Castle Howard

Even though the word castle is in the post title, this building is not actually a castle

Castle Howard, Henderskelfe, North Yorkshire, England

Despite its name, Castle Howard was built as a grand 18th-century English Baroque country home, not a true medieval fortress or castle. But, it was built on the site of the older and ruined Henderskelfe Castle, a medieval fortress that came into the Howard family line in 1577 through marriage.

A castle isn't a castle when it's built for status, comfort, or show, not military defense. Many 18th to 20th-century stately houses were built with crenellations (notched walls), towers, or battlements to look medieval, without any real military capability.

Full scale model of Castle Howard

Castle Howard is located in Henderskelfe, North Yorkshire, 15 miles north of York. It's been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years passed down through generations and has always been a private residence recognized for its dramatic Baroque architecture, richly layered interiors and world-class art collections. 

Baroque is a dramatic and highly ornate style of Western art, architecture, and music that flourished from the early 1600s until the 1750s. Originating in Rome, the style was heavily promoted by the Catholic Church to inspire awe and emotional devotion. European monarchs used its grand scale to showcase their power. 

Charles Howard

Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle had it built as a status symbol. He wanted a magnificent palace-like estate to assert his family's prominence and prestige in the British aristocracy and to showcase the wealth, power and political ambition of the Howard family. Construction began in 1699 and took over 100 years to complete and spanned the lifetimes of three Earls. 

John Vanbrugh

As a member of London's fashionable Kit-Cat Club, a prominent early 18th-century English dining and political club in London, Howard commissioned his friend, and fellow club member, playwright John Vanbrugh, an amateur architect.

Vanbrugh, who had never built anything before, recruited English architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, a leading supporter of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-17th and early 18th centuries to assist in construction. It began in 1699, but took over 100 years to complete and spanned the lifetimes of three Earls. The central block and dome were done by 1706. The central block and dome were finished by 1706. The exterior was largely finished by 1725 before the deaths of the architect and the 3rd Earl.

Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor created a Baroque masterpiece that included England's first-ever masonry dome on a country house (destroyed in a 1940 fire and later reconstructed). Work began in 1699 and spanned over a century until 1811. Later additions, like the Palladian West Wing, were designed by Sir Thomas Robinson.

The dome gave the exterior a unique silhouette. On the interior the dome’s height added to the openness of the Great Hall with columns, carvings, frescoes and connecting spaces. Exterior facades contained coats of arms and statuary. 

The 3rd Earl also commissioned a vast landscape featuring monuments, lakes and formal gardens in the surrounding Yorkshire countryside.

The mansion spans thousands of square feet with 145 rooms. The entire estate spans nearly 9,000 acres and features over 200 listed structures, formal gardens and lakes covering over 1,000 acres in addition to a separate 120-acre tree arboretum. 

Built from east to west, the house took shape in under 10 years. By 1725, when an engraving of the house appeared in The British Architect, most of the exterior structure was complete and its interiors opulently finished.

When Vanbrugh died in 1726 the house was incomplete; it lacked a west wing as attention was focused on landscaping the gardens.

The long gallery at castle Howard

It was unfinished when the 3rd Earl died in 1738. The house was completed by Carlisle’s son-in-law Sir Thomas Robinson in 1801-11 with the addition of the long gallery. 

The final appearance of the house bears only a partial resemblance to the idealized view. Instead of two identical wings the house has two wings that don't match for an asymmetrical appearance.

1940s fire at castle Howard collapsed the dome

In November 1940, a major blaze erupted at Castle Howard during WW II while the house was being used as  girl's school. Fanned by strong winds, the fire destroyed 20 rooms in the basement and upper levels and gutted the dome, which collapsed into the Great Hall as the largest architectural loss. Nearly a third of the building was left open and exposed parts of the building received a temporary roof and new windows.

Through the efforts of George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle and his daughter, Lady Cecilia, the restoration of Castle Howard was completed to restore it as a family home and major heritage attraction. 

The iconic 70-foot-high dome was completely renovated after 20 years. The dome is Castle Howard’s defining architectural element. 

From 1960 to 1962 the dome was rebuilt and redecorated. Once again it remans the most striking features of the house.

In 1981, the Garden Hall was rebuilt in conjunction with the filming of Brideshead Revisited. Restoration work and maintenance is ongoing throughout the estate, ranging from masonry and roofing projects, the gardens, lakes and waterways, to smaller objects like statues, paintings, books and textiles.

Castle Howard is owned by the family company Castle Howard Estate Limited. It's  managed and lived in by the Hon. Nicholas Howard (great-grandson of the 9th Earl of Carlisle) and his wife, Victoria. The total market value of Castle Howard is not publicly documented. 

Nicholas and Victoria Howard

The Howard family fortune, anchored by the estate and its world-class art collection, is estimated to be at least 100 million U.S. dollars. 

Castle Howard may look somewhat familiar as it's been used as a filming location in films and TV shows. The Netflix series, Bridgerton (2020) used the house and grounds as Clyvedon Castle, the country home of the Duke of Hastings. Both the iconic 1981 TV series and 2008 feature film of Brideshead Revisited used Castle Howard as the Marchmain family home, Brideshead. The 2013 BBC mystery, Death Comes to Pemberly, used interior and exterior locations. The 2015 TV series, Victoria, used the house as a stand-in for Kensington Palace.

The house is open for tours from spring to autumn and decorated each winter for Christmas. It attracts over 250,000 visitors a year.

Yorkshire Dales & Ribblehead

The Yorkshire Dales are a series of valleys (dales) in the Pennines, an upland range in England. They are located in north-central England and mostly protected as the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The park was established in 1954 and spans North Yorkshire, Cumbria, and Lancashire over 841 square miles (2,179 square kilometers). 

A view of a Yorkshire Dales valley

They're located in north-central England and mostly protected as part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The park was established in 1954 and spans North Yorkshire, Cumbria, and Lancashire over 841 square miles (2,179 square kilometers). The area is renowned for striking valleys, drystone walls, and rolling green hills. 

As readers of this blog know, we recently returned from a 9-day tour of the Yorkshire Dales in the UK conducted through NH PBS (Public Broadcasting System). The trip was inspired by the PBS Masterpiece series All Creatures Great and Small centering around the rolling green valleys, stone-built villages, and actual filming locations.

Other TV shows and movies also have been filmed in the Yorkshire Dales including: Emmerdale, The Yorkshire Vet, Wuthering Heights, Calendar Girls, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The word dale, like dell, is derived from the Old English word, dæl. It shares this historical origin in the Nordic/Germanic words for valley (dal, tal) and occurs in valley names across Yorkshire and Northern England.

One thing you will notice when touring in the Yorkshire Dales are the miles and miles of dry stone walls. According to  online sources, there's over 5,000 miles (about 8,000 kilometers) of these walls, which are locally referred to simply as walls or field boundaries in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. This iconic, mortar-less structures are the largest man-made feature in the Dales landscape. 

The construction of a dry stone wall is as straightforward as it sounds. This very traditional method of building structures from stone doesn't use mortar or cement to hold stones together. The stability of the walls comes from carefully selecting, shaping and interlocking the stones. The stone walls have traditionally been used for the boundaries of fields and churchyards or as retaining walls for terracing.

A herd of cattle in the Yorkshire Dales

Much of the Yorkshire Dales is rural and used for agriculture. Residents live in small villages and hamlets or in farmsteads. Sheep breeding and cattle rearing remain common. To supplement their incomes, many farmers have diversified, some now provide accommodations for tourists. A number of agricultural shows are held each year. During our tour, we attended the last one of the season in Pately Bridge. 

There are over 600,000 sheep in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, but these numbers have been declining. as farmers face steep increases in fuel, feed, fodder and medication costs. The average age of a British farmer is around 60. 

Tighter financial margins have led many traditional hill farmers to downsize or transition from sheep. Lamb and mutton demand in the UK has dropped over the last few decades. Also, trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand have eliminated tariffs and expanded import quotas, increasing competition for domestic sheep farmers in the UK market.

A flock of sheep in the Yorkshire Dales

Sheep outnumber humans (23,500 to 24,000) by roughly 30 to 1. The county of Cumbria has the most sheep in England, with an estimated 984,325 sheep across more than 3,000 holdings or farms. North Yorkshire has about 845,598 sheep across 3,169 holdings.

Young Swaledale sheep at Pately Bridge agricultural show

The classic local breed is the Swaledale sheep, known for its curved horns (on both ewes and rams) and distinctive black-and-white face marked with white around the eyes, like spectacles. 

Swaledale sheep are known for their ability to thrive in exposed locations with no need for fences. They can endure harsh, cold winters and forage on rough moorland and high-lying fells. These sheep are farmed for lamb, mutton and coarse wool used for carpets, rugs, and insulation. The well-recognized symbol of the Yorkshire Dales National Park features a Swaledale sheep head. 

There's no official number of villages in the Yorkshire Dales and counts vary depending on boundaries and if they include small hamlets and scattered farmsteads. Regional guides feature 67 total cities, towns and villages in the region. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority notes that 24,000 people live across a scattered network of small market towns, individual farms and historic stone-built villages.

There's no definite winner as to which Yorkshire Dales village is the most picturesque. Several locations are widely celebrated as the best spots in the Yorkshire Dales. Among these is the village of Grassington with its honey-colored stone cottages, a bustling cobbled market square, independent shops. It's famous as a primary filming location for All Creatures Great and Small. We visited Grassington on the first day of our tour during the annual 1940s weekend.

Ribblehead Viaduct (not the Harry Potter one)

The Ribblehead Viaduct or the Batty Moss Viaduct is a landmark Victorian railway structure in the Yorkshire Dales National Park famous for its dramatic engineering and monumental scale across a harsh landscape. It's the longest and the third tallest structure on the Settle-Carlisle line standing 104 feet high and supported by 24 massive stone arches. (A viaduct is a long, high bridge-like structure with a series of arches, piers or columns that carries a road or railroad over low ground, valley or gorge.)

Landscape of the viaduct area

Designed by John Sydney Crossley, chief engineer of the Midland Railway, it spans 1,312 feet across the boggy Batty Moss and was built between 1869 and 1874 using mostly manual labor, a workforce of up to 2,3000 railway workers. Over 100 men died during construction from brutal weather, accidents and diseases. By the 1980s, heavy weathering and high maintenance costs led British Rail to propose closing and demolishing the line. A massive public campaign successfully lobbied to save the structure, leading to its monument protection. 

Glenfinnan Viaduct in Scotland

It's often mistaken for the Glenfinnan Viaduct in Scotland famous in Harry Potter films. The Jacobite Steam Train, known as the Harry Potter Hogwarts Express, crosses this viaduct four times daily during peak summer season. A good reason for a future trip to Scotland.

Visiting the Yorkshire Dales is well worth the experience especially if you enjoy dramatic natural landscapes, outdoor walking, historic structures and charming villages. However, due to time constraints, our tour presented limited opportunities for detailed exploration of this beautiful landscape.

Friday Funnies

Seen in Harrogate on our recent trip as if the town knew that our tour group consisted entirely of seniors.

This sign was a new one for me. I haven't seen anything similar locally or on our travels 

How about you?

The two public parking garages in Nashua, NH were recently painted, and they certainly brighten up the areas with these fun colors and designs.

Public parking garage on Factory St, Nashua, NH

Public parking garage on Elm St, Nashua, NH

Do have any similar colorful public garages or facilities in your city or town?

Enjoy Your Weekend, Everyone

We're getting ready for another adventure; this time in the U.S.

All Creatures . . .

There were some that were great and also small animals. And, since our Yorkshire Dales tour was inspired by the James Herriot books, spending several hours at an agricultural show seemed quite appropriate.

There are some 10 to 15 traditional, prominent annual agricultural shows and major rural fairs held directly within the Yorkshire Dales region each year, running primarily from July through September.

A poster advertising the show

So, on Sunday, Sept 20, our tour group traveled by bus to attend the Nidderdale Show, locally known as The Pateley Bridge Agricultural Show which celebrates farming life, livestock and local crafts. This Dales agricultural show is considered one of the foremost and largest one-day agricultural exhibitions in North Yorkshire. It was held in Bewerley Park, Pateley Bridge. While the main agricultural exhibition is a single day event, the associated fun fair and other site activities ran four days starting on Thursday, September 17.

The agricultural show happens annually on the third Sunday in September, and marks the end of the region's agricultural show season. It is one of the county's foremost agricultural shows with crowds of 15,000 to 17,000 visitors. It was very well attended on the unusually sunny and warm day of our visit. In addition to livestock (cows, sheep and goats, pigs, chickens and more) there were horses, dog displays, a cricket match and displays of produce and crafts.  

Nidderdale is a valley in North Yorkshire, England. It's one of the Yorkshire Dales and named after the River Nidd. Although Nidderdale is not within the Yorkshire Dales National Park, it's protected as part of the Nidderdale National Landscape. Pateley Bridge is the capital and sole town located in the dale.

This girl was representative of some of the young exhibitors

Pateley Bridge (locally known as Pateley) is a market town in the civil parish of High and Low Bishopside, in Nidderdale, in the county and district of North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies on the River Nidd. It is in the Yorkshire Dales and just outside the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

This annual show is one of the county's foremost agricultural shows. It regularly attracts crowds of 17,000 and traditionally marks the end of the agricultural show season. Among events at the show were sheep dog trials, a dog show, show jumping, livestock classes, cookery demonstrations, trade stands and an exhibition cricket match. 

Another young exhibitor and her goat

We watched several judging competitions for cattle, sheep, pigs, cows and goats. A large tent was dedicated to displays covering horticulture, farm crops, home produce, baked goods and handicrafts.

This tent was filled with people checking out the exhibits

Here's a few First place winners, yes even for hay

Food concessions were scattered throughout the park along with over 150 trade stands. Since the group was going to dinner that evening, we settled for ice cream cones which were very good. Yes, we sampled ice cream in nearly every locale on this tour, most was locally produced and so delicious. We restrained ourselves to a single scoop.

The locally made ice cream was delicious

In addition to the agricultural fair, Pateley Bridge is most famous another reason — it's home to the Oldest Sweet Shop in England, which has operated continuously since 1827 inside a 17th-century building. There was no stop for samples.

Oldest sweet shop in the UK  is in Pately Bridge

After the agricultural fair, the tour group traveled 30-minutes to Skipton. This market town known as the Gateway to the Yorkshire Dales is located on the southern edge of the national park. 

An iconic post box and telephone stand in Skipton

The main street in Skipton with the traditional British red post box and telephone stand are perpetual global symbols of British culture, standardized in striking red for maximum visibility on the street. Since mobile phone usage has reduced the need for public pay phones, many UK red telephone stands have been repurposed into community mini-libraries, art galleries, and life-saving defibrillator stations.

 The Craven Museum is in the Skipton Town Hall

This North Yorkshire town is famous for housing a rare 1623 Shakespeare First Folio in the Craven Museum inside Skipton Town Hall. Some 750 copies of the First Folio were published in 1623, seven years after the playwright's death. Not only is the one in Skipton one of only about 235 surviving copies worldwide, but one of just four First Folios on permanent public display. Others are in London, Washington, DC and NYC.

The First Folio is the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays. The text was collated by Shakespeare’s friends and fellow actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell. They worked from manuscripts and prompt copies now lost to us, as well as earlier printed editions of some of the plays. Not all of Shakespeare’s plays were published during his life so that 18 of them only survive as part of the First Folio, including Julius Caesar, Macbeth and The Tempest.

 A rare 1623 First Folio on display in Skipton

The First Folio in Skipton lacks its introductory pages and all of the comedies. While a complete copy of the First Folio contains 36 plays, it's not unusual to find that many surviving First Folios have missing pages. This one has been on display at the museum since 2011. Museum staff change the page opening regularly to preserve it from fading.