20240520 Monday, May 20, 2024; Taking the M1 up the center of England. Heights of Abraham, Bakewell, Chatsworth House, and York

20240520 Monday, May 20, 2024; Taking the M1 up the center of England. Heights of Abraham, Bakewell, Chatsworth House, and York

Today we drove about 220 miles up the center of England from Oxford to York.  We had a hearty breakfast at the Voco Oxford Spires hotel and even packed a few pastries and hard boiled eggs to have for a picnic lunch.  

We had overcast skies with occasional spittles of precipitation but nothing that required more than a single wipe of the wipers as we drove north.  Most of the trip was on the M1 motorway, so it was pretty easy driving.  However, once you get into any of the cities off the M1, you’re back to the narrow twisty roads.  

Central England remains lush with pastures, fields and scattered forests dotted with boulders and lots of stone walls.  Portions of central England are made of uplifted domes of limestone and fault lines.  There were rich deposits of coal and lead ore in central England which were heavily mined in Roman times.  This has left hillsides scarred with tailings from countless mines.  

In the town of Matlock Bath, a played out lead ore mine was rehabilitated into a tourist attraction back in the Victorian era.  Imagine Victorians in their fancy garb being lowered in a bucket down a vertical mineshaft into the caverns formed after extracting all the lead ore from within a limestone shell.  Because the limestone in this part of England was covered by a waterproof dome of clay, these caves did not develop the stalagmites or stalagtites that are characteristic of other limestone caves.  These had been filled with sand and mud containing the lead ore, and when the sand and ore bearing mud were extracted, the resulting cavity became today’s caves.  You can see pick marks on many of the caves.  

We toured the Heights of Abraham, which is the name of the Victorian tourist attraction which remains so today.  A cable gondola takes you up to the top of a small mountain (600’ elevation rise) where there are exhibits, restaurants, re-enactors in Victorian era clothing, and the caves.  We toured the larger cave at the top which required climbing 175 steps and a lot of stooping.  This mine cave was quite different from an other limestone cave tours we have been on, but was similar to other hard rock mine tours.  At one point we did walk down 200’ in elevation to a second smaller cave, but the place was packed with school kids on a field trip, and rather than pay more money to extend our parking, we decided to skip that second cave and had to hike back up that 200’ of elevation to get back to the cable gondola station at the top to take us back to the parking lot below.  We certainly got our activity rings closed with all that walking and climbing.  

A little further north, we stopped at the town of Bakewell, famous for its “Bakewell Tart”.  We were able to find plenty of parking despite a livestock auction going in the town’s livestock arena.  This was interesting to watch, listen and smell.  We then wandered into the town proper where we had to buy some Bakewell Tarts, and wander the narrow shop lined streets.  There was an open air “Stall Market” which is basically like an American Flea Market with pretty much the same stuff for sale.  

Continuing our journey north we dropped by the Chatsworth House, which is an amazingly huge estate that was the filming location for the recent Pride and Prejudice movie staring Kiera Knightly.  We got there after the last entry time, so we just got a few pictures from around the grounds and then continued our way north to York.

We found our little York Guest House.  It is within easy walking distance to the city walls of York and the York Minster, which is one of the oldest gothic cathedrals in the world.  There are a couple of parking spaces on the street “assigned” to the guest house. Our car didn’t fit entirely in the last space.  We hope it doesn’t end up with a ticket.  We had received a key code for the front door lock, and inside the tiny lobby was a small table with an envelope with our name on it. This contained the key to the actual room, which is called “Snickleways”.  These apartments are like tiny college rooms, barely bigger than our RV, and smaller than our cruise ship stateroom.  The building is ancient, but at least it has modern plumbing.  

We walked into York and had dinner in the Guy Fawkes Inn Pub which boasts that Guy Fawkes was born in that location, directly across the street from the York Minster.  It is a charming pub.  We had their version of steak and ale pie as well as their fish and chips.  The Guy Fawkes version of the pie didn’t have as flakey a crust as the one we had in Oxford, but the quality of the meat inside was vastly superior.  The fish was also an entire haddock fillet that was expertly battered, crispy and delicious.  The only disappointment was the house bitter which was hand pulled from a cask at room temperature.  As a beer, it seemed to be rather uninspired.  But it did go down well with the dinner.  The mash served with the meat pie was excellent.  The mushy peas served with the fish was seasoned with mint, which was a bit odd.  

The city gate and walls are very medieval, as is the York Minster.  Since the sun was setting, we didn’t venture into further into the city. That will wait until tomorrow.