Yorkshire and Northumberland with GRJ 2022 Part One

Monday May 30 2022

Our holiday officially started in Harrogate, but as it was a Rail and Coach holiday as far as we were concerned it started in Lowestoft on a sunny Monday morning.

We started our journey with Anglian Rail as far as Norwich where we changed to East Midlands Rail diesel car, I was surprised it was rattling along at nearly 90mph at times.

This took us to Peterborough for our second change, this time it was Northern Rail and off to Leeds, for some reason this train managed to get behind a slower service so we were 15 minutes late getting to Leeds, just enough to miss our connection to Harrogate, but not a problem as the trains run every half hour, it was just a matter of finding out which platform would be used. Needless to say it was outside and it had started raining.
It was only a short walk for the station in Harrogate to our Hotel, The Crowne Plaza,

we were on the 5th. floor with a good view out over the rooftops(sorry about the reflections)

but the hotel itself is 11 floors high. You can see a long way from the fop floor, we did go for a look. When we arrived we met our tour leader in the hotel foyer just by chance as we weren’t due to meet until 6pm. for the official introduction and then dinner.

Tuesday 31 May 2022

Tuesday morning and at 9am. we were boarding a coach for our first outing, the weather was not good, overcast and drizzle. We didn’t have far to go,just outside Harrogate is the RHS gardens of Harlow Carr and as we arrived the rain stopped. The gardens are very impressive and I think we went in 30 minutes before they opened the gates to the general public which was good. I took several pictures so they are a bit smaller but will enlarge if you click on them.

Today lunch was taken on the run as we re-joined the coach at 1130am. to travel to York so we bought 2 meal boxes from Betty's café and Tea Rooms, a famous Yorkshire company with several outlets. If you haven’t booked you normally have to join a queue outside the door. It turned out that one box between the two of us would have been sufficient,
We arrived early in York so we had a bit of time to look at some of the old town walls before meeting our walking guide. We also spotted a couple of geese happily munching grass by the bus stop.

By now the weather was much nicer and following our guide we crossed the River Ouse and made our way to the park which is where you can see the town walls built on the remains of the old Roman walls with a good example of a Multangular tower,  nearby was the site of a medieval St Leonard’s Hospital from just after the Normal Conquest. 

A little further into the park are the remains of St Mary’s medieval Abbey which predates the present Abbey and even that is built on top of Roman foundations 

Our tour continued into the town where we visited Ask Italian, not to eat but because its in The Grand Assembly Rooms. No one batted an eyelid as a group of 20 people came in to look at the place.

The is rather a nice 3D bronze model of the town. Our tour finished in The Shambles where there was a very long queue of people all wanting to visit one shop to The York Ghost Merchant to buy a ghost. There must have been 50 people in the queue when we passed all the way to the top of the shambles and along the next road.
We followed the tour with a trip to York Cathedral where we visited the Under Croft, if you do visit the Cathedral its well worth making sure you go down here as its been turned into a museum with a section of glass floor, below the floor you can see where the Cathedral was built on top of Roman foundations. This was discovered when they had to underpin the cathedral foundations to stabilise the structure.

Of course the Cathedral is just as impressive above ground with its high roof

It’s also home to some interesting clocks including this Astronomical one which was reading the right date,day and time, I can only assume the other readings were correct.

This completed our trip to York and we headed back to Harrogate by train and walked from the station to our hotel for Dinner.

Wednesday 1 June 2022

Today a slightly earlier start and we are off to Whitby by coach firstly to visit the ruins of Whitby Abbey, other than saying they are ruins there isn’t much to say about

even the museum was rather underwhelming but we did have a nice lunch at the YMCA café and there is a good view over Whitby.

The Church was far more interesting with its boxed pews, some of which were owned and some rented. There is even one for the wayward ladies of the town.

Originally this was the only church in Whitby and as the town rapidly expanded  the church was somewhat crowded, so they installed not one but two balconies around the walls and could then accommodate over 200 worshipers.

From the North West corner of the church yard there is a set of steps running all the way down into the town, beside the steps is a cobbled steep path running down, its so steep that in recent years they have installed steps for the steepest section at the bottom, this was for use by both people and donkeys. At several points on the way down paths run off to the left to service houses built on the hill side.

The steps from the churchyard are on the left as you look at this photograph and the Donkey Road on the right with the few modern steps up against the side of the steps to the church. There are supposedly 199 steps up to the church.

In the old town we visited the Lifeboat Station where we were shown round by one of the volunteers, this was very informative actually talking to the people who man the boats to rescue people. With the number of people in the old town, it must be an absolute nightmare for the crew to actually get to the Lifeboat station in the summer months. The new town is South of the river and reminds me very much of any tourist seaside town with all the amusement arcades.

From Whitby  we went by coach to Grosmont where we boarded a two car diesel to Pickering on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. There was a slight disappointment it was not a steam train but the positive point was that you could look ahead right through the drivers cab and get a drivers eye view of the line.

When we reached the end of the line at Pickering our coach with Tony the driver we had had all week was waiting for us to take us back to our hotel for dinner       

Thursday 2 June 2022

Today we had to pack our cases as tonight we would be at a different hotel and these were loaded onto the coach, next time we would see them would be in our bedroom. We in turn were heading for Settle railway station to join the Settle to Carlisle line.

To meet us on the station was a volunteer guide from the Friends of Settle & Carlisle who told us a bit about the history of the line, the attempts to close it and the fight to save it. Also why Micky Mouse is in a place of honour high above the ticket hall.

The landscape between Settle and Carlisle is quite dramatic and is the highest point on the English rail system with a long steady climb to the summit, Our S&C 

guide joined us on the train for part of the journey to Carlisle with his portable PA system, I don’t know if the other travellers enjoyed his commentary as much as we did.

We had a few hours of free time to spend in Carlisle  before our onward rail journey so after eating lunch in the Cathedral we headed to the Tullie House museum followed by a gentle stroll around the Abbey and grounds before returning to the station to catch a train to Hexham. This line is known as The Hadrian’s Wall line but you only catch a mere glimpse of any old workings if you are very lucky.
At Hexham a second coach was waiting to take us up to The White Swan at Alnwick, our second hotel of the holiday and a complete contrast to the first, old and

only three stories high. Our room was on the second floor at the back so very quiet, we were also pleased to see our bags waiting for us.

Please go to Part two to see the rest of our trip by clicking HERE       

Below is a map showing our travels, clicking it takes you to Google Maps where it can be seen in more detail.

Yorkshire and Northumberland with GRJ 2022 Part Two

Friday 3 June 2022

Today was spent in Alnwick, after breakfast we walked to Alnwick Castle, it was only just behind our hotel.

We didn’t bother with the broom stick flying lessons as we didn’t see anyone else actually manage to take off, but we did look round the state rooms which were all very impressive, especially as the owners, the Percy family live there for half the year.  As well as the state rooms there are museums housed in some of the towers.
After lunch we had a guided tour of Alnwick Gardens which is also owned by the Percy’s but is  overseen by Mrs Percy, Duchess of Northumberland. The centre piece of the garden is the water cascade with its multiple fountains and jets.

There is also of course the very famous poison garden which houses some of the worlds most poisonous plants, not a place to rub leaves and sniff. We followed this with a short wander round town before heading off for dinner.
I must mention the Dining Room in the White Swan. It is completely wood panelled with all the wood coming from the cruise liner, The Olympic as did the front revolving door and the main stair banister.

Saturday 4 June 2022

An early start with the coach leaving  for Bamburgh Castle at 8-15am so that we could arrive at Bamburgh before the castle opened to the public. This meant that we would have a guided tour while the castle was empty.

Bamburgh Castle is owned by the Armstrong Family well known for engineering including the Armstrong Siddeley car, Large field guns, hydraulic power systems including Tower Bridge. After our visit we carried on along the coast to Seahouses for lunch. 
After lunch we went North again to visit Lindisfarne or Holy Island, To get to the island you have to cross a causeway that gets covered by the sea for 4 hours  twice a day, they do have a notice by the carpark  so you know when you need to leave as the time is different every day. I understand that there are a number of cars every year who don’t quite make it.

One of the things on the island is Mead tasting, a product that use to be made by the monks on the island before the Abbey was ruined. As this was included in the trip we all had a sip of mead, which doesn’t come from bees kept on the island. I am not sure why it was served by a Viking? but it wasn’t to my taste.

The Abbey although all in ruins was much better than Whitby, you could get a feel for what the place was like. There is also a church right beside the Abbey that is still in use.

On the headland is a lookout post which has been restored, this gives a very good view over the ruins and the church. I must say I found the island a very enjoyable place to be. Below is the view looking back across the sands to the mainland. This was probably low water with the tide out.

We returned to the coach in good time to clear the causeway before the tide came back in and it all disappeared under the waves. It was just as well we met in good time as our tour guide had to go and find 2 of our party who had not come back on time. Out of the four coaches there, we were the last away.
Back in Alnwick we had a bit of time before dinner so we visited The famous book shop, Book Barter I have seen this on TV and it is housed in the old disused Alnwick Railway station and even has 3 model trains running round above the book shelves. The place is huge

We had a final walk around the town, we were staying at the White Swan but just along the road was the Black Swan, a smaller establishment but with an interesting history.

This was our last night, Sunday morning and the coach was there to take us to Alnmouth Station, to catch the train back to York where our holiday ended. As we had open return rail tickets from Harrogate to Lowestoft we stayed on the train all the way to Peterborough, to say it was packed was an understatement. We had seats booked from Alnmouth to York but no further, however there were two seats in the carriage reserved from Edinburgh to London which were empty, so we moved into them before the train reached the next station. At Peterborough we caught the train to Norwich and then the train from Norwich to Lowestoft getting home at about 5pm.     

Below is a map showing our travels, clicking it takes you to Google Maps where it can be seen in more detail.