Today started with a lovely drive through the moors. It is hard to describe but it was beautiful. It changed from tall grass to low heather on rolling hills. I wish I had been better with pictures out the bus window. Think completely unkept nothing bright green more yellow, brown and more of a dark khaki. It doesn’t look dead like our grass but alive and moving.

We heard about royal weddings at York Minster, Whitby Abbey and Dracula (Bram Stokers set the novel at the Abbey). The drive was lovely and informative.

It was a beautiful day. No rain but being on the coast the wind was crazy and it was cold. Whitby Abbey sets up high above town right on the edge of the sea. It was a beautiful setting. I can only imagine how impressive it was when it was standing tall. Now it is a romantic ruin. Not sure when or why we have romanticized ruins but just walking through them always seems lovely. These were no exception.

The sun shining, the wind whipping and rolling waves highlighted our time at Whitby. The Whitby Abbey was built in the 7th century and became a Benedictine monastery and remained that way until the dissolution by Henry III.

There was also a small museum associated with the abbey.

After our windy time on the cliff we headed inland through Scarborough which is a lovely seaside town with some nice resorts. I will keep this in mind for future adventures. Our destination for the afternoon is Burton Agnes Hall, an Elizabethan manor house. It was built by Sir Henry Griffith between 1601-1610. It was full of carved screens, paneling and fireplaces. We had an excellent guide who pointed out all the highlights. Most of the carvings depicted moral consequences. They depicted the good and hard working going up to heaven and those who were frivolous left in hell to dance with the devil. There were also carvings of the four graces in the Queens room and the four continents. The ceilings were extravagantly carved geometric in the kings room and floral in the queens.

There is some sort of a ghost story associated with the hall. In the 16th century there were three Griffith daughters. Walking home from friend’s house one afternoon the youngest was attacked and robbed. The family found her and got her home but she did not live long. She was the homebody of the sisters and planned to live in and keep the house her entire life. Before she died she made her sisters promise to keep her body in the house and threatened them with a haunting if she did not. They agreed but then buried her in the mausoleum at the church. Legend has it that horrible things started happening soon after and the family convinced the church to allow them to dig her up and they brought her head into the house. I guess back in those times they were used to seeing severed heads in various settings and had no problem with it being displayed on the mantel. At some time later after the current family was all gone a servant girl had had enough and place the head on the garbage pile . Soon bad things started happening. They could hear wailing and slamming doors and the young servant admitted to what she did and they were able to retrieve the head and bring it back inside and all the mischief stopped. It was until some updates in the 18th century that the head was removed form sight and placed behind some paneling in the entrance hall where it remains to this day.

The current house was built beside a Norman dwelling that dates back to 1173. We had lunch in the undercroft of that building.

Tonight was our gala dinner at Castle Howard. The castle is lovely and has been used for many tv and movie productions including Brideshed Revisted, Bridgeton, and Death Comes to Pemberly. The castle was designed and started between 1699 and 1702, however, it was not completed until in 1811. It never included all the design elements from the original 1702 plans although it is still quite impressive. A fire in 1940 and destroyed the dome. It was not restored until 1962.

We arrived in the evening and snapped a few photos before the sun went down and we headed inside. The arrangement of the area we toured was quite different. The bedroom lavishly set up are occasionally used by the family or their guests so they have added the weirdest bathrooms “en suite” next door that we also walked through. I am sad my photo of one of the en suites didn’t turn out it had a cabinet commode. Which was really weird until I went to the bathroom during the meal and basically it was a wooden seat on a cabinet. Not what you expect when you are all dressed up.

The drive home was exciting with closed roads and backing a bus down narrow country lanes to turn around and try another route. We eventually made it back to York. We had to pack up to head out in the morning to our next hotel, the Maften Inn a little closer to the edge of England.