I went to Yorkshire last weekend! It was a class trip, so all travel and accommodation was provided, but I had to pay for all of my meals. It was about a six hour bus ride up to Haworth, where we stayed the first night.
Since it was a class trip, it was for literary purposes, and Haworth is where the parsonage was that Charlotte Bronte and her family lived. We stayed in a hostel,
(this was my first hostel experience) and it looked like it could be the Addam’s Family house!
We all started singing the song on the way in (duh nuh nuh nuh - snap snap!) It was a Victorian mansion which was simply stunning,
and when we returned from dinner (more on that in a moment!) we drank a few bottles of wine and people played a game called Bloody Murder in the yard.
I’m not sure how it worked, but someone hid while they all gathered and counted to one hundred, and then people went to find them. When they were found, they would all run back to the picnic table – their base – in a hurry, laughing and screaming. The next day, on our way into town, we met these very sweet, enthusiastic horses!
We went to the Bronte Parsonage Museum, which, if you ever have a chance to visit it, is absolutely worth a visit. The house itself is very well preserved (although the floors are so squeaky I often wondered if I would fall through the floor! The headline “Longhorns Break the Bronte Museum” did occur to me more than a few times!) The church on the property is lovely, as well!
Haworth is probably the hilliest town I have ever visited. Beautiful, mind you, but hilly as hell.
(Those are from the sunset the night before.) The main road leading up to the pub where a lot of us had dinner that night was so steep you could have crawled more effectively than walked.
The pictures I have don’t do the incline justice.
We walked the moors and dales, and everywhere I went, it felt very real to me that Charlotte Bronte and her siblings would have walked those paths the same as we were.
They were literally right behind her house on the edge of the village. The pictures don’t do the view justice. A girl in my class said (rather comically) that “It was like being in an IMAX movie or something!” and, even though that statement is a little bit backwards, I do believe that she was right.
The view from the top of the moors was absolutely breathtaking and I can’t put into words the way it felt to stand on top and survey the world around you.
I think that I, too, would produce works of great literature like the Bronte sisters if I walked those fields every day! (I would also get fantastically toned legs!)
After walking the moors, we hopped on our bus to Osmotherley, which we were only going to because the hostel in Whitby (our destination the next day) couldn’t accommodate forty longhorns and three professors! So we descended upon Osmotherley, which is a tiny little village in god only knows where (but was just as hilly – oh my aching legs! – as Haworth) and it was at the Osmotherley hostel (which is apparently haunted, because the other people who were there were ghost hunters. I am glad I didn’t know this until after I’d left!) that we experienced the Narrowly Avoided Great Tragedy of Osmotherley. There was a bridge over which our bus had to drive to get to the hostel which said, “Weak Bridge – 3T”. We took that to mean “Three tons” and so we approached with caution, being that apparently the bus, sans students and luggage, weighs something like five tons! The bus driver went out and talked to the people at the hostel, who said that the villagers had put that up because they wanted to discourage coaches crossing it, but it was fine – and was sound enough to hold our five+ ton bus. We all held our breath as we crossed, and as I am obviously writing you this (and am on a train instead of in a hospital bed) we crossed just fine. It was pretty tense though!
In Osmotherley, we had dinner at the Queen Catherine Inn, and were joined for dessert by one of the professors, Dr Barrish. We chatted with him, and he, after we’d all paid, said, “Come with me…” and we all, exchanging glances, followed him out into a… cemetery!
This may be one of the first cemeteries I have shown you, but believe you me, I have been to a lot of cemeteries in the last two or three weeks! (By my latest count, including ones we just stumbled upon and walked through, I have been to eight or nine!) It was twilight, and it was one of the most beautiful and haunting things I have ever experienced.
We all professed ourselves immediately thoroughly impressed (and told him he was our favorite professor) and after that incident, we have said that Dr Barrish has – get ready for it – gravedar. That night, we all congregated in the common room and played cards, giant chess against the professors (with foot-tall chess pieces) and drank more wine. I went to bed early because I was totally wiped out from all of the hiking we’d done earlier!
The next day, we traveled about an hour to Whitby, which is a town at the coast and which is where the bulk of Dracula takes place (I think – don’t hold me to that since I haven’t read it!)
The main attraction for us was to walk to the top of the 199 steps to the ancient Abbey and the church and the… cemetery of course!
We didn’t have a lot of time in Whitby, only about four or so hours before we had to get on the bus and drive all the way back to Oxford, but we still managed to make use of our time!
Whitby will forever remain in my head as the absolute coldest and windiest place I’ve gone on this trip! We were all joking about “Let’s come back when it gets warmer – like in July! Oh, wait. It is July.” The temperatures rivaled those of a Texas winter and most of us were unprepared. I was warm enough, but I sure wish I’d brought a scarf! My jacket zipped up to the neck didn’t quite do the job. Even this sign should have warned us away...
At the top of the stairs, the abbey was absolutely beautiful.
(Professor Barrish couldn't help but give us a miniature lecture.)
I wish I’d had more time to walk around, but as it was we were on a tight schedule, and if we wanted to eat at all while we were there (and shop!) we had to hustle through. However, the abbey’s splendor was evident even in its state of ruin.
We went back down to the town and spent an hour and a half or so eating and shopping.
I bought a ring which has a tiny little stone of jet in it, which Whitby is particularly known for apparently. The jewelry was beautiful, and if I were not on a budget, I would have blinged myself up properly with all kinds of jewelry! The ring has found itself a place on my right hand, next to the ring that my Aunt Leslie gave to me for my high school graduation a few years ago!
I can't wait to go back to Yorkshire sometime soon! There is so much more I'd like to see.
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