Nunnington Hall and Rievaulx Terrace

Yesterday I drove up through the Howardian Hills, through Terrington and Hovingham (where I stopped at a very good local market and bought pies - yum) to Nunnington, there to visit Nunnington Hall - a National Trust 17thC  manor house on the banks of the River Rye. This was a large but 'liveable' home as opposed to a stately mansion, most of it in original condition. Once again I was reminded of how cold it must have been in these homes, even with fires in every room. And how dark - the bedrooms with their lovely four-poster beds and dark, dark wooden panelling, floor to ceiling. Beautiful floors - stone flagging below and lovely wide wooden floorboards above. Nothing on the level, everything sloping this way and that.

There was this splendid bridge just to one side of the house over the River Rye...

...and banks of snowdrops.

From Nunnington I drove on through Helmsley to Rievaulx Terrace. Constructed by the owners of Dunscombe Park (see an earlier post), this terrace was an 18thC landscape feature designed to take advantage of the views of Rievaulx Abbey in the valley below.

The moles are still mightily active and I was tickled by the similarity - in shape, if not size - between mole hill and temple...