HOWARD CASTLE & RIEVAULX ABBEY

What struck me during our visit at Howard Castle, was its juxtaposition with the last season of Downton Abbey which would be starting soon in England.  I don't know about you but I have loved every minute of that show, and I'm very worried as to what I will do when it ends in a few short weeks.  I began watching Masterpiece Theatre in 1971 which is...forty-five years ago, and I think Downton Abbey has been my all time favorite.  I completely typed out "forty-five" as it seems not quite as shocking as "45".  

As we know, the 20th Century was not kind to the landed gentry in Great Britain, and it quickly became obvious that the huge castles and manors would no longer be able to support themselves...as has happened with Castle Howard.  Whereas, family still lives here, they occupy only a small apartment on an upper floor and must live with hundreds of visitors each day wandering through what was once their home.  The Castle has been lent out for filming, thousands of acres have been sold, and much of the damage from a massive fire in 1940 remains untended.  She is a grand lady, and still beautiful in that elegant way the very rich can manage but, sadly, her days are coming to an end.

Welcome to this grand Castle.  Research told me that this is the south facade of this lovely home although I would have sworn it was west.  If you walk up the not-so-elegant stairs--not so elegant because this is the back door--and turned around to face south, you would see acres and acres of manicured lawn and trees, with imaginative sculptures placed here and there.  Pure gorgeousness. From this view Castle Howard doesn't look terribly large, but at each end, monstrous wings reach toward the north.  I think I read the house has 145 or so rooms.  If the few we saw were any indication, decorated to within an inch of their life, an invitation to Castle Howard would have been an awe-inspiring event back in the day.

A small corner of the back yard...

Contained within the vast landscape are walled gardens.  This particular garden--The Rose Garden--displayed this memorial just inside its gate.  GH would be George Howard, father of the current owner, Simon. Cecilia was apparently his beloved wife.  I love sentimentality.  I strive to be the type of woman whose husband would dedicate something in her honor...with sweet words about me prominently displayed.  Yes, I definitely would like that.  And, I'm happy for Cecilia.

Castle Howard is about 15 miles north of York--our stopping place last night.  It's been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years.  We learned that this home is not a real castle, but qualifies to be called that because an actual military castle once stood here.  My pictures do not do it justice at all, but if you watched Brideshead Revisited (which I didn't--what was I thinking?) this was where it was filmed.

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Now we're driving toward Rievaulx Abbey...or the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey.  It's raining in earnest as we approach these beautiful remains, and the photos I had intended to take would have been exceptional indeed.  I once learned it was possible to take very nice pictures when your camera was securely tucked inside a protective plastic bag, and I took that to heart.  Not close enough, however, as I had no plastic bag on this journey.  It was a bit like some of England's history..."For lack of a horse the battle was lost..." or something similar.

'Tis a moody setting, to be sure.  The Cistercian monks of the 12th and 13th centuries lived well here, working hard and creating a great deal of wealth.  They diverted the River Rye in order to have more flat for farms, mined lead and iron, and raised sheep--selling the wool throughout Europe. However, by 1381, their fortunes had turned.  Black Death swept through England and their revenues dropped significantly when an epidemic of sheep scab wiped out their flocks.  Finally, in 1538, Henry VIII dissolved the abbey--heaping insult upon injury when the buildings were made uninhabitable and stripped of everything of value.

We spent some time in the small museum near the abbey that told its story in detail, then moved on to lunch in the Rievaulx Town Hall where we were able to visit one on one with a few of the folks who live near here.  They were farmers--meaning My Sweet Babboo had a wonderful time asking all sorts of questions.

Rievaulx Abbey strikes me (as did the moors) as a perfect place to wander on your own.  There are hundreds of stories to be uncovered here, and sometimes that's best done in solitude.