Our World Tuesday - Pickering, North Yorkshire - Part 2

Two well known steam engines that arrived at Platform 1

Tornado - Engine number 60163

Duke of Gloucester - Engine number 71000

A stepped Hill off Park Street

The first Pickering castle dates from around 1069, built by the Norman invader William the Conqueror.  Whilst suppressing revolts throughout the North, he built many castles to help in the defence against the Danes and Scots, and to control the English.  The castle was a motte-and-bailey design and was originally built of wood, eventually as the wood decayed, the castle was gradually replaced with stone, during the 12th century.

Pathway to Kings Tower Keep at Pickering Castle

 Steps leading up to Kings Tower Keep

An Archers eye view from window slit and

Information Board

The grassy mound upon which the Keep was built is a man-made mound or 'motte' - and from that vantage point there was an excellent view across the Vale of Pickering to the south towards Malton.

                                   Mill Tower Entrance

 

The

Mill

Tower

    

 East Tower (Left) and Rosamund Tower 

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Our World Tuesday - Pickering, North Yorkshire, UK - Part One

Pickering is a market town situated on the side of a hill, the summit of which is crowned by a castle.  At the foot of the hill the Pickering beck runs through the town.  Though Pickering is now considered just a small country market town, it was once a place of much greater importance.

A tradition, imbedded in the Saxon Chronicle, it was founded by Peridurus more than 2000 years ago, he was a British king who reigned two centuries before the Roman invasion.

According to legend, Pickering was named from the recovery of a ring, lost by Peridurus whilst bathing in the Costa beck, and which was later recovered from the belly of a pike.  Another idea is that the name signifies the ing, or river-meadow near the pik, or peak; and Pika, Norse, a maiden, and hringr, a ring, has also been suggested.

On the other side of the road, the beck  is lined with fairly new apartments. The beck is shallow and has a rocky bed, and it is home to a lot of ducks. A few years ago we had disastrous flooding take place in Pickering and the beck rose so high it invaded several properties along the banks.  Two were the Rose Inn and Beck Isle Museum, located either side of Bridge Street; another was the Fortune Inn, a very popular Cantonese Restaurant.  It took many months to dry out and restore so many businesses and homes that had been devastated in the flooding.

On Mondays, market stalls line one side of the main shopping street of Pickering.  Both the market and the Railway, NYMR (North Yorkshire Moors Railway) are very important to Pickering, and bring in a lot of revenue to the town.  In December Christmas time comes to NYMR as they run the Santa Special trains, more about that in another episode.

In the photo here are some of the dedicated staff who work at NYMR, 

keeping everyone fed and happy.  One of the ladies in the photo asked if I wanted a Women's Institute Calendar type photo, but being 'chicken' I declined!  If you have seen that calendar, you will know what I am talking about.

Below is a photo of the steam engine

'Cock O The North' engine number 92214.  Next week, more from Pickering.                           Click on photo's to enlarge.

                                           

                                                                                                                             

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Our World Tuesday - Visit to Lordstones

Lordstones is one of our favourite places, a cafe built into a hillside, out on the wilds of Carlton Bank, just a few miles away from the market town of Stokesley.  The cafe is named for a Celtic Standing Stone on the property which is around 5000 years old.  To get to Lordstones you need to take the B1257 from Helmsley to Chop Gate (pronounced Chop Yat by the locals!)  Halfway through the village there is a very sharp left hand bend, opposite the war memorial, that leads up a single track
road, about 3.5 miles along there, you will find the entrance to the cafe carpark on the right.

The cafe is popular with bikers, hikers, tourists in general and locals.  They are open every day of the year except Christmas Day and New Years Day.  They have a very extensive and reasonably priced menu, you can get anything from a simple sandwich to a full roast dinner, all kinds of deserts, plus several kinds of beer, and their own ice cold water on tap straight from an underground spring.  They also have Carp ponds very close to the cafe.  (That's one in the header pic.)

Turning left from the cafe and walking up the path towards what looks at first glance to be a golf course, there is the Standing Stone in front of you.  Keep walking up towards the horizon and suddenly you will find yourself overlooking a valley 1000 feet below, and stretching off into the distance as far as the eye can see.

It is very quiet up here, the occasional twitter of a bird, or voices of hikers floating through the air.  Down below in the valley you will see a beautiful patchwork of fields, the tiny white dots are sheep, and you just may hear the sound of a working tractor drifting up from the valley.

To the right you can see a conical hill, Roseberry Topping, it has an ancient and tragic legend attached to it, about a King, his wife and their small son.  If you want to read the story go to the following link:

http://jacselsknit-n-krochetkorner.blogspot.com/2011/03/vt-of-y-part-2-legend-of-roseberry.html

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Our World Tuesday - Along a Country Road

 Just a short distance from Malton town centre, along Castle Howard Road you will find horses and ponies belonging to the Romany gypsies grazing the wide grassy verges.  They are tethered with long ropes so they can move around easily, and their owners visit them daily to replenish the large plastic buckets with water, and to move them to fresh grazing when necessary.


The horses and ponies seem to be quite friendly and are not in the least bit bothered by passing traffic.  Though it is a country road, it is a fairly busy one.

 I took some photo's of

plants and shrubs growing in the verges and hedgerows.

The hawthorn is full of bright red berries again this year, which some say means another hard winter.

There is a close up of part of an Ivy with clusters of green berries, I have not been able to identify what variety it is yet.

A close-up of a pretty purple thistle and some tiny white flowers, and a seed head of a form of Umbelliferae, which one I do not know.

 

 

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