Where was Andy?
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So I'm guessing these may be tricky, so 4 photos of both English towns:
First:
And the second town:
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Close to Leeds, it's Halifax. The first photo is a grade2 listed 1970's concrete building that replaced a huge victorian brewery and was the HQ of the Halifax Building Society.
Now owned by Lloyd's of London.
We stayed in a 2 room apartment across the road from it, near friends who live adjacent.
Next photo is the town hall if I remember right. Third is a huge public square, called Woolshops. Medieval 1500? designed to facilitate the local wool trade at its height. Only used for a couple of decades. Now with added water feature, it is used for concerts and is slowly filling up with craft shops. -
Another view of the Halifax Lloyds building
Oldest house painted in original colour
Woolshops Square, the steps (far left in front of bandstand) is the large water feature
Indoor victorian market, with excellent cheese shop
Typical stone built
It has a 900 year old Minster
And very modern bus station, covered market, and this super library built onto the remains of a church, see rose window
Only the spire remains:
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The second town was Ripon, its cathedral stunning in the sun (unlike Halifax Minster blackened with the pollution of centuries industry and only now being renovated).
Ripon is small, a farming market town (actually a city of only 16k people) but has a racecourse and nearby Fountains Abbey.
The market square has the oldest uk civic obelisk, 1702 (Hawksmoor).
We only had an afternoon there, walked Kirkgate, an old street connecting the cathedral to the market
And the market place includes:
The main attraction is the Cathedral
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The second town was Ripon, its cathedral stunning in the sun (unlike Halifax Minster blackened with the pollution of centuries industry and only now being renovated).
Ripon is small, a farming market town (actually a city of only 16k people) but has a racecourse and nearby Fountains Abbey.
The market square has the oldest uk civic obelisk, 1702 (Hawksmoor).
We only had an afternoon there, walked Kirkgate, an old street connecting the cathedral to the market
And the market place includes:
The main attraction is the Cathedral
Fountains Abbey.
Or, as my mom referred to it "that damn abbey". I'll explain....
We took the train from London to York, spent a couple of days checking out the city, especially York Minster. It was a month after there had been a major fire. We could see the damage but most of the building was open. We also made multiple visits to Betty's.
I picked up a car and we drove to Fountains Abbey on our way to Masham, where our B&B was located. We were walking around the abbey and I suddenly heard my mom cry out in pain. She was on the ground, gasping like a fish out of water. I thought she was having a heart attack and I was wondering what to do. Pre-cell phone era, and the place was pretty deserted on a weekday. Turns out Mom had tripped and knocked the wind out of herself. She recovered pretty quickly and we made our way to the bed and breakfast, where she took a hot bath in a gloriously huge bathtub (Brits have the best bathtubs!). The hosts served a dinner of Nidderdale trout that had been caught just a few hours earlier. And I had my first sticky toffee pudding. We ended up staying in Masham and doing some day trips around Yorkshire instead of heading to the Lake District, which was our original destination. The G&Ts and the excellent draft beer at the B&B had nothing to do with our extending our stay....
Despite all those nice things that happened, Mom still referred to Fountains as that damn abbey.
edit: I see Bank Villa is still there! Though it seems it is just a hotel rather than a B&B.
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It's years since i visited Fountains too.
The Cathedral is earlier, dates from the 660's and the original simple small rectangular church was built by St Wilfred.
They found the crypt of his original 660AD church (see also photo above) which you can descend into
The photos hopefully show just how beautiful this cathedral is, the elegant proportions, the fitings and decorations sufficient for glory without going OTT.
Looking back to the entrance
Into the chancel
The wooden seats and misericords date from 1490
And a couple of side chapels
A truly lovely building inside
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