A WANDERER’ NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 47, 19 November 1926, Page 5

A WANDERER’ NOTE BOOK

OUT AND ABOUT IN YORKSHIRE

(BY

CHARLES WILSON)

[Specially Written for The Dominion.]

"Biggest, Bonniest, and Best.” “Biggest, bonniest, and best” is how the Tykes proudly describe their county, and as a loyal Yorkshireman by birth, and a travelling New Zealander who has of late seen not a little of England, I must cordially confirm the trifold adjectival and alliterative designation. How big is Yorkshire, that county of broad acres and impressive vistas you can see for yourselves on the map. It has its industrial area, which in parts, I must' admit, can be desperately ugly. But it is, on the whole, one of the “bonniest”—which is real good Yorkshire for prettiest—of all England’s fair shires. No one who has seen Fountains and Bolton Abbey, to go no further than these two famous ruins in their lovely woods, can deny the special charm of North Country scenery. At the Yorkshire Society’s foregatherings—now, alas, discontinued —at Wellington, I have heard many an encomium of Yorkshire's picturesque spots, some at the time seemingly just a trifle over enthusiastic. But after a fortnight in my native country, the second visit in fifty years and more, after sojourning in airy, breezy Harrogate--700 feet above sea level—after pottering about quaint old Knaresboro, and historically famous York, after motoring over the moors to Whitby and Scarborough, after visits to Fountains and Bolton Abbeys, to the curious exposition of glacial energy at Brimham Rocks, after sauntering along in such delightful old rural towns as Ripon and Pately Bridge—well, I find myself more than ever in love with the rightlynamed “Biggest, Bonniest, and Best” of counties. Rotorua With the Fires Out.

When I left Harrogate for New Zealand—heigho, in far away 1879!—the famous Yorkshire Spa was but a tiny town of under 10,000 people. To-day it has, I believe., close upon 40,000 residents. Englishmen, I am glad to see, have now no reason to travel to Homburg and Wiesbaden, to Aix-les-Bains, and other Continental spas for hygienic purposes. For here at Harrogate, in the splendid suite of Royal baths for the conception and carrying out of which a home-staying brother of my own was, I am proud to remember, mainly responsible, they can be treated for almost every conceivable ailment where mineral waters are of value. Personally I have no desire to drink thp celebrated sulphur water for which the place is famous. It is, I believe, de rigeur for the visitor to walk down to the Old Sulphur Well, discovered in the eighteenth century, in what was then the Forest of Knaresboro, and carry out a system of personal spring cleaning by imbibing the contents of a twelve Ounce glass of slightly warmed sulphur water. Personally I do not enthuse over an odour of ancient hen fruit and despite entreaties not to go back on vour old place, I say ‘no bid’ to the famous spring. I " call Harrogate “Rotorua with the fires out," but I am told that the diversity and perpetual wealth of its famous mineral waters is due to glacial action which has made water from a higher elevation percolate through strata which permeates the liquid with its special mineral elements. Anyhow, the mineral waters are here, sulphur, magnesia, iron and goodness only know how many others in such variety and never failing quantity as no other European spa can boast of. Healthy Harrogate.

After leaving stuffy London and passing through such busy but, honestly, rather ugly industrial areas as those around Sheffield and Leeds —alas, as I pass through these towns, scores upon scores of mill chimneys are smokeless, owing to the sinister activities of that self-confessed “disciple of Lenin,” the great Mr. Cook of Coal Strike notoriety—it is a veritable joy to emerge from the long Arthington tunnel, one of the longest m England, and look out on the beautiful valley of the Wharfe. At Harrogate we are well up on a plateau and the air ts so wonderfully fresh and clean and pure that I do not wonder at so many thousands of those who live as a rule in the smoky areas coming here for their annual “cure” or ordinary holiday. There is a big resident population of West Riding industrialists who travel daily backwards and forwards to their mills and offices at Leeds, Bradford, and places further afield, but the main wealth of the place comes from the hundred and odd thousand folk who, I suppose, might be classed as “patients,” but who, judging by their well-nourished appearance, do not seem to be greatly in need of aught save a lower dietary scale. 'Three at least of the hotels are huge edifices standing in their own extensive grounds, with tennis courts, winter gardens, and jazz rooms of their own, and life can be very gay here for those who have the necessary “beans” for “owt like thaat” as a stout Bradford —“Bradfortli” in West Riding dialect—informs me as we meet on a seat in the picturesque Valiev Gardens. You can be jolly or restful in Harrogate, according to your desires. At a huge, and most luxuriously-appointed Royal Hall —in pre-war days the Kursaal—there is a nightly entertainment which is assuredly the acme of cheapness. The night I am there I listen to a superb orchestra, which gives me, amongst other musical delights, a fine Wagner selection (‘Tannhauser”), and a Tschaikovsky Symphony, a selection from “The Gondoliers,” and so forth, the evening being filled in with songs by a fine soprano, and terpsichorean agilities by some of the inevitable Russian ballet performers from London. And all this for one shilling and fourpence lor a most comfortable, velvet-lined stall seat! In Nidderdale.

We are here close to some of the most picturesque of Yorkshire’s dales, and it is a special joy to a long-expatri-ated Englishman to renew acquaintance with some of the many beauties of Nidderdale. IMy first visit is to one of the quaintest of all Yorkshire towns, Knr resborough, where the pretty river flows deep between thick woods on one side, and the queerest of old towns, built up on limestone rocks, on the other. Here I explore the keep of a fourteenth century castle which Noll Cromwell is said to have bombarded from across the river with stone missies from his cannon and visit the famous Dripping Well, where the descending drip, drip, drip of centuries has been responsible for some very remarkable petrifications. Close bv is the birthplace of the celebrated Yorkshire prophetess, Mother Shipton, who, as far back as the fifteenth century, is credited with having predicted . the coming of railways, of flying machines, and many other modern wonders. Not far away, on the northern bank, is the cave in which the schoolmaster, Eugene Aram, whose story is told in Lord Lytton’s novel of that name, buried the bodv of his murdered victim. Daniel Clark. From the Castle Hill one

■ gets one of the most picturesque views in all England. At Ripon. The ancient town of Ripon, on the day of my visit, is mildly overrun by tourists, many from very distant towns, who travel in the comfortable motor coaches or “charries”—char-a-bancs—-with which present-day England seems to teem. Ripon is another resort of my youth which I now revisit in the lordly Rolls Royce of a schooldays friend, now a great West Riding commercial magnate, and, like most of his kind, the very sou! of geniality. Ripon only became a bishopric early in Queen Vicky’s time, and although it is not in the same street with the great Minister at York, the cathedral possesses an exceptionally wide nave, and a stone choir screen which is a special local pride. For my own part, I take more interest in Ripon’s quaintly named narrow streets. In one, Stammergate, I am shown an interesting old chapel, the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, founded for lepers as far back as 1140. There must have been a large number of lepers in twelfth century England, for at three separate places, in districts very widely apart, I see holes in church walls through which the unfortunate lepers—the disease was brought to Britain by the Crusaders—received the Communion. lam too early in the day to witness the curious sight to be seen tach evening, at nine o’clock, when the ancient custom of the Wakeman’s or Mayor’s official curfew blower steps forth to the Market Cross and soletnnly sounds Ins horn, but, so I am informed, the American tourists, as a Ripon man tells me, generally make a point of so doing. Brass door knockers, with an effigy of the Ripon Hotn-blower, are exposed on every side in the “antiques” and postcard shops. Fountains Abbey.

From quaint old Ripon, on a glorious summer’s afternoon, my kindly friends from smoky Leeds take me to the historic Fountains Abbey, one of the finest and most wonderfully preserved of Yorkshire's monasteries. To reach it we pass through the noble park of the Marquis of Ripon at Studley Royal. The Abbey grounds, rich in tall, dignified trees, and with much cleverlyplanned ornamental water, are a positive feast of scenic beauty, where Nature’s own glories have been accentu ated by Dutch and Italian formal gardens. At one point, high up above the little river Skell, into which the famous but popular outlaw Robin Hood is said to have been thrown by a doughty monk of the Abbey, tlie Curtal Friar. Wooden doors are suddenly thrown open and a perfectly superb view of the Abbey is seen. “The Surprise” is one of the many special glories of the place. I must not, however, be tempted on into any detailed description of what is admittedly one of England’s most famous beauty spots. And so I ruthlessly scrap-heap a whole budget of notes on the subject.

Royalty and Yorkshire. As a good Yorkshireman, and, I trust, a good loyalist, I am naturally proud to find that Royalty itself is openly glad to get away from stuffy London and rejoice in the clean, sweet air of the Yorkshire dales and moors. Motoring through one Sunday— the better the day the better the deed—to York, and then on to far away Whitby, I am shown Goldsborough Hall, where, as I pass, Lord Lascelles and Princess Mary are in residence. Thev are often in Harrogate, and, so I am'pleased to notice, are not the victims of any snobbish mobbing -by the visitors, but are allowed to roam about undisturbed. Princess Mary’s special weakness is, it appears, to roam round the numerous . “antique" shops, at which she ’s, I am told, a frequent and cleverly discriminating buyer of old furniture and various objects of “bigotry and virtue,” here displayed tn such tempting profusion. At Bolton Abbey, to which I motored one day from busy Keighley, where, by the wav, I see a big crowd of quite young mill-hands—some of them, I notice, not too poor to own motor-cycles. Thev receive the weekly “dole.” Most of the men crossing the street to await the opening of a pub. I hear the King ■himself is expected at Bolton Hall for his annual grouse-shooting on the neighbouring moors, and hear everyone talking about the monarch’s lack of "side,” his unfailing courtesv to men and women of all social ranks. There can be no question of King George’s personal popularity with his subjects. To even-the most pronounced Communists, in this part of England at least, King George is “a real good laad, and don’t thee mistaake it!” In Bolton Woods.

At Bolton Abbe}- —guide-book details again forcedly expunged—l revel in tlie sylvan beauties to be seen in the famous woods on Wharfside, and I visit the Strid where the nobly born “Boy of Egremont” was drowned, missing his leap over the rockbound torrent through his dog hanging back on the leash. Every year that passes some daring wight will persist in making the leap, the special danger of which is that it is a leap upwards, and that the rocks are often verv slippery, and more than one accident has occurred. The place, however, is generally watched in the tourist season, and long poles are provided close by to thfow’ to the unwary who may attempt the leap and fall in the river. Anything more beautiful than the view of Barden Tower, high up on the wooded slopes over the Wharfe could not, I fancy, be surpassed in all England. New Zealanders visiting the Old Country should on no account leave Yorkshite’s two great abbeys out of their itinerary. Old York.

To all who visit the biggest, bonniest and best of England’s counties, a special visit to York is, of course, imperative. There are more than 80,000 inhabitants in present-day York, which has its industrial side—a specialty is confectionery—and where there is a fairly considerable military establishment. But. it is old York, York of the great Minster, the Cathedral Church of St. Teter, York of the ancient Guild Hall on the Ouse, with its famous Water Gate, and its splendid fifteenth century hall, York of the numerous City Gates or Bars. York of pictureseque narrow streets, such as the Shambles, a street of butchers’ shops, where the overhanging top stories of the old bouses nearly meet, York of the ruined St. Mary’s Abbey, York of the ancient Roman Wall, the citv where “Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner,” was born in 1032, York in one of whose streets, Castlegate, lived “the Jew Isaac of York,” and his lovely daughter Rebecca, of whom you shall read in Scott's “Ivanhoe”—this is the York T shall ever love to recall. As to York’s chief

' pride, the Minster, in but a necessarily hurried visit to which I spend two happy hours, I dare not trust myself to embark upon a brief account, of its glories and beauties. Its special attraction is its possession of the most exquisitely lovely stained glass, in particular its most superb of painted windows, the Five Sisters. On this and other beauties' and wonders of England’s largest cathedral one coutd dwell at length, but to me a special charm of the Minster is the fact that it is not overcrowded by sculptured effigies of past great men. Westminster Abbey strikes one as far more of a national Pantheon than a sacred edifice. It is a glorious national possession, but at the risk of being charged with undue county pride, my vote must go to York Cathedral. Across the Moors. From Harrogate one day I am treated to what is for me a memorable motoring trip to Whitby and Scarborough. From the Sulphur Water Spa 1 journey through quaint old Knaresboro and historic York, through beautiful rural country to quiet old Malton, on the limpid Derwent, and then through Pickering and over scores of miles of heather-clad moorland to Whitby, huddled in at the mouth of the Esk, and, later on, to the far more populous Scarborough,. “the Queen of English Watering Places.” At Whitby, surely the most delectable of spots for the artist, I see a fine statue of our old friend Captain Cook, and remember, too, that the quaint old fishing port is the Monkshaven, of Mrs. Gaskill’s novel, "Sylvia’s Lovers.” Here wc lunch, and in the afternoon journey again, mainly across wild moorland, to busy Scarborough, thronged by holidaymakers, teeming with kinemas, tea rooms, and giant hotels, but still beautiful to the eye, with its Castle, its busy little old Harbour, and the splendid Spa gardens, round which promenades Yorkshire youth and beauty. A long but delightful trip of close upon 160 miles. And now I am about to twiddle the kaleidoscope once again, for we are off to Rome, to Florence, and who knows how many other interesting Italian cities.