Yorkshire

I was lucky enough to spend almost a year in Yorkshire back in my younger days, and I blame Disney for that. Due to having seen The Horsemasters at a young age (I think I was nine), I wanted to go to

England to a riding school. The Yorkshire Riding School outside Harrogate gave me my BHSAI (that's British Horse Society Assistant Instructor) certificate, and then I went on to live with a family, training a couple of hunters (horses for fox hunting, not folks with shotguns) and a carriage horse. But I think part of my fondness for Yorkshire also goes back to a grandmother who came from Sheffield.

Yorkshire became the setting for my first Regency romance--A Compromising Situation--both due to my familiarity with the region and it's romantic setting. There are the moors in the north, wild and harsh lands used in Wuthering Heights (and did you know that wuthering is a variant of whithering and comes from the Old Norse for strong wind--there's a strong Viking influence in Yorkshire). There are the vales with their green fields and stone walls and dottings of sheep. There are ruins everywhere, some of them dating back to well before the Normans even arrived, others the result of Henry VIII's dissolution of the abbeys. Yorkshire is the land of Robbin Hood--yes, I know, legend puts him in Nottingham, but Yorkshire historians say he was really a Barnsdale man from the area  between South and West Yorkshire near Doncaster. Yorkshire has always loved its rebels.

The area has seen its share of battles, both with Vikings for control of the land, and later when the north chose not to submit to William I and the Normans, and then on through the War of the Roses and even more uprisings. Castles rose and fell--do did great houses.

In the 1800s, Yorkshire was at the center of the Industrial Revolution, with manufacturing springing up in Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. And, of course, revolution brought trouble in the Luddites who objected to the loss of income and jobs as machines replaced workers. 

The rich history of Yorkshire is in its houses, ruins, and even its land. You literally cannot step foot anywhere without being someplace where the history is close by. From the winding streets of York, to the rugged coastlines, to the now quiet battlefields. Folks are still digging up Roman relics, or even earlier tools and barrows that date back much further.

And those who hale from Yorkshire are a hardy lot, used to the cold winters and a rather hard life. The dialect can be hard to follow, and a bit bloody-minded (the saying is that a Yorkshireman is a Scotsman with all the generosity squeezed out):

'Ear all, see all, say nowt;

Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt;

And if ivver tha does owt fer nowt –

Allus do it fer thissen.

The translation for those not used to the Yorkshire dialect is: 'Hear all, see all, say nothing; Eat all, drink all, pay nothing; And if ever you do anything for nothing – always do it for yourself.'

But where would we be without Yorkshire pudding, and Terry's of York and the other chocolate companies that grew up in this area, and Wensleydale cheese, a cheese as delightful to say as it is to eat. There is also Betty's, one of the best tea room's in England, in York, Harrogate and other locations, which has been a tea house since 1919.)

Yorkshire also gives us the coach horse, the Cleveland Bay (from the Vale of Cleveland), the Great North Road (you have to go through Yorkshire to elope to Scotland), and some of the most beautiful of England's Great Houses--Castle Howard, Harewood House, and Barley Hall. And Yorkshire lays claim to many ghosts and things that do more than bump in the night, ranging from monks to lost Roman legions. And Yorkshire is a land where the folk tales seem to be close to those who live here, and the old ways are still observed. Perhaps it's because so much of the language also dates back to ancient times, to the Vikings who settled here.

In the Regency, Harrogate was a place to go to 'take the waters.' It was both a social scene for those not wanting the expense or bustle of London (or even Bath), but who wished good company and a touch of a more elegant era, for Harrogate had reached its most popular time in the Georgian era. And that is perhaps the real attraction of Yorkshire--the blend of old and new, which existed in the Regency era and and still exists. It's a place where it is easy to transport yourself back in time.


For additional reading:

http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-glimpse-of-york-during-regency-era.html

https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/yorkshire-coach-horse-the-regency-aston-martin/

http://castlesandgardens.co.uk/historic-houses-gardens

https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/yorkshire-coaching-inns-illustrated-by-joseph-appleyard/

http://www.viking.no/e/england/e-yorkshire_norse.htm

https://yorkshiremixture.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/hello-world/

https://www.bettys.co.uk

Treasure Houses of England: Castle Howard

© Cheryl Bolen

Author's Note: The Treasure Houses of England are 10 spectacular estates that are open to the public. I'll be doing a series here on each of these, seven of which I have been privileged to tour.

Charles Howard (1669-1738), the 3rd Earl of Carlisle began construction of his great baroque mansion near York in 1700. A descendent of the youngest son of Thomas Howard (4th Duke of Norfolk), the 3rd Lord Carlisle chose for his architect John Vanbrugh (who also built Blenheim Palace).

The 4th and 5th earls traveled extensively on the Continent and were great collectors, the 5th Earl having taken the Grand Tour with his lifelong friend Charles James Fox, the great Whig statesman. In addition to holding high public offices, the 5th Earl (1748-1825) added extensively to the castle’s art collection.

Castle Howard, located in York, is one of England's 10 Treasure Houses.

After the death of the 9th Earl of Carlisle in 1911 and his countess 10 years later, the estates were divided among their children. His middle-aged heir received Naworth Castle (where he had been raising his family), and the eldest daughter received Castle Howard, but she passed it to her younger brother Geoffrey Howard, Liberal MP. On his death in 1935, Castle Howard went into a family-administered trust. 

The Earls of Carlisle now own Naworth Castle, and Geoffrey Howard’s grandson, Simon Howard (born 1956), now lives at Castle Howard with his wife and young twins. He and his brother Nicholas serve as directors of the private company which owns the property.

Castle Howard is one of the most familiar of England’s great country houses because it is the setting of Brideshead Revisited , Britain's most popular TV miniseries ever--until Downton Abby.

HOUSE

The magnificence of the house, its furnishings and art, and the lavish landscaping have earned Castle Howard status as one of England’s 10 Treasure Houses.

Architect Sir JohnVanbrugh, who also designed Blenheim Palace, was untrained in architecture but was a well-known Restoration playwright and fellow Kit-Cat Club member with Lord Carlise. “Vanbrugh had a genius for bold architectural composition,” according to architectural historian Geoffrey Tyack.  Nowhere is Vanbrough’s splendid baroque boldness more apparent than in the soaring, 70-foot domed great hall of Castle Howard, which centers the house’s main block. The dome rests on pendentives that were painted by Antonio Pellegrini and supported by towering, squared Corinthian columns.

The ceiling goes up 70 feet to the top of the dome.

Corinthian columns also facade the south front, with the plainer Doric columns fronting the north. The juxtaposition of columns is just one of the clashes of classical architecture seen at Castle Howard. Because construction of the house (far too modest a word to convey its grandeur) took 117 years to complete and employed several architects, baroque and Palladian architecture blend together in Castle Howard’s exterior.

Visitors begin the tour in the west wing, which features guest rooms and state rooms with impeccably restored furnishings and museum-quality art by the Reynolds, Ruebens, Gainsborough, Holbein, and 17th and 18th century Italian masters. 

Some of the more memorable rooms on display are the 6th Countess’s bedchamber furnished with the bed given her by her parents, the 5th Duke of Devonshire and his wife Georgiana, and pictures of her 12 children; the turquoise drawing room; the museum room; the music room; the crimson dining room; the long

The Turquoise Drawing Room

gallery; the collonaded antique passage; and the China landing with its 18th century English and German porcelain.

GROUNDS

Nestled in the Howardian Hill, Castle Howard's 1,000-acre grounds feature gardens and parkland that are only part of the 6,000-acre agriculture estate surrounding Castle Howard.

Entry points to Castle Howard’s grounds feature tree-lined allees.  During the warmer months, visitors can take free guided tours of Ray Wood, or they can also take a self-guided tour with a trail booklet. Ray Wood is a lusciously planted woodland with a variety of trees and flowering shrubs that can be explored along serpentine paths.

The Temple of the Four Winds

The guided garden tour ends at Vanbrough’s Temple of the Four Winds, a grand summer house that affords sweeping views of the South Lake, Cascade, New River, the ornamental New River Bridge, and the grandest Mausoleum in the Western Hemisphere. The Mausoleum, while built by committee, was originally inspired by Nicholas Hawksmoor, the Wren-trained architect who assisted Vanbrugh and took over as Castle Howard architect after Vanbrugh’s death in 1826.

The Mausoleum is across the river and not open to the public.

Built for the 3rd Earl who created Castle Howard, the 90-foot tall, domed mausoleum supported on 20 pillars was not completed until six years after the earl’s 1758 death. To this day, family members are buried in the mausoleum, which is not open to the public. Their bodies are carried along New River to their final resting place. 

All the waterways at Castle Howard, including the great lake, are manmade. The property’s massive walled garden features three rose gardens planted with over 2,000 varieties. The South Parterre Garden of grass terraces replaces an earlier formal garden, but the parterre’s center Atlas Fountain is original.

Spending an entire day in York at Castle Howard is one of the most memorable days imaginable. In my opinion.--Cheryl Bolen's most recent book is the latest installment in her popular House of Haverstock series. It's a novella titled  Ex-Spinster by Christmas. Look for her next release in her Brazen Brides series in May.

Britain's Top 10 Stately Homes

Do you think you can guess what British Heritage has named as the top 10 Stately Homes in Great Britain?

British Heritage listed them in its booklet of "90 Places You Must See in Britain." How many of them have you been to? How many are on your bucket list? I'm fortunate to have been to six of the ten—including the top two stately homes.

                                                     Blenheim Palace

Let's see if you agree with the list.

1. Blenheim Palace. Home of the Churchill family and Dukes of Marlborough, Blenheim is located in Oxfordshire and was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh between 1705 and 1722. The sweeping parkland surrounding it was designed by Capability Brown. It's the only non-royal, non-ecclesiastical palace in Britain.

2. Chatsworth House. Home of the Cavendish family and the Dukes of Devonshire is situated on hundreds of acres in the lovely Peaks District. The house boasts more than 300 rooms, and it's easy to spend an entire day wandering the beautiful grounds.

                                                    Chatsworth House

 

3. Broadlands. Home of the Mountbattens and located in Hampshire. During my past several trips to England, Broadlands has been closed to the public, principally owing to restoration. It was high on my list because it had been home of the Georgian Lords Palmerston, the third Viscount later serving as a Victorian prime minister. (He died without issue, and the home passed to his widow's son from her first marriage to Lord Cowper. Many believe that son had been sired by Palmerston.) This sylvan estate is where Queen Elizabeth spent her honeymoon.

4. Tatton Park. Located on 2,000 acres in Cheshire, Tatton Park and Tatton Hall is owned by the National Trust and the Cheshire East Council and host more than 100 events annually.

5. St. Michael's Mount. This may be my favorite site in all of England. Located in Cornwall, the small island can be reached by foot during low tide but is accessible only by boat at high tide. The cone-shaped tidal island dates to prehistoric times, and the St. Aubyn family has owned it since 1659. Views from its windows are truly breathtaking.

                                                    St. Michael's Mount

 

6. Burghley House. The largest Elizabethan mansion has been home to the Cecil family (the Marquess of Exeter) and is now owned by their family trust. The massive residence is one of England's designated Treasure Houses and also features another Capability Brown landscape. Near Peterborough. Lots of movies have been filmed here, and I highly recommend it.

7. Petworth House. Located in Sussex and featuring grounds designed by Capability Brown, Petworth is most noted for having one of the finest art collections in all of England. It was one of the first stately homes I insisted on visiting because of its association with Georgian playboy, Lord Egremont, who was said to have sired 63 illegitimate children.

8. Plas Newydd. Alas, this is one I've not visited, owing to its location in Wales. (I'm particularly interested in stately homes that can be accessed with the aid of my BritRail passes since I don't drive in the UK.) This has been the family seat of the Marquess of Angelsey and has beautiful views over the Menai Straits to Snowdonia.

9. Castle Howard. Yorkshire home of the Howard family and the Earls of Carlisle. Ahhhh. . . Castle Howard! It's worth watching BBC's most popular miniseries (before Downton Abbey), Brideshead Revisited, just to glimpse what this magnificent baroque mansion might have been like before it became the tourist destination it is today. Some magical scenes in that drama filmed at Castle Howard are as indelibly impressed upon my mind as the faces of my children. Castle Howard really should be higher than number nine.

                                                     Castle Howard

10. Goodwood House. Located in West Sussex, Goodwood has been home to the Dukes of Richmond for 300 years. I shouldn't judge this one since I've not been here, but the fact it has a speedway, racecourse, airport, hotel, and golf course just does not entice. (Though I will admit there is much to admire in the distinctive stately home.) – Cheryl Bolen, whose latest Regent Mysteries, a novella titled The Theft Before Christmas, is now available wherever eBooks are sold.