Friday 15 July 2011

The English Lake District: Ullswater this week

Everyone has their own favourite when it comes to the English Lake District. Personally I find it hard to choose as each lake has its own unique character.
In fact, a single lake can create very different impressions in the mind depending on the light, the weather and the direction in which one is looking.

Here is a photograph of Ullswater from near the steamer jetty at Howtown.


and here's another looking toward the mountains.

Skipton Castle - Intact Medieval Fortress in the Yorkshire Dales

On New Year's Day I visited Skipton Castle. Although I've often seen it from the High Street this was the first time I'd actually looked around it. What an interesting place!

With nine hundred years of history there is no shortage of angles to follow up after the visit, and since then I've spent several hours happily reading the history of its construction and the noble families that have lived there.

Once inside the Outer Gatehouse with its four round towers the castle is immediately ahead, and there are two main parts to it. The photo here shows mostly the 16th century Tudor section with its long hall and the octagonal tower at the far end. This was built when the then Lord Clifford married a neice of Henry VIII and wanted to keep her in the style to which she was accustomed. Today it is still a family home and this part is not open to visitors.

The day was wet and dull, and I had not taken my better camera so this is a hurriedly taken snap on my phone. I wish I'd turned around a little to the left and caught more of the medieval fortress. The South-Eastern drum tower is visible, though. There are several (five or six, I should check) of these with interconnecting structures, incorporating the ultimate in the defensive military technology of the period. The walls are over ten feet thick and, thanks to the restoration work of Lady Anne Clifford after the 17th century Civil War plus more recent work by the present family who have owned it since the 1950s, there is a fully intact roof.

Visitors can walk around at their leisure, exploring the many rooms. They are not furnished but between the information boards in each room and the guide sheet (or even better, the colour booklet available for a token price on top of the admission fee) one's imagination can picture the life in this place centuries ago - although it is more difficult to imagine what things must have been like during the 3-year siege in the 1640s.

The Gift Shop has several very interesting volumes on the castle's history if you're interested in following up further and linking Skipton into the broader history of the North of England.

If you get the chance while in the Yorkshire Dales take a look at Skipton Castle.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Travelling Around England in Photographs

I'm launching this today to show some of the photographs I've taken over many years (more than I like to admit to, but over fifty years) of travelling around England, sometimes on business, sometimes on holiday. I'm based in the North, just outside the Lake District, but have also lived in Lancashire and the Midlands as well as for a time having an office in London.

I'm not a professional photographer, and quite often I'm disappointed with my own shots. But I'll display here some of the pictures that I like from various parts of the country. If you like these why not also take a look at my other blog which is chiefly about the North of England, the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District.

So here goes, and we'll start with a picture of the River Lune at Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria. John Ruskin, in the 19th century described the scene below as one of the most beautiful views in England, "and therefore in the world". Who am I to disagree with him?