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!!!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!!!
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hidden gem of a waterfall
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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.
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