Richmond, North Yorkshire

A friend that I had lost contact with for over five years due to a house move, was organising a day out in Richmond to include a walk. I received an e-mail regarding this event from a third person. You can imagine his surprise when I held out to the last minute during the telephone conversation, when he asked for my name to go on the list of those who were going to attend. I only agreed to go, as there was a natural break at 5pm when more people could arrive for an evening meal. I already had a dinner invitation that evening and it involved a 55 minute motorway dash north for a quick change, then back south for a 15 minute drive ( travel window was 5:10pm - 6:30pm...... I was 2 minutes late !!! )
Richmond has an unusual horseshoe shaped market place sloping down the hill with an old church in the centre which now houses The Green Howards ( army regiment ) museum.  There are several roads and passages that lead into the main area....

...where the local council try to keep the place tidy as it is one of the principal towns of North Yorkshire. I had about 1 hour to have a look around before meeting up with the others.

Market Hall roof

I didn't want to disturb this musician in full flow, but I was wondering about the origin of his pipes. An unusual thing I think to see in Yorkshire, too small to be termed as Uilleann but a little too large to be called Northumbrian pipes made famous by local musician Katherine Tickell. I seriously can't believe that anyone would get away with playing Northumbrian pipes in Yorkshire......... maybe this is a hybrid as I'm no expert.
   The group meets and sets off on a gentle road ascent until countryside is reached.

The walk leader checks the directions and puts me to shame by sharing some historical facts about someone riding a horse and jumping off a nearby cliff in the 1700s. The sort of detail I omit on my walks, maybe it's because I'm more of a visual person.

The Path gets a little more serious !!

Soon we reach the top of the hill for an early lunch break and viewpoint of the town centre with it's castle. The North Yorkshire moors were visible in the distant east but didn't make good photograph material today due to the distance, hazy weather and their rather flat contours.

After lunch, we headed down to the River Swale for a riverside walk into town which was rather ordinary at first but turned into something quite special as we got nearer. The walk leaders humour, conversation and knowledge was unfortunately not replicated in the area of mobile phone technology, as at this point of the walk another member of the group joined us as she texted to say that she would be late......... maybe not this late. I couldn't turn off the predictive texting in the same fashion that the walk leader couldn't keep the phone on !!! The whole saga did provide much amusement.

This proved to be a very popular spot and even though I had been to Richmond many times before, I didn't even know that this waterfall existed. There was what seemed to be a semi permanent drinks and ice cream van beside this and it seemed a bit odd to sit just to the right of the waterfall drinking tea out of paper cups....... It was not what some of the others had in mind as they expected something a bit more exclusive and refined.

We continued on further with the walk which wasn't really that strenuous but there were plenty of opportunities for good conversation with those I hadn't seen for years.

The ruined Easby Abbey marked a focus point for the second half of the walk where the group wanted to sit and chat for a while before deciding to lie down and have some shut eye. It surely wasn't that exhausting !!

I felt I had to get up and explore the Abbey as the view from where I was sitting was getting was a little more somber..........

.......and I was also by this point starting to get a bit concerned as to whether I would get back to the car for 5pm. For a bit of light relief, a few of us re-lived the days of the monks by pretending to be residents !!

There were plenty of opportunities for artwork photography but nothing that had a main focus, just the illusion of looking at some grass through a window through a door, through a door !!!

Finally, the group were encouraged to move on, inspired by the thought of food. We crossed over a river bridge and followed the course of a tree lined dismantled railway track to the renovated Richmond railway station, now a coffee shop and art gallery. It was soon after this that I said my goodbyes, headed back to the car park and as I came across the last scene below, I was left wondering........ if I had a dog, would I dress them up like this or ..........would I see more action if I could drag them on a walk !!!