Richmond Castle & Easby Abbey

Last weekend, we ventured about an hour away to the town of Richmond in search of a castle. Thanks to TomTom, we found it. Richmond castle is built on a dramatic cliff next to the River Swale. It's claim to fame is that it's the "among the oldest Norman stone fortresses in Britain."



The tower, holding the 1170 keep, was a more recent remodel. The tower was the most impressive we've seen to date since it is so complete. It has floors and a roof--you can climb all three floors through narrow stone staircases. It has an impressive view of the old town below and of the countryside beyond. And it's super windy.


Pat says the more castles you see, the smaller they look :)

After our trek around the castle, we ate lunch by the falls at the River Swale conveniently located next to the car park. This is suppose to be the fastest running river in England. I believe it. This one actually has a noticeable current. From our limited exposure, most of the rivers here make the Lazy Miami at The Beach Waterpark look like it's in a hurry. This river was quite impressive with gigantic rock slabs that seem to fragment very regular and geometric pieces.



From there, we took footpaths to Easby Abbey. The really nice thing about England is that you could walk anywhere if you really wanted to. There are public footpaths everywhere. Across farmers' fields, around houses, you name it. To prevent the livestock from getting out through the footpath access points, people build little ladders so you can scale the fences easily. Chances are, if you pull over to the side of a road in the country, there's going to be a footpath within a 1/2 mile or so.



After a nice walk, we made it to the abbey. A lesser known victim of Henry the VIII, they don't even bother to charge admission here to walk among the ruins. After seeing so many other abbeys, we kind of got the gist of this one. It was a nice setting and interesting ruins. Some of the decoration was new and set itself apart from the other abbeys we've seen. Of course, this was a different order of monks.





When we got back to Richmond, we headed into town to get some fish and chips. We ate next to the falls at the River Swale and, after a quick ride on the zip cord in the children's playground, headed home.

Sunday was quiet with a grocery run and some more Rugby.