Snowy Castle in the Dales

Dr Fred, two friends and myself have just had an excellent adventure out in the Yorkshire Dales today. We were very privileged to have a private explore of Bolton Castle set in the most amazingly beautiful Wensleydale and surrounded by Yorkshires finest countryside. That said the weather was at its worst atmospheric.. i.e. foggy - so little views to be had - but at its best it was snowing and its rather fine to be the lone occupants on the battlements of any castle in the snow!!!

Bolton Castle and although you cant tell here its snowing!!!

Dr Fred and a fellow star geek are doing a Go Stargazing event gostargazing.co.uk at the castle in a few weeks time so the two esteemed astronomers and two telescope Sherpas went along for a venue reckie... and were very happy when after an initial meeting with the staff involved in presenting the event we were invited to go and explore the castle.

Battlements

Its a 13th Century pile of stunning stones which has stood the ravages of time...Its a proper proper castle with towers, battlements, an amazing courtyard, grand chambers with enormous fireplaces, and on show the quarters that Mary Queen of Scots took over while she was imprisoned there. Richard the 3rd dropped by for tea quite regularly - Henry 8th tried to destroy it, Mary Queen of Scots and her entourage squatted within the west tower and it reeks of history and past times.

Mary Queen of Scots Bedroom

Its closed for the winter at the moment but there were quite a number of staff milling about doing those jobs that need to be done to keep the place ship shape all year round. We got chatting to some of the educational team who had reams of knowledge and they were very interesting. As much of the building is fairly ruinous, the big fire in the kitchen area was very welcoming and it was lovely to sit there for a few minutes and hear about some of the castles history.

view from battlements

In the open seasons there are falconry sessions and there is a pen with boar feeding and quite a few rare breed sheep littered about. Its definitely worth a return visit in the summer when its up and running at full strength but it was also very nice to have a private viewing. Dr Fred and co will be back at the end of February to do an evening star gazing event as part of the Yorkshire Dales Dark Skies Festival.

boar

All that running up and down spiral stone staircases left us with a serious need for cake and coffee so we set off through the snowy landscape to Aysgarth to find sustenance in a cafe and then had a really nice walk down a gorge in Askrigg to a very splendid waterfall - in my opinion much more impressive then the Aysgarth waterfalls - which are pretty but lack the prerequisite height needed for serious grandeur!!!

hidden gem of a waterfall

T'was a grand day out - lovely to be out in the Dales - even if it was a bit fresh to say the least, makes coming home to a hearty roaring fire all the more welcome.

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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