UK Trip Day 14 Castles Abbeys and Railways in Yorkshire

Castles Pickering & Scarborough and Whitby Abbey

Today we head to Danby to join Susan and Geoffrey in a cottage on the moors. We were quite sad to be leaving the charms of the Black Bull Inn at Escrick. It has been a very cosy and comfy place to base ourselves near York, with easy to access the ring road around the city to facilitate travel in any direction.

Our route to Danby - not exactly a direct one - took us firstly to Pickering, the town at the lower end of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. We just had to see this.

Pickering turned out to be an attractive small town, set at the bottom of a steep hill. We went to have a look at the railway station first, and just as we arrived a train pulled in pulled by a diesel locomotive called Sybilla (a 1960s engine). The conductors were dressed in traditional rail conductor garb and there was a very twee tearoom on the platform. The railway station itself was very cute and seemed to be from a bygone era. There was no time for us to take a ride today, being two hours each way to Whitby (and at over £30 return each our enthusiasm was sorely tested) so we walked up the hill to try to find Pickering Castle.

John at Pickering Station; North Yorkshire Moors Railway.



Barb watches the train arrive.





The loco was pushing the train in, this is the guard - back a bit,
almost there, just keep coming - is what he really was saying!

Conductors of NYMR

The castle was a little elusive, the signage being not quite as good as usual, so John was busy googling its whereabouts while Barb was busy pointing over his head. It's right above you .... look up! As we continued up the hill to the castle we could hear below us a steam train arriving at the station. Bum ... just missed it.

The castle was a 11-12th century ruin, but with enough left to be interesting. The view from the top was great as you could see over the tree tops to the valley below. The little chapel in the castle grounds was very basic and rustic. The windows and doors heavily shuttered against attack.

Pickering Castle

John climbs to the top to admire the view.

Loving the vista!

Diagram of what the castle would've once been like.

Inside the rustic chapel.

After a quick look around Pickering we headed towards Scarborough. This town (Scarborough) is big enough to have a few park and ride stations on its perimeter and we very sensibly took advantage of one of these. When we arrived in the town centre by bus it was positively heaving with people on their June break, enjoying the lovely fine weather in this seaside resort.

Scarborough Castle sits on a high promontory overlooking two bays and across the North Sea to the Netherlands (poetic licence - Holland is a couple of hundred miles away!). Visibility wasn't such that we could see very far mind you, for although it was fine it was also a bit hazy.

View of the bay from Scarborough Castle

John on the path to Scarborough Castle

Scarborough harbour.

On the way up the hill we noticed a sign to Anne Bronte's grave (I misread it as Ann Bronte's gravy.  Amazing what hunger will do). She was the lessor known Bronte sister, an author in her own right. Her grave was quite unprepossessing, but it does enjoy a remarkable view of Scarborough harbour and castle.

Anne Bronte's grave.

The graveyard where she's buried.

Scarborough Castle was also a ruin, but has the BEST views! We enjoyed a cream tea (Barb) and pork sausage roll (John) sitting at a picnic table on the lawns surrounding the castle. John declared the sausage roll to be very good (high praise indeed from the connoisseur).  Barb declared that John makes better scones, but the clotted cream and black currant jam made these scones tolerable.

Barb samples a cream tea.

John at the castle.

Views across the North Sea from Scarborough

We made our way from the castle down the steep steps of the back streets to the harbour. Here we found the real crowds! There were lots of fishing boats bobbing in the harbour and the quayside was awash with nets and fishing baskets and fisherman with their lines cast in the water. I don't know if they were actually catching anything from there. We didn't see fish being reeled in, but they looked happy.

There was lots of fish to be had by unlucky anglers anyway from the numerous fish and chip joints along the beachside. Most had bold signs proclaiming to have the best fish and chips in town. They can't all be best, surely? And if you didn't want fish'n'chips there was lots of ice-cream and fairy floss on offer. Barb sampled the former. It got a thumbs up!


Fun on the sands at Scarborough.

Barb meets a pirate.

Fishing at Scarborough harbour.

Cute pub

What's a day at the seaside without icecream?

The beach had real sand, not shingle as at Aldebrough further south on the Suffolk coast. There was hardly a bare inch of sand to put your deck chair on, mind you. People were even swimming and sun bathing! It looked pretty freezing to us. The children were undeterred, determinedly building sandcastles with moats even whilst they turned blue with cold. There were also donkey rides available for the kiddies on the beach. Sadly not big enough for a Barb to ride on ... they looked like miniature donkeys. It was everything you imagine a seaside resort to be complete with an obligatory Coney Island.

In Broome it's camels .... in Scarborough it's donkeys

Deck chairs and fish'n'chips at the beach.

Towering over the beach on the cliffside was the very enormous and aptly named Grand Hotel. Guests at the Grand can take a tram cable car down to the beach, and up again, or simple stroll into the town centre.

You can see why it's a very popular place to stay. I'm thinking any of the rooms that had views and balconies would be pretty pricey. It's nice that the whole foreshore is unblemished by new buildings or high-rises that would destroy the character of this gentile town.



The Grand Hotel

Tram car to the beach....it beats the stairs.

Bridge between the hills either side of the head of the bay

We managed to catch the bus back to the park and ride station, despite Barb thinking John had got it wrong when the appropriate numbered bus came into view but then drove round the roundabout without stopping to pick us up (oh ye of little faith).

It was only a short drive from Scarborough to Whitby. We saw lots of caravan parks crowded with vans perched on cliffs along the way. They look very different from Australian caravan parks which tend to have a lot of green gardens with trees and shrubs and grassy plots alongside cement plinths.
These looked totally stark .... but the views would've been sublime.

Whitby Abbey hove into view. It was perched on a grassy cliff overlooking Whitby Harbour and town. The Abbey (again in ruins .... not many intact Abbeys around it seems - blame Henry VIII) was very impressive, although there is a certain sameness to the set up. A shop selling entry tickets and the same tourist tat you see everywhere else. Could Barb possibly have had her fill of Abbeys? Not likely. Sigh. (I'm concluding I should limit Barb to only two historic ruins per day - by the time we were half way round this abbey she - ok, we - was wilting.)

Whitby Abbey in the distance.

Pretty as a picture.

Not as big as Riveaux Abbey

We attempted to find a food store in Whitby to pick up food on our way to the cottage. Apparently there is no grocery store for some miles from Danby where we'll be staying. We eventually came upon a tiny grocery store with very limited stock but were able to get some chicken and salad makings for dinner tonight. Susan was bringing breakfast stuff and we could shop properly tomorrow once we'd investigated what was on offer at the cottage.

The drive to the village of Danby was quite pretty, the landscape gradually changing from green fields to more stark moorland. Trying to actually find the cottage was the problem. The roads became very narrow, one vehicle lanes once you left the A roads, and they started to wind around hillsides in such a way to greatly alarm Barb who has a great fear of "falling out over sides". She was shaking with terror rather than excitement as we drove down the gravel lane to the cottage. She was so distracted she could hardly take in the beauty of the place. It was so remote and worse still there was no mobile coverage at the cottage. We have since discovered there is internet coverage however, so we are not completely isolated as she first thought.

Geoffrey and Susan arrived about half an hour after us, also a little shaken by the drive in, although they seemed to have taken a less scary route. John rustled up a chicken salad, and with a few glasses of wine and hot sweet tea for Barb we all settled down for a peaceful night. The last remnants of sunset was at 11 pm. We are far north.