East to West Photos: Day 17

Tues 5 April (0735-1630)
Distance: 21 miles (Tot: 295) (Wellburn to Scawton)
Weather: mainly overcast, some sun

This was a fantastic day! It was spent walking through the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (I’d never even heard of the Howardian Hills before we got to the first sign post that mentioned the name), and it was indeed outstanding.

Approaching the Castle Howard estate some of the trees in the woodland seemed to be exceptionally old. I had to have Mick stand next to this huge one to give a sense of scale.

Once on the estate there was plenty to see, as well as manicured grounds. Amongst other things there was the mausoleum …

…the photo of which was taken from the top of this very steep bridge:

And looking in the other direction from the top of that bridge was Castle Howard itself. Just after leaving the estate was the village of Coneysthorpe, which looked to be estate-owned (matching paint colours and matching picket fences on all of the properties giving that impression).

After leaving the village our way was upwards, onto a ridge which gave superb views. On the way I noticed this way marker that had been partially eaten by the tree.

Once up on the ridge we paused for a snack and as we got back up, but before we started walking again, we noticed a hare heading towards us across the field. We stood still and it got closer and closer until it was within a few feet of us. Eventually we could resist no longer and, at the same time, we both started slowly moving an arm towards our cameras. No sooner had our muscles twitched with that thought than the hare noticed us and took flight (or hared off, if you prefer). These subjects were more willing to be photographed as Mick chatted to them. Our most audacious bit of trespassing to date preceded our arrival at this bench which I got the feeling was put there in memory of someone called Simon.

The interesting features of the day weren’t done even then. There was another mausoleum, another stately home and then the remains of Riveaulx Abbey, which also looked worthy of further investigation (although on reflection if we had visited every abbey or priory that we passed on this walk I think we would have become sick of them; we did pass an impressively large number of such ruins)

The original post for the day can be found here.