Stratford upon Avon, North East Railtours

Following on from my previous North East rail tours excursion to Fort William post, I was able to follow this up with a trip to Stratford upon Avon, a place I had been wanting to photograph for many a year. From my home location a road trip was never an option so this provided the ideal opportunity to visit. The title image depicts the train arriving in Newcastle upon Tyne at the start of the day.

It is thought that William Shakespeare was born in the above house in Henley Street during 1864 and that he spent a good number of his childhood years there. Very little is known about his early life but he went on to become one of the worlds most famous playwrights, writing at least 37 plays between 1590 and 1613.
His birthplace is now a small museum which is run by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and attracts many visitors over the course of the year. The Trust have restored this 16th century half timbered house, which at the time that Shakespeare lived in it would not have been thought of as modest. It was built from local oak taken from the Forest of Arden and Blue Grey stone from Wilmcote and features the traditional wattle and daub of the time. The property had an interesting history being passed down through the family line for some years but regrettably fell into a state of disrepair until it was purchased for the sum of £3000 by the Shakespeare Birthday Committee (which became the Shakespeare Birthplace trust) in 1847.

The Jester touchstone who was in the Shakespeare play "As you Like it".
It stands on a plinth and is made of bronze with the inscription "O noble fool, a worthy fool - The fool doth think he is wise but a wise man knows himself to be a fool"

The Shrieve's barn and house is the oldest lived in dwelling in Stratford with the first house being built on this site in 1196. During the 16th century the building was used as an Inn with the landlord becoming the influence for Shakespeare to develop the character of Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

It was later the residence of the first mayor of Stratford and also Edward Gibbs who was the person responsible for renovating Shakespeare's birthplace from an Inn to a museum.

 The White Swan Hotel built in 1450 and renovated in 2012

The Garrick Inn is a timber building that dates back to the 15th century and is accompanied by a rich tapestry of stories including fatal fires, the plague and priest holes. It is still believed to be haunted and has the reputation of being the oldest pub in the city.

The mosaic portrait of William Shakespeare is Venetian in style with the design being based on Shakespeare's monument in the city's Holy Trinity church. It was created by Antonio Salviati who famously installed venetian mosaics in more than fifty English churches.

A tudor style door and window adjacent to The Guild Chapel 

Hall's Croft was owned by William Shakespeare's daughter Susanna Hall and her husband Dr John Hall (married in 1607). Interestingly the property boasts a walled garden at the rear which contains a collection of plants that may well have been used by Susanna's husband in his role as a doctor.

Nowadays the building hosts paintings and furniture from the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre was built in 1932 and re-opened in 2010 following an extensive renovation project that it was part of costing £112.8 million. The aim throughout has been to create an authentic / traditional Shakespearean "one room" theatre experience. It seats over 1040 and stands adjacent to the site of the original theatre which opened in 1879 and was destroyed by fire in 1926.

The Stratford upon Avon canal was built during the time of The Industrial revolution between 1793 and 1816 and runs for over 25 miles. The canal became unnavigable in the mid 20th century and was later used in modern times for pleasure trips and cruises.

Time to return for the train at the railway station ...  still thinking about what a canal side Shakespearian Ice Cream tastes like. It looks like he enjoyed it anyway !!

Fort William, Scotland, North East Railtours.

It's been a while since I posted due to life and further adventures in Scotland and as I have been majoring on these parts for some time, some readers will be pleased to know that I will be posting from south of the border from the next blog onwards. If anyone wants to see anything in particular please feel to comment.
North East Railtours (formerly Whitley Bay Horticultural Society) have been running day charter rail tours around the UK for as long as I can remember from railway stations in the North East of England. Charter (or special) trains need to fit in around the timetabled services with the routes and timings having to be painstakingly worked out, particularly on scenic remote lines such as The West Highland Line (shown above). Many of the outpost or picturesque lines are made up of single track and passing places where if a locomotive fails, most of the services on that day suffer passenger delays.
As a background to this post, there have been issues with The West Coast Railway Company (WCRC) that own the railway engines used for these trains. A driver of a WCRC steam train failed to stop at a warning signal in Wootten Bassett, Wiltshire last year and as a result the licence to operate was withdrawn from the company. It was the intention of Network Rail who withdrew the licence, to ensure the safe operation of future outings with a view to renewing it as soon as feasibly possible. As a result, the proposed tour in May 2015 was cancelled at short notice and the renewal of the license earlier in 2016 did not allow enough marketing time to repeat the trip this year. Provisional timings that the operator received for this outing were ridiculously early in the morning and with the lack of uncharted territory generally elsewhere, it was decided to combine their efforts alongside the Scottish Railway Preservation society (SRPS) in fewer outings mainly to English destinations.

As the SRPS already run numerous tours from various starting points in Scotland, it seems unlikely that this day trip will ever run again. This set of photos is a nostalgic look back at the May 2013 event. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great and as a result the image quality suffers too, apologies for that as I have so many great images taken from the train window on previous occasions.

The day began very early in the morning with the sun rising over the Northumbrian coastal town of Alnmouth.

Breakfast is a sterling effort cooked on the train and served in mass catering style near Edinburgh.

On passing Glasgow the train follows the north side of the River Clyde and on reaching Helensburgh, the railway line is known as The West Highland Line.

The stations have a country feel with unique West Highland Line architecture.

The landscape becomes more scenic eventually turning to remote and desolate moorland. It is usually uncommon but always advisable to watch for wildlife such as deer.

On arrival in Fort William, the clouds were very low as seen behind Duncansburgh Mackintosh Parish church.

Even the Crannog fish restaurant at the loch shore couldn't provide the colour to brighten the day !!

I did come across a bizarre sculpture near to the waters edge of Loch Linnhe. To me it looked like a celebration to water skiing but further investigation revealed it was made of old mountain equipment to honour the local mountain festival.

There are not a lot of shops in Fort William but most seem to represent a mix of clothing and tartan tourist stores. This one gives the more interesting variety of the British weather depicting the sale of both Umbrellas and Ice Cream. There wasn't a lot sold of the latter on this day.

Lastly, due to the long train journey, the time allocated at Fort William was about 2 hours giving enough time to walk up and down the main street and visit the favourite shops. The larger woollen mill at the far end of the street is usually a step too far as my dabbling with sign alterations show ...

A Bus ride and Waterfall walk, Hawes, Wensleydale

Now that I have finished my trio of Welsh posts, I'd like to follow that up with a group of three individual posts. As with the last series, the reasons will become obvious by the third post.

I have been loosely associated with a West Yorkshire social and walking group for some time, My friend, known to you as the Scarborough Sandcastle manager has a similar friendship to the people in the group. The Leeds link asked him to organise a Yorkshire Dales day event and this is the ... err ... timing challenges that he came up with. Apologies for the ordinary bunch of images but due to the snapshots, constant catch up and exhaustion of the day ... I'm putting a bit more effort here into the autobiographical writing style on this occasion, hope the variety holds it.

At the start of the day, I had my unfounded doubts on some unknown variables such as how many people would turn out for an early start so far from their usual stamping ground and was the day too ambitious ?

We descended with our cars in Leyburn and caught up with old friends before the vintage bus arrived from Ripon in mid morning. Thankfully there were enough seats for everyone.

It was a pleasant journey along some less well known roads through Wensleydale  from Leyburn in the East to Hawes in the west.

For those interested in the route here's a link for the current ...  Vintage Dales bus timetable

Not the most vintage bus in the fleet but reliable nonetheless !

Essentially the bus covered the tourist hot spots along the way such as Castle Bolton, Aysgarth Falls and a connection point with the Wensleydale Railway car park at Redmire (above). A suitable photo opportunity and a quick stretch of the legs while we waited for the arrival of the train from Leeming Bar.

On arrival at the Hawes Railway station car park, it was somewhat surprising to be greeted with the above scene considering that the railway currently terminates at Redmire.

Transport of the past going to places in the future !

On closer inspection, it turned out that this was a static exhibit realising the dream for the public of the hopefully not too distant future... I was left wondering whether in turn that would retire the vintage bus service for good.

The narrowest but longest shop award ... in my opinion

Readers may remember that I've been here before in an autumn deluge of rain ... (Hawes 2010)  and covered a few shots and history of the town including the rope makers. The weather was that bad on that day that I chose not to photograph the front door of the unusual Ropemaker's shop. Hope this redresses the balance.

Enough of transport and history, it was time to stock up on some packed lunch as there was no time to shop in Leyburn. We were inspired to pick up some local delicacies in this Butcher / Baker's shop.

Unfortunately though not everyone was welcome in the shop despite the longing eyes wondering what the contents of the paper bags were.

My friend and organiser for the day is known for his walks and to be fair the next leg of the journey was only a flat 4 miles (6.4km) round trip on flat terrain to a waterfall. The group of 9 people that turned out from the Yorkshire social group (plus myself, the organiser and another friend) had experience in walking and those that were just interested in tourism seemed to stay away.

Despite the short distance, there was always the thought in the back of my head about what time the bus departed at and whether or not this short distance was achievable or not. The scenery was quite pleasant anyway crossing over the fields.

It wasn't long though before we arrived at the toll point of The Green Dragon Inn.

13th century Inn

The land to the rear of the pub which includes Hardraw Force is maintained by the owners of The Green Dragon Inn. A quick look at the website reveals that the fee has increased with inflation to the princely 2014 sum of £2.50.

Hardraw Force at the end of a short wooded ravine walk is reputed to be England's highest single drop waterfall. Visiting here on a school geography trip when I was about 14 years old, I remember walking behind the waterfall on a ledge. Sadly today with erosion, water spray, slippy rocks, Health and Safety, that is no longer possible or even inviting for that matter.

Time for lunch followed by a communal dessert sample of Yorkshire Curd Tart that one kind person bought in the shop earlier.

... and enough time to sample the delights of The Green Dragon before the walk back to Hawes.

We made good time and had about 30 minutes spare to have a quick look around before the bus departed. It was an opportunity to catch anything I missed or couldn't take because of the weather on the previous occasion. Come to think of it, I've never ever been here on my own before to look ... and wait ... for the best shots, it's always been a rush !

As I didn't have the time to lose myself in what I was doing I opted to retake the shepherd sculpture in the middle of the street.

 It is apt to mention at this point that the Tour de France cycle race has an opening leg in a foreign country and this year part of that is in Yorkshire. Le Tour passes through Hawes on July 5th 2014 en route to Swaledale at the northern end of the clockwise Dales circuit.

The bus journey back to Leyburn between 3 and 4pm seemed less memorable than the outward one partly because we were covering the same ground in reverse, but more importantly with the talking all done and the constant drone of the engine, most of us to nodded off for a snooze at various intervals.
However everyone had a rude awakening on the rickety approach turning off the main road and award winning reversing manoeuvre into Redmire Railway station car park.

One thing that kept me going was the thought of a pub meal at 6pm in Leyburn square. However little did I know what was in store for me next. Some of the girls fancied the freedom of a 1 hour shopping spree ... not something that readily comes to mind in Leyburn considering the flagship shop is an Ironmonger !!
The town wasn't conducive to photography as there were too many cars parked everywhere so I went with the alternative plan from my friend who doesn't give up easily on walking.

The Leyburn Shawl walk is one of the most subtlest inclines and is essentially an extension of a walk to the park where the visitor is constantly enticed to go a little further for a slightly better tree free view. I knew I had to do this option as I was the reins on this walk that looked like galloping away and missing the 6pm gastro appointment. I distinctly remember saying "We need to go back, it's 5 o'clock now" and "It's ten past five now" !! The downhill section in 50 minutes seemed more acceptable !!

We were met by the shoppers 3/4 of the way back in the park who didn't know what else to do, so thought they'd wait for us with the immediate view of Wensleydale to enjoy.

All in all it was a great day out, but we hardly had any slack in the timings to send a postcard ...

... and we could have done with the services afterwards of one of the Leyburn businesses...