Monday 13/5/19

Our last day in the Yorkshire Dales and a beautiful sunny day. Rob and I decided to travel back into Richmond to see the Castle there, as we had missed it on the way in as it had been too late. TIP – last entry at heritage sites is a 1/2 hour before closing, usually at 5:00pm.

The day took a twist due to the following photo. Can you spot the two boys on the roof?

I spotted the two teenage boys larking around on the roofs of adjoining houses while taking photos of the surrounding town and market place. I stopped watching after a few minutes as I was concerned they may fall!

When we left the castle and returned to the car, we found it surrounded and parked in by four police vehicles! We quickly found out that the boys had pushed over a chimney which had crashed into the market place about 10 metres from our vehicle. The police had then given chase and now had one boy in custody with the other still giving chase!

I felt compelled to assist so spoke to the nearest officer, offering my photo. Officer Amy seemed more interested in our holiday and mentioned it again later in reply to my email with the photo, which she remarked would be very useful! I hope the boys don’t get into too much trouble!!!

We went and had coffee while we waited for the police to leave. Costa coffee has the best cappuccino we have found as a lot of cafes use auto push button machines but Costa uses espresso machines and the coffee is quite good!

When we were able to leave we set out for Middlesham Castle. The ruined castle commenced in 1190 is best known as the childhood home of Richard III, although he actually spent very little of his reign there. After it was allowed to run to ruin in the 1700 and like many other castles and Abbey’s we have seen, much of the stone was removed and used in other local village dwellings.

Driving from and back into Richmond we passed Catterick Garrison a large military base. On the way back we were swooped, quite literally by a Boeing chinook helicopter. Too quick and fast to get a photo but a thrilling to experience!

Back in Richmond we parked and took a lovely walk to Easby Abbey and back, enjoying a Jersey Ice Cream along the way.

On the way home we stopped at the local pub which we had been passing for the last few days, curious about the name we got chatting with the publican Mick who had no idea where the name originated. We had a fun hour though, sharing stories of spiders and snakes 😄.

Cracker of a day!