good portion of the walls has been kept and maintained throughout the centuries. In fact, they are considered to be the most intact medieval city walls in the country.

Once surrounding the entire city, the remaining portions are indicated by the bold black lines

While on the way out to the start of our wall walk, I immediately became distracted by crumbling old buildings and taking pictures as Kevin will tell you is a common occurrence with me. Also, a cool fog had rolled in which made for some really good shots.

Distractions out of the way, we finally made it to the start of our York Wall Walk. When people talked about the walls in York, I guess I incorrectly assumed that the walls would be similar to the elusive Hadrian’s Wall that Kevin and I could not find in that there was very little actually left and that you merely walked along side the walls. However, I was mistaken. The walls in York stretch for almost 2 miles when you combine them , and you actually walk up along them, affording a spectacular view of the city.

One of the gates to the city

After we walked about half of the walkway, we stopped to visit a few museums – Clifford Tower, York Castle Museum and Jorvik Viking Center. As one of the benefits of our English Heritage Membership, we got in free at Clifford Tower – the only remaining part of the old York Castle that has a great view of the city skyline.

After Clifford’s Tower it was a short walk across the parking lot to York Castle Museum. The museum sits on the site of the former castle (hence the name) and houses a collection of items that represent York’s cultural history. It was different than the normal museum that focuses on archaeology or a castle, and made a great stop on the tour of York. The museum houses a great collection of furniture from the 1700’s to present day – arranged to depict key rooms in a York family’s home at different periods in time. There’s also an exhibit depicting aspects of York life in Victorian times from birth to death and my personal favorite – an exhibit about how women throughout history cleaned their houses. Definitely worth a visit should you make it to York.

Kevin tries his hand at being an Elizabethan soldier This causes Kevin to be thrown in the stockade

Next up on the tour de museums was the Jorvik Viking Center. Until recently, I didn’t realize how much of England the Vikings once controlled. Perhaps their biggest stronghold in England was York. During the period of 1979-1981, archaeologists uncovered the well preserved remains of a 10th century Viking village. The site was excavated and then turned into a below ground museum where the city of Jorvik has been recreated in 3D based upon the wooden remains of the buildings that were found. In addition, the artifacts recovered, including the World’s Largest piece of fossil poo (seriously) are displayed for visitors.

After we got our fill of museums for the day, we continued on our wall walk and wound up at York Minster. Like most things in this city, the Mister sits on the former site of a Norman Church and Roman fort. The beginnings of the Minster that we see today were built in the 13th century by the man that later built Westminster in London. It has been added to throughout the centuries until it became the building we see today.

Up Next – The Cold War hits York. See you tomorrow if I don’t die from Swine Flu first…