Sunday 12th August – A castle, a vet and a ‘drenched Thirsk’

It rained last night and I am glad to report I woke up dry! Felt very cosy in my caravan, just wanted it to stop in time for my day to start. I did – just.

I visited Castle Howard today, a spectacular house, designed and built for Charles Howard, the 3^rd Earl of Carlisle, by his mate…an actor/writer! He thought that John Vanbrugh would understand his dreams of an outstanding, awe-inspiring house, so asked him to design him one. You can find out more on the website here.

The house took 100 years to complete and was finished around 1801-11, so a few generations of the family had an input into its look. There was also a fire in 1940, while a school was using the house during the war, and the school girls had the foresight to throw books and painting out of the windows of the house before running out themselves. Unfortunately, they couldn’t save everything, including the massive dome on the roof that collapsed inwards, totally destroyed.

But, the family decided to not give up on their home and the house is still in the process of being re built, using money earnt from events and hiring out the house as a film set, for example for Brideshead Revisited. Will be trying to watch this tonight if the Wi-Fi lets me (unlikely – its rubbish on this site).

The grounds were equally as impressive as was the Yorkshire tea and cake in the tea rooms 🙂

After a good three hours spent at the Castle, I quickly popped into their farm shop to pick up some local produce. Today I chose Yorkshire chocolate ice cream, local honey and York gin! No necessarily foods associated with Yorkshire, but I will try some local dishes as I find out and see them – thinking Wensleydale cheese and Yorkshire curd tart will feature…

Next I drove back to the campsite to drop off my goodies (don’t want melted ice cream later!) and then travelled 25 mins in the opposite direction to visit Thirsk, as recommended by one of my friends at book club (Thank you!).

Another lovely town to wander around, with knitted goods displayed throughout (See the photos). Bollards were covered, knitted ice creams hung from trees and bunting was everywhere. I didn’t find any information to tell me why, so assume it has something to do with the local wool trade again? It looked brilliant anyway, and something a bit different.

Sadly the Thirsk museum isn’t open on a Sunday, otherwise I would have visited, but my main reason for visiting Thirsk was to go to the James Herriot house. This was the real home and surgery of the world famous vet and author of All Creatures Great and Small.

I must admit, I’ve never watched the series or read the books, but the contrast of visiting Castle Howard, followed by a home from the 1940s appealed to me and after reading the stories and looking around the house, I’m definitely going to watch/read his books when I can.

The museum was fascinating and I learnt so much about vets over the years, the procedures they carried out and the general hard ship of being a country vet. This man truly loved animals and dedicated his life to them – it was only when his wife got annoyed with him for always telling her ,and then saying ‘I’ll put that in the book’, but never actually writing one, that he finally did!

I even had a go at being a vet myself…. check out my instagram account to see what I mean!(Onewomanandhercaravan)

Definitely worth a visit even if you’re not a fan or, like me, just had an interest and now will be one I’m sure.

Back to the campsite and stopped to capture some photos of the glorious Yorkshire Moors. It really is pretty around here and though it would be nice to see it in the sunshine, the moody clouds do add a little something to it I believe! Off to eat lots of ice cream and enjoy my (now nightly) G&T – only this time it will be local!

No difference right?!