Ribchester – in an English Country Garden 🎶🎶
Gerry
After our trip to Scotland, I think we were both a little tired as we had had so much to take in during those 4 days. The trip to Ribchester was one of our easiest yet because it was only a 20-minute drive from Preston where we had spent the night at Duncan’s house. It was a little hard to find as it is quite a rural area. The GPS took us on a bit of a wild goose chase which was a good warmup for the poultry we were about to look after. Finally, we called Mark, the owner and he directed us in, plus he had his daughter, Eleanor, go out the front of the property to greet us. (Jacky: Where we encountered the ET scarecrow on a bike at the end of the drive. Yes really!)
Pinfold Cottage is quite a unique property as originally it was a two bedroom cottage built in 1680. It looks like the farmer has added on to the existing house and then divided it into three sections, each section having about an acre for their use. I believe this is a great idea as you can buy an affordable house with some rural property but not feel isolated. Mark came out to greet us and open the gate as Linda his wife was working late. Mark is a real character with a pretty strong Lancashire accent which meant I hardly understood anything he said. In between beers, he gave us a rundown on how things operated. In these cases we try to absorb as much as we can while still being engaging with the owner and what we don’t pick up, we figure out later. There wasn’t too much pressure because Mark and Linda weren’t leaving until the next evening so we could check things out during the day and ask any further questions when they got home. Our charges included two Bassett hounds, Florence and Rosie, one chocolate Labrador, Larry or Barry (whichever one he answers to, which generally was neither), Gladys the cat, two geese, Brian and Betty,  four roosters and a two hens thrown in. The back patio was gorgeous as it looked out over farmland and out to the hills. We did a few yoga classes here and some sun baking while we worked on the computer. For being built over 300 years ago there were some nice modern additions. Other than the first morning when the Bassets started barking at 4.00am everything went well, except (there is always an exception) that Florence and Rosie were on Heat and Rosie was horny for Larry who is a neutered 11-year-old who wasn’t the least bit interested or capable. By day 3 Larry was exhausted from warding off Rosie’s advances, so we had to separate them to give him a break or we were afraid he might have a heart attack.
Our first excursion was to Clitheroe which was a lovely town with a castle ruin in the centre of town. They have built some beautiful gardens, an outdoor theatre, cafe, restaurant and children’s play areas around the castle. The local ice cream was most enjoyable.
The next excursion was to Skipton which we had tried to get to before but had been detoured due to road closures. This was a blessing because we took plenty of time to have a good look around the castle and the town. The castle was just what I was looking for. One that was pretty well preserved from the way it was back in the 1100’s and wasn’t commercialised. Skipton Castle was perfect. I was in awe of the architecture and design that had gone into its construction from so long ago, almost in every detail of this huge structure. It still had the original drainpipes that were added in 1690. There probably aren’t many around today that last 50 years!
Just as we were about to leave we met this wonderful man who was the groundskeeper and he gave us some history about the last 50 years when the castle was going to ruin and this Italian sounding named man bought it and started to fix it up. It was a private project which has not been syphoned through the National Trust funding agencies so all the money has gone back into the castle without any bureacratic interference. There were markets going on in the centre of town as well which were great to look through and we also went for a walk on a forest trail behind the castle which was so picturesque. A compulsory half-pint at the local pub to replace the fluids and then back home to the baying hounds!
