Cusworth Hall

Main Entrance

This is a typical country home.  It was built in 1740 as a showplace.  It has extensive grounds and overlooks Doncaster to its south. 

View of Doncaster

 

Entrance drive and gate house

Snow drops in gardens

The last son that inherited it squandered all the money on gambling. When he died and his sister inherited the house, she had to sell all the furnishings to pay the inheritance taxes.  The house was then either sold or given to the county and is now run as a museum of what life was like over the last 200 years in the Doncaster area.

Kitchen- Used as is until 1951

 

Conisbrough Castle

Castle entrance- moat filled in under drawbridge

This is a local castle that John drives by on the way to work every day.  We thought we should really go see it.  It sits upon the highest point in the town of Conisbrough and the site of an earlier wooden fort. The current castle was built in 1100’s and abandoned before the English civil war in 1645 so was not attacked.  As a result the keep is in remarkable condition. 

Keep - notice entrance stairs on right. Original ones had a small draw bridge.

 

 It is nearly 100 feet high cylindrical with wedge shaped buttresses.  The main entrance to the keep is up on the first floor.  The ground floor had no entrances from the outside and could only be accessed from ladders on the first floor.

 

Lower or ground floor of keep.

                      The round staircase to the main hall is surprisingly wide for a castle. 

Stairs to main hall

 

Main Hall fireplace

Only the Lord and his family must have stayed in the keep as there are not a lot of bedchambers. 

Master's bedchamber

 

 Their servants however would often sleep on the floor in the main hall or the floor of the master’s bedchamber.  Castle living in the 1100’s was very communial.

North Wall of Castle yard-Keep to the right

The Keep was the place of last retreat in the event of an attach.  This castle was the first to have rounded turrets for protection.  The rounded design allowed defenders to have a wider view.

Unusual round tower in castle wall
 

                   The view of the sourranding area is impressive from the roof of the keep.

View looking NE from top of Keep- river in the valley

 

Musings on England at the end of a year

The usual greeting is Hi or Hello are you well? It takes me by surprise, but is really not too different then our Hi, how are you?

Winter is a nice time to take scenic drives through the English countryside because most of the hedge rows have lost their leaves and you can actually see the view through them.

One disadvantage no matter when you take a trip all of the bridges and over passes have high stone sides so you can’t see the stream, railroad tracks, cannel, or pathway you are crossing. Of course most of these bridges are hundreds of years old and are made of stone, thus the sides.

The English are always early even delivery people. If they say they will be there at 3, start looking for them between 2 to 2:30.

Everyone is very polite. Where Americans would get impatient and crabby the English are calm and well mannered.

Village life is very friendly.  Everyone greats you as you walk through the village.  I’ve had teenagers on the other side of the street say good morning to me. Amazing.

Shop keepers end transactions with “Cheers love“ even ASDA which is England’s branch of Walmart.

The attitude in the country is “it could be worse.”

If a lot of people are waiting, a queue will automatically form.  No one has to direct this event, and everyone will patiently get in line and take their turn with no complaining.

Weather reports are interesting. Remember it’s like being at the Oregon coast here. A typical report is something like: Today will be cold with warm spell, sunny with some rain.  Yesterday our report was partly cloudy for the morning and partly sunny for the afternoon.  The morning was a brilliant blue sky and the afternoon had threatening clouds rolling through.

The Post offices in villages are privately owned, like Oregon liquor stores, and sell cards, stationery, wrapping paper, and you can have a savings account there.

Common phrases heard “get it sorted”, “sort it out”, “I sorted it.”

Sugar in the Us is granulated or powdered.  Here it could be granulated, caster sugar, icing sugar, pickeling sugar, canning sugar, or preserves sugar.  I may buy some of each just to see the difference.

Roche Abbey

Built for the White Monks, as Cistercians were known, the abbey was founded in 1147 and is located at the north end of the area once covered by Sherwood Forest. It is said Robin Hood went to mass here. The transepts still stand to their full height and are quite impressive. 

Gate house
 

 Limestone from the cliffs that line the valley supplied the material for building. 

Limestone from these cliffs used in the builtings.

Kitchens and the abbot’s quarters were built on the other side of the beck (stream).  The footbridge that accessed them still stands. 

Maltby Beck

The monks had latrines which were over Maltby Beck so the running water took the waste away.  Accounts tell of 14 monks and an unknown number of novices at the time of dissolution in 1538.

 

Hodsock Priory

View of Priory Snowdrops in lawn

 Built in the 1100’s the house is not open to the public, but the woodland and gardens are open in Feb and March for the blooming the snowdrops the first flowers of spring. The formal gardens are also open and a nice stroll.



Woodlands with snowdrops at Hodsock
 



Close up of snowdrops
 

Old Gainsboro Hall

Our area of England was a hotbed for religious puritans in the 1400 to 1600's.  One wealth family with such sympathies owned the manor of the in the near by town of Gainsboro.


View of North side- Tower left end and kitchen right end

West wing of house that was rented- lower section ale house upper living accomendations

The old hall was built in the early 1400's and added on to over the years.  The center section of beams and plaster is the original building. The round section of stone was added next and the brick kitchen and tower were added last in the late 1500's.  It is a marvarlous example of midevil architecture.


Holes near base of wall are to hold bee hives

Type of beehive that would be found in the wall holes.

kitchen - roasting fireplace

                         The family regularly held banned religious services in their great hall.

Great hall- Small square hole in end wall is spy hole from room on floor above

They knew the pilgram fathers and helped the pilgrams, who came to America, to leave England and avoid inprisonment. 

Australia at Christmas

We spent the holidays with Ryan, Amanda, Ella and Connor.  It was weird having a sunny 88 degree Christmas day. Nice change from cold rainy England though.  Australia is an interesting country.  They can produce just about anything they need such as energy and on wet year cycles grow all the food they need, but the prices of everything are very high.  Lunch meat was $8 to $9 a package, a trip to the grocery store for basics (3 full bags, no meat or alcohol) can easily run over $100.  Small paperback books are $17 and up.  At airports people without a ticket are allowed to go through security to meet passengers at the gates.  A nice reminder of old times. On domestic flights we were often not asked for ID. There are beautiful water ways and beaches everywhere, but unsafe because of crocodiles or jelly fish.

The north, Townsville near Cairns and Darwin north central coast, is where we spent our time.  Not the best time of year to go, but Christmas is when it is.  It was pre-monsoon season, but still ran 90 to 95 degrees and 60-80% and up humidity with thunder storms most afternoon.  We spent 4 days in Kakadu National Park east of Darwin. It is a world heritage site.  The natives of Australia are recognized as having one of the oldest living societies in the world. It is now believed to be 60,000 yrs. old.  The park is the traditional homeland of the Aborigines and was given back to them with the stipulation that nonnative people would be allowed to visit some areas.  It is a place to sit back soak up the views and relax.

Ryan at Ubirr rock art site

The park covers an area about 115 km wide and 200 km long.  There are two major paved roads through it with dirt roads going into the interior.  Being the start of the rainy season, most of the dirt roads were closed because they are 4 wheel drive on a good day, and they flood when it rains hard. 

flood marker at river crossing

 As a result, we were not able to get to some of the waterfalls or outlying billabongs.

We did get to the two major rock art areas that are open to the public.

Many such areas are sacred and considered dangerous to outsiders so only older natives are allowed there. The natives believe the act of painting is more important than the art itself so will cover older painting with new ones.  This was evident at one site. Three layers of paintings could be seen. Lots of game was depicted – fish, kangaroos, crocodiles. 

 Lightening man was my favorite. He has a rainbow above his head, a lightening bolt and axes on his knees that he bangs together for the thunder.

Lightening man

The park has an abundance of wildlife. One third of all the birds species in Australia are found here. Fresh and salt water crocodiles, snakes, and termites are also plentiful as are the 1000 species of flies that live in the area and attack you incessantly. 

termite mound

 All the water ways in the park have warnings for crocodiles too bad because the water looked very inviting in the heat. 

Boat dock at Hometown Billabong

We stayed in the largest town within the park, Jabiru. It has a lake (billabong) in the middle of the town, but also has crocs. It had 3 restaurants.  One we never found and one was closed 3 of the 4 days we were there. There was one traditional hotel that was built to look like a crocodile from above. We were housed in the tail. 

Hotel in Jabiru

 About three other places to stay in the park had individual units like small trailers scattered around their grounds. The trees around the hotel pool had an infestation of fruit bats.

Fruit bats in hotel trees

They are about the size of crows and were very impressive. During the day they hung in the trees and slept but fanned themselves with their wings to cool off.

Jabiru is the largest town because a uranium mine is located about two km from it. We assumed most of the residents that weren’t involved with tourists worked there.  The uranium was so close to the surface and or so rich that the aborigionies called the area a place of sickness. They avoided it.

Wild horse (more in back ground) on way to river cruise 

We took a cruise up the yellow river to see the animals safely but up close.  We saw crocodiles, tree snakes, jabiru (storks), eagles, wild horses, and other birds. It was a fast 2 ½ hours.

Croc cooling her brain

Yellow tree snake

Jesus bird because it walks on the water

A croc will take on the color of the water

Jabiru - a kind of stork

 

Asking the river guide what else we should see before we left, he directed us to a waterfall that was still accessible and because it is dry except for the rainy season is crocodile free! I think the large boulders on the approach to the falls and upper creek would deter the crocks even if it was wet all year. A modern rope bridge over the lower creek was interesting to cross

and the falls were beautiful with the clearest water we say anywhere. It is weird to see a clear mountain stream and put your hand in it and find it warm! 

 It was up a dirt road that was wide, but floods in rain, and had evidence that it becomes very muddy and slippery when wet.  We went early in the day well before the afternoon thunderstorms. We stopped at a campground along the road in. It was remote, near a beautiful river with crocodiles, and you’d have to like solitude to stay there. Also have a good bug spray or nets.  There was one couple with a camp site set up.

The cultural center spoke of the native stories of creation, how the people are assigned clans, how it’s determined who they can marry, how they maintain the land, and had examples of their tools. It did not go into any other part of their culture that is secret and you only find out about it when you are initiated into the tribe as a teenager. Some things only women know and some things are known only by the men.