Saturday 5/5/19 cold and drizzly
Yesterday Rick twisted his ankle walking along a muddy road so our walking has been curtailed for a few days, although he bravely managed to stick with me.
We've been to York before and were thrilled to be able to see our favourite tourist exhibition again.
Yorvik is a recreation of a viking village found when excavating for the foundations of a new build in the center of York.

Yorvik

 It's nearly 30 years since we were here and although it's been moved and modernised  the experience is just as amazing.
After Yorvik we took to the path around the walls along the way visiting the displays of the War of the Roses, The House of York (Richard 111 The White Rose) and the House of Lancaster ( Henry V11 The Red Rose)
It's an easier walk along the wall than through the crowds on cobblestones, with some lovely views both sides.

                                                 

Karen preparing for Rick's driving

Richard III crown replica

York Minster from wall

 After lunch we wandered in to the oldest part of town and a little lane called The Shambles which used to be  butchers shops, but now it has a very Potterish feel about if. I vaguely remember reading that this street was used for Diagon Alley.

The Shambles

York Minster was such an amazing place, I don't think we entered the minster last time, WOW it's quite outstanding. The mausoleums and graves are wonderful works of art, The windows stunning, all this quite apart from the beautiful architecture.
We had a great Italian meal for tea.

Memorial Statuary York Minster

Sunday 6/5/19

Another day another ruin.

Rivelaulx Abbey: is a ruined Cistercian abbey well hidden deep in the Rye river valley of the north Yorkshire moors, near the village of Helmsley, not as big as Fountains and much more remote even now, it's quite lovely.


We had decided to search for the villages we couldn't find last week,
Finding lost villages: Bland Hill, Clint, Haverah Park and Snape. All within Nidderdale along the Nidd river

Clint Cum Hamlets /Burnt Yates: Turns out we hadn't found Clint yet, its not on our sat nav,but still appears on some maps.

Bland Hill: This we did find in a way as there is no village, and a bland hill it is now. There is a house with the house name of Blandhill Farm (Family Tree notes: Richard and many earlier Iles born in this area of Fewston /Bland Hill) All we could find were about three houses at the corner of a road that goes across Stainburn Moor.

Bland Hill Farmhouse

Haverah Park 2: Driving along past the Bland Hill area we see a sign that says Haverah Park reservoir so I think we are perhaps on the other side of the Holstein Cattle farm we saw last week
(Family Tree Notes: Lucy Long gives this as her address when she marries Richard Iles of Bland Hill



Snape: I am so pleased we found this pretty little village, which not surprisingly has a castle within the village*( Family Tree Notes: Where Anne Hardy was at 1841 census age 14, with her brother and his family and their father George.. Isabel Hardy (her daughter) was born here some years later.)
* There are so....so many castles of various levels of repair and disrepair around these parts.

Snape Castle

Monday  7/5/19 still cold and wet
Mostly driving and sitting today. The walking tour we'd planned has gone out the window but there's still plenty to do without that.  Rick has bravely 😉 managed to tour the Theakston Brewery today.
Masham has two breweries; Theakstons, home of the 'world famous' Theakston's Old Peculiar, where we had a tour and tried a tasting paddle of six real ales, well I sipped and Rick tasted. (Someone has to drive.)

While waiting for the Theakton's tour, we a wander around a pub and shop at Black Sheep Brewery at the other end of town.
So the beer hasn't cured Rick's ankle and we decided to go to the local minor injuries unit at the hospital to make sure it's 'only' a sprain. It is, we're to continue what we've been doing

.

Rick's note: We've spent a lot of time and effort to get here, so this stupid sprained ankle just means we revise what we see and how we do it. As I won't be doing too many trails, we can certainly have a look at some sites, like breweries and pubs and inns, where I can sit and have the history poured in front of me.



Tuesday Weather's getting a bit better, it's not raining all day.
Rick's resting his ankle so I have taken myself off to the local Ripon library for a couple of hours this morning to do a bit of research. By lunch time I'd had enough and as it was cold in there too so I picked up some lunch and came back to the pub we are staying at. Rather than stay in all day we decided to have another go at finding Clint before we leave the area.
My research has paid off, what we thought was Clint the other day wasn't but we just hadn't gone far enough. Today we did. While there isn't a village here there are about twenty houses along Clint Bank Lane also there is a very old set of  stocks (used to punish miscreants by locking their ankles into the Stocks so that others in the village can throw rotten fruit and veges at them for however long the judge has decided the punishment should last.) These stocks are quite substantial.

View from Clint Bank Lane

Stocks and remains of Clint Market Cross

Thrilled to have found Clint, we head back to town to pack up ready for tomorrow. We have dinner tonight at what is now a very modern pub (well inside anyway). It is the same pub we had lunch at last time we were in Ripon about 27 years ago.
 Lastly, doing one last check on the tree I noticed that John Iles and Ann Hardy were married at Ripon Cathedral, luckily I'd had a wander around it and taken some photos.

Ripon Cathedral

Over all, the time we've spent here in Ripon has been fabulous and it's been really wonderful walking along the same streets and at times looking at the same buildings our ancestors lived around most of their lives.


Wednesday 8/5/19  Hunting Rick's ghosts now.
High Ho High Ho off we go.
Our next home is Avelin Cottage, Barnard Castle Co Durham.

On the way we stop at the lovely little village of Bainbridge (of course) for a cup of tea, from here we are heading to Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria, where Rick's grandfather Thomas (Tony) Bainbridge, was born. But first a stop at the Ribbleshead Viaduct. To get there we travelled along 16kms of winding fairly empty road, until the last bend. There it sits in the landscape in front of us. As luck would have it... a train went over the top while we were there too.

Locals at Ribbleshead

Sally, our sat nav earned her place in the car today as, after leaving Ribleshead, she took us through the most outstanding scenery I have ever seen. Across the top of the Pennines, the scenery here is stark, heather covered above the tree line, and way down deep in the valleys alongside rushing rivers and babbling brooks, round blind corners and over single lane bridges.
Rick's note about the Bainbridge lineage: It's been hard to trace the ancestors owing to there propensity to have very large families, then call their children all the same names. Mary, Margaret, Elizabeth, Thomas, Henry, William and George all figure throughout the generations. Each subsequent generation then rename their children with the same first names again, and so on and so on... I could definitely say that every living Bainbridge in this area is a relation, some closer than others. Predominately they worked in the local lead mines, as farmers or with the railways. It was this last job that meant the direct ascendants travelled about the country.
We arrived at Kirkby Stephen in time for lunch, and had a chat with a guy who is spending the week cycling around the area. Man there are some hills around here! He wasn't too keen to get back out in the cold and rain to finish the last 15 miles to his BnB for the night. It's a middling sized town and we are coming back here in a couple of days to have a good look around.
Barnard Castle is quite close and we arrive at about 2pm to find our gorgeous little cottage, which rates in the top two of all the accommodation we've had so far.

So after a quick jaunt to the shops to get a few bits and pieces, it's a night in doing washing and oh joy, cooking dinner. We don't have to go and find something for tea.

It's still raining and we have chosen inside activities today as a result. Bowes Museum is the first stop and as we're quite early we have most of the exhibitions to ourselves. It is a relatively private collection and fills a three story grand mansion! The pride of place is an automaton silver swan which does it's dance at 2.00pm every day.

Overall the museum is interesting but not, to me, outstanding, perhaps after all the castles we've seen it's just another in a sense.
We were then on our way to the nearby town of Bishop Auckland. On the way we spotted yet another castle. This time it's Raby Castle.
While I say, yet another castle, there are castles and ruined castles around every corner. Certainly a part of most of the larger northern towns, they were there to protect the populace (read the King's hoards) from the northern invaders.
This one has been lived in by the Barnard family for about 6 centuries at least and long before, it was the home of Cecily Nevil, the mother of 2 kings, Edward VI and Richard III. The current Lord Barnard has recently taken over responsibility and what a job that must be.
We really like this one as it feels quite lived in (as it is) although the family keep to a private apartment above the public rooms. One of the room The Octagonal Room was recently restored and it is simply glorious.

The Lords Barnard have owned most of everything we will be seeing this week for over 600 years.
We did eventually get to Bishop Auckland, sadly it is no longer the thriving town it once was. this has quite surprised us as it's the first sign of the downward spiral everyone is talking about that we have seen.,we just went to the ATM and headed home.

Rick was speaking to our landlord tonight as he was setting up a camera to film the local hedgehog in the garden at night. Rick mentioned Bp Auckland to him and it turns out this down fall is a very recent event. About 3 years ago all the big supermarkets ( about 5 of them) set up shop just outside of town and in that short time the High Street has virtually died. I hope the town figures out what they can do with the high street before it's too long. (Reminds me of Manjimup when we first arrived there.)

Friday May 10 SUNNY all day. First for ages.
We didn't have as much luck today as we'd hoped. Though, the touring was pleasant. The first two towns Stanhope and Esh Winning were a bust as we couldn't find the addresses we were looking for. The towns themselves were interesting.

Our driving, though, once again has taken us up and over the Pennines today. This photo doesn't show just how high we were at times as the photographer was hanging on tight!

Going up, toward the top of the moors

Next stop Lanchester, a pretty village where, while we were snooping around the grave yard, we discovered a funeral was in progress inside the church. The cortege was led out of town to the new cemetery by about a dozen tractor of varying vintages.
Rick's note: Stanhope is where my g-g-g-g-mother Marg (or Peggy) was born. The records don't detail where in town. It was in Esh Winning that my g-g-father (Henry) and his family lived in 1901. Henry died in Lanchester.
We hung around a bit and had lunch so that we weren't caught up behind the tractors then off to the 20th century and Gateshead/Sunderland. It's here Rick's grandmother Mary Charlton lived with her parents, Miles and Hannah, and where, she and Thomas(Tony) lived when they married in 1914 just before he went off to war in France.

Building new council housing on same ground Charlton/Bainbridge Homes

Seymour St

The address was Seymour St Dunston. Our first foray into suburban living.Unfortunately, we are about a year too late as the old council housing is being replaced by new housing currently being built at the location of the address. ( Good news for the people who will live there though).

On the way home we decided to take a chance and try one more village, Romaldkirk, tucked down in a wooded valley.
The church here has Saxon origins and among the grave stones we did find some family names worth later research. The village had a lovely feel to it and appeared to have been unchanged for many years. After earlier disappointment it was a better way to end the day.

Romaldkirk Church

Rick's note: The church in Romaldkirk is where g-g-g-father William Joseph married Mary Hutchinson on 19 June 1859.

Saturday, sunny early some light rain later.

Today we are really looking for ghosts as some of the addresses we have may be farms rather than villages. Oh well nothing ventured..
Off west on the A66 our first stop is meant to be Eden Tce, Kirkby Stephen. However a slight detour, (abt 15 miles) to the Tan Hill Inn takes us to the highest Inn in the UK. At 1730 ft it is pretty high and at times the road seems to disappear right under the front wheels. As usual there were some crazies on bikes pedaling their way to a beer or a cuppa at the top.

The views from the top were expansive and breathtaking.
Anyway back on the ghost trail we quickly found Eden Tce, a short row of 2 up, 2 down terrace houses, and as there's lot of road to cover today, we're off again.

Eden Terrace (Now Hartley Road)

Rick's note: Eden Terrace is where g-g-father Henry and family lived at the time of the 1891 census.
(nb The Bainbridges were far more spread out than the Iles')
We have a postcode for the village of Long Marton, where we do find the church where (g-g-parents) Henry and Elizabeth were married in 1863 and possibly the farm.

Church at Long Marton

Our next adventure is a bit of knowledge and a bit of speculation. It's long been known that the Bainbridges mainly originated in Middleton -in- Teesdale (abt 20 kms from where we are staying) and that's true, however that's really the registration district and now Rick has narrowed down the actual villages/farms where they were, and by all accounts, even now there are plenty of Bainbridges in this area. Nearly everyone we talk to knows someone of that name.
First stop, is an area known as Forest and Frith. It contains several Bainbridge related communities. Part of the 'problem' when searching is that some records detail a specific area, some a specific town, and others mention farm names as if they were towns. We are now in a part of Forest and Frith (F&F), known as Langdon Beck where we find an old church ( are there any new ones?), St James the Less ( (poor James). Here we find quite a few Bainbridge graves though mostly quite recent ( in the last 20 yrs or so) This is high in the Pennines and quite isolated, with small farmhouse dotted around the vicinity.
Back down the hill to High Force (still in F&F), which has a famous waterfall, the largest in Britain, while it's not high, the force of the water is quite impressive. Walking along the path to the falls put me in mind of walking through a Tolkein forrest. In to Rivendell perhaps.
While we are here we take a walk across the fields on the public walking paths and find, so well hidden you'd never know it was there the farm called by the ignominious name of Dirt Pit. Rick has a chat to the farmer who's bringing in some sheep. Really just to let him know why there are strangers hanging about.
Farmer: 'Oh aye, m'fether talked about t' Bainbridges living 'ere...'
He was a bit busy to carry on much of a conversation. This was a very exciting discovery.

The Dirt Pitt farmhouses the Bainbridges lived in 1861.

Rick's note: Dirt Pit(t) doesn't appear on many 'newer' maps. Thanks to the wonder of the internet, I uncovered the location, now just a farm name, previously a community mainly made up of Bainbridge's from prior to 1861 census's(?). That and solving the puzzle of  the various locations in Forest and Frith meant I had some definite places to visit. My g-g-father Henry and his predecessors all lived in this general area working in the 19 local lead mines. 
The only other place to find is Summery Hill farm which we didn't actually find but we know we were on the right road, just couldn't quite place the farm now.
Rick's note: Summery hill farm is where my g-g-g-mother Mary was born on 10 Sep 1837. The farm is still there (in name), but you can't see it from the road.
We come home through the village of Middleton-in-Teesdale.

Sunday Mother's Day. Sunshine

Today we head to the east coast and Whitby and Scarborough.
We've been to Whitby before but didn't climb the hill above to the Abby ruins. This time we did. The town has changed quite a lot from that I remember. It's now such a tourist destination I think it's lost some of it's fishing harbour feel. After a walk through the old and some of the newer part of town ( and getting a footy score from Colleen) we head south to Scarborough.
This is a whole other world. Scarborough is where the English in the north east go to the seaside. I doubt much has changed here, apart form the names of the amusement arcades, since Victorian times. It's a great example of Victorian holiday making with no pretensions to be anything else.
Grand hotels ring the bay, black and grey sand, donkey rides, beach chairs to hire, it's all here and so are the people. On this the first sunny day for a couple of weeks there are heaps of families on the beach enjoying the sun. (in a funny way it reminded me of Bondi, a wide bay, the road along the coast between the beach and the shops/ amusements and big headlands at each end of the bay, with a coulpe of big hotels thrown in for the punters. Bondi doesn't have a funicular railway though.

All through our travels we've seem some wonderful sights but this tickled us. The horses are really clever....

Such a life-like drawing.