Yorkshire’s Own Delicious Kitchen

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Hortoris

Deliciously Yorkshire is not a bad name for the quango that helps to promote the Yorkshire Food Industry. At the Great Yorkshire Show and other events and visitor attractions they often have a stand or a series of stalls for the many niche food producers they support. Now ‘Deliciously Yorkshire’ have produced there own book highlighting more than 470 fabulous producers, restaurants, hotels, cafes and places to visit spread right across the region.
“Buying British, buying locally and buying directly from farmers can all help make a difference in terms of improving our economy, sustainability and food security.” Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York”. “Recipes from selected companies are listed in full detail, and there are inserts from some of Yorkshires most famous Chefs, it gives you a sense of how proud the people of Yorkshire are about their region! ” T. Littlewood on Amazon.

Grubs up – so I am off for my Sunday dinner ‘roast beef and guess what.’

For a slice or two about bread bred in Yorkshire read

In case you are clueless about cooking I can’t resist this book offering from amazon.

Shops in Leeds – The Cheap and The Dear

Posted on August 16, 2015 by tejvan

In a recent visit to Leeds, I was disappointed to see a growth in the number of bargain basement, everything for a pound shops, which always appear on the verge of closing down. Perhaps more sad, was the lack of real bookshops, with only Waterstones being a major bookshop left in the city centre

leeds

Mr Price! Temporary sign to go with temporary business.

At the other extreme, we have Harvey Nichols and haute couture of the Victorian Arcade. I don’t think you would find many things in there for under a £1!
leeds

Nice Bike and Harvey Nichols.

The 99p shop has been bought by Poundshop and Poundland is doing well with many items below £1. A proper Trinity if ever there was one.

Fear not the new development at the bottom of the Headrow will have John Lewis as an anchor tenant – never knowingly under blogged.

Posted in Yorkshire Facts - Interesting and Unusual | Comments Off

Walk Along The Leeds Liverpool Canal

Posted on August 15, 2015 by tejvan

leeds

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal crosses a wonderful part of the country, linking the two industrial cities of Leeds and Liverpool. Over a distance of 127 miles (204 km), it crosses the Pennines, and some of the best scenery in Yorkshire and Lancashire. The canal follows the flatest route possible. But, given the presence of Pennines and other hills the canal includes an inevitable 91 locks on the main canal.

There are several pleasant walks along the banks of the canal. Some of the places the canal passes through include:
# Leeds
# Kirkstall – The old ruined abbey makes an interesting visit
saltaire

Saltaire on a rare perfectly sunny day.

Saltaire – visit the old village and mill museum made famous by Sir Titus Salt. More on Saltaire
Bingley – The five rise locks
Skipton – The Gateway to the Dales, Skipton is the base for many good walks. A thriving market town with inspiring countryside overlooking.
Gargrave – One of best locations on edge of Yorkshire Dales. To the north of Gargrave are places such as Malham. A great walk at this point in the canal.
Barnoldswick
Nelson
Burnley
Gannow Tunnel
Hapton

Leeds Liverpool Canal info at Pennines.org

Photo of Leeds Liverpool canal by Lynne Pettinger

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Steepest Hills in Yorkshire

Posted on August 14, 2015 by tejvan

Trooper Lane Halifax – 25% Max

If you’re a cyclist in Yorkshire, you’re spoilt for choice if looking for some steepest hill. In the Yorkshire Dales, there are plenty of climbs which touch the dreaded 1 in 4 (or 25% in modern money).

The steepest Hills in Yorkshire

Park Rash, north of Kettlewell

Park Rash ascending from Kettlewell a steep section of 25% on a double haipin bend (makes for a tricky ascent.

Fleet Moss from Hawes south. At the top it reaches 22% for a considerable time. It’s a really hard climb and reaches the highest point in Yorkshire

Shibden Wall – 25% cobbled climb near Halifax. Notice steps for pedestrians. Continue reading →

Posted in Yorkshire Dales | 1 Comment

Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Hortoris

The Guardian were asking web authors for ‘three’ things to ‘enjoy’ about England. It may have been printed as 3 things to endure ….. Well readers of Gods Own County will know that is an easy question to resolve.

Yorkshire! Yorkshire! Yorkshire!

Whilst my opening may now stop the Guardian from linking to this post due to their Lancashire roots, I will continue developing the theme of three things to Enjoy in England. They will be Ridings, Dales and Pastimes.

Yorkshire Ridings
In truth the use of ‘three’ by the Guardian is obviously aimed at our Ridings. We don’t have much truck with South Yorkshire the sorry excuse for a local government reorganisation of 1974, preferring to keep to The West Riding, East Riding and North Riding and the old county boundaries. Maps published with facsimiles of the Domesday Book show that significant parts of Lancashire were formerly a part of Yorkshire but that is a story for another day.
We support, with tongues in cheeks, the Yorkshire Independence Movement and the busy new Yorkshire search engine www.Goole.com.

Three Dales

Choosing only three Dales is a ‘hard ask’ (what ever that is) when just one Dale from 16 in the Yorkshire Dales National Park could provide a life time of enjoyment. However this is our choice for the Guardian with a photo of Burnsall in Wharfedale.

Wensleydale is full of riches amongst the towns and villages including Hawes, Askrigg, Leyburn and Middleham. From fast flowing falls on the river Ure at Aysgarth and Hardraw to local markets, auctions and racehorse training. That is to say nothing about local beer and cheese.
Wharfedale is the home of the Dalesway from Ilkley to the watershed at Oughtershaw. Wending its way through whirlpools at Bolton Abbey and limestone escarpements it is just the Dale for taking a long walk, having a good pub drink or enjoying a relaxing weekend break.
Swaledale is a land that time forgot since it gave its name to the hardy sheep with the captivating black faces. Swaledale Sheep even have there own website. Not without culture there is the renown Swaledale Music Festival plus the villages, with names like Muker, Gunnerside and Reeth, which cater for walkers on the coast to coast walk.

Three Pastimes

Folk Music can be heard in at least 3 great festival venues Whitby Folk, Otley Folk and in October at Ingleton Folk Fest. There is more Yo-Ho-Ho at the annual Sea Shanty maritime music festival at Hull. Traditional music is played in pubs and clubs throughout Yorkshire particularly up the East coast in Robin Hoods Bay. Lots more info is printed in Tykes News with details of hundreds of folk club events.

Hobbies

At Gods Own County we are still collecting reports about hobbies and pastimes with a national interest but a local flavour. Trig Spotting on Baildon Moor lead to links to great web sites and exploits of those who bag trigs in the same spirit of the Munro climbers. The smaller society with more items to view is the Pylon Appreciation Society and you could also join the Rag Ruggers.

Humour

The Yorkshire reputation for taking the micturition out of our financial prudence was exemplified by the Yorkshire Supermarket special offer ‘Buy One – Get One’.

Shop sign Cakes 66p – Upside down cakes 99p.’ Nothing half baked about Yorkshire. Three cakes, Pontefract cakes, Havercakes and Cake ‘oles.

A Yorkshireman shopping in London was asked ‘What is Sirs pleasure?’ He replied Whippets and Rugby League if it’s owt to do wi’ thee but reight nah I’d like a new shirt.

The last word goes to a Yorkshire woman ‘A man’s a lump of clay- a woman teks ‘im an’ meks ‘im into a mug.’

More humourous slogans

Posted in Our Yorkshire | 3 Comments

Humour In Yorkshire is No Laughing Matter

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Hortoris

Yorkshire Humour by Ian McMillan (Author), Tony Husband (Illustrator).

Example of the Humour
‘Now Willie you mustn’t be selfish you should let your brother have the sledge half the time’.
‘I do Mum, I have it coming down and he has it going up’.
I dare say Willies brother can have the sledge all through summer as well. This is the sort of humour in the new book which highlights the dry side of Yorkshire folk.

Tony Husband has a string of joke books to his credit but is better known as a gifted cartoonist. In Private Eye his ‘Yobs and Yobettes’ strip satirises Chav culture with a sledge hammer. Ian McMillan is a poet with a string of job titles including Yorkshire Planetarium’s Poet in Space, Poet in residence Barnsley FC and Bard of Barnsley. For the 12 Yorkshire days of Christmas he gave us this :
On the first day of Yorkshire Christmas my true love gave to me
A tinsel muffler to put round me tree
On the second
2 racing pigeons
3 nippy whippets
4 flat caps
5 Dickie Birds
6 Grandmas grumbling
7 Grandads snoring
8 Banghra Dancers
9 parkin makers
10 Bowls full of Yorkshire pudding batter
11. Football teams struggling in the lower divisions
12 Michael Parkinson Blow Up Dolls

The book is well worth a read, have you heard the one about the old men of a Dales village chatting over the death of an old friend. Along comes a newcomer to express his sorrow at the passing of the man.
“It is sad when an old native of the village dies,” says the new resident. “Nay lad, he wasn’t a native, ‘e was a come-er-in-a,” says one of the old men. “’E only lived here 70 year.”

More humourous slogans

Posted in Books Club & Literary Work, Our Yorkshire, Wit and Humour | 2 Comments

The Yorkshire Pudding Club

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Hortoris

The time was when if someone said they were in t’club it was not unusual to ask ‘Christmas, Pudding or Workingmen’s?’ Who would have answered the Book Club but that would be more appropriate for Milly Johnsons ‘literary’ offering. From what I know I doubt Milly would want to be termed a Chick for her lit or other reasons, nor may she want to be a Lass but that will have to do.

You can’t have too many Yorkshire Puddings

From the Inside Flap of The Yorkshire Pudding Club
‘Three South Yorkshire friends, all on the cusp of 40, fall pregnant at the same time following a visit to an ancient fertility symbol.
For Helen, it’s a dream come true, although her husband is not as thrilled about it as she had hoped. Not only wrestling with painful ghosts of the past, Helen has to deal with the fact that her outwardly perfect marriage is crumbling before her eyes.
For Janey, it is an unmitigated disaster as she has just been offered the career break of a life-time. And she has no idea either how it could possibly have happened, seeing as she and her ecstatic husband George were always so careful over contraception.
For Elizabeth, it is mind-numbing, because she knows people like her shouldn’t have children. Damaged by her dysfunctional childhood and emotionally lost, she not only has to contend with carrying a child she doubts she can ever love, but she also has to deal with the return to her life of a man whose love she must deny herself.
Heart-warming, up-lifting, tear-jerking and lovely, The Yorkshire Pudding Club is the story of how three women find themselves empowered by unexpected pregnancy. How it revitalises one woman’s tired marriage, strengthens another’s belief in herself and brings love and warmth to a cold and empty life.’

Milly Johnson is a half Barnsley, half Glaswegian writer of greetings cards, novels and shopping lists featuring gin and buns. A self confessed ‘ disciple of the clutter-clearing experience she says ‘It’s magical, energizing and you really do feel lifted and light after shifting rubbish from your house.’ Mmm I am clearing out a lot of books but I don’t have any ‘Chick Lit’ and dare not ditch my wife’s copy of The Yorkshire Pudding Club.

Follow up books by Milly include ‘A Summer Fling’, Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café and Ladies that Launch and features some of the same characters.

Posted in Books Club & Literary Work | Tagged Novel | Comments Off

Waterfalls in God’s Own County

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Hortoris

‘It never rains but it pours.’ In Yorkshire we get the odd drop of rain and to prove my point here are photos of some of our God’s Own County’s waterfalls.

A mile and a half from Hawes is the estate that houses Hardraw Force a thirty foot drop waterfall. Access is on to private land and is controlled by access through the Green Dragon pub. The old fashioned pub is great with a log fire in the middle of August and some good beer on sale.

This location is well known as a site for Brass Band competitions. There is a natural amphitheater and an open roofed, dry stone walled band stand. The seating was piled up in a heap and more attention was paid to the rental of accommodation which serves as a resting place on the Pennine Way which passes through the village of Hardraw.

The cost £2.50 to see the Force was not high but neither was the experience. The best paths were closed on health and safety grounds and I was under-impressed with the hard nosed attitude of the matron in charge!

Janet’s Foss, Malham, Yorkshire by Simon Starr

Ingleton is famous for the run of waterfalls

Below is Force Gill Waterfall 290405 by Yorkshiresoul cc SA 2.0

Complete Guide to Top 30 Waterfalls in the Yorkshire Dales – on the Walking Englishman

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Yorkshire Independence Party

Posted on August 1, 2015 by tejvan

Today the party for an Independent Yorkshire State (PIYS) made a bold claim to stake complete independence from the UK. The Yorkshire Independence Party has vowed to stand up for the principles of honesty, truthfulness, hard graft and respect for the all the people who have made Yorkshire their home. Beware the Yorkshire Republic opposition.

yorkshire

As the Yorkshire White Rose flag was hung over Humberside County Council – reclaiming the East Riding for the Republic of Greater Yorkshire, there was great rejoicing and the people of Yorkshire were ‘reet made up.

The new Yorkshire Parliament has already promised:

Bring back old fashioned weights and measures – including – lbs, stones, inches, furlongs, chains and thr’penny bits.
Offer free Yorkshire puddings to old age pensioners
Remove VAT for flat caps
Impose tariff barriers on Southern beer and Lancashire Hot Pot.
Campaign for whippet racing and Coal carrying to becoming Olympic sports
Make Yorkshire dialect compulsory learning in schools.
More controversially have been the plans to build a customs barrier stretching across the Pennines between the Yorkshire and Lancashire border. The Lancastrian independence movement has responded coldly to today’s developments. There was widespread dismay that yet again Yorkshire had beaten Lancashire.
It’s our coal! – too long have southerners enjoyed high living standards on the back of Yorkshire toil and the Yorkshire black gold dust from pits in Featherstone and Doncaster. Yorkshire Independence will mean we can reap the financial windfall of our own coal.
Geoffrey Boycott speaking as the New President of the Republic of Yorkshire said.

“Ey by eck, It’s a grand day to finally have our independence from the rest of those southerners. Long live Yorkshire!”

But, should Yorkshire be allowed to keep the Pound Sterling?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England have both warned of the dangers of a single currency with a region more at home trading cloth caps and ferrets.

Grumbleside to declare Independence from Yorkshire!

Breaking news!

June 2016 – The tiny local council of Grumbleside on the edge of the North York Moors has voted to declare it’s independence from Yorkshire.

“We can’t be doing with all these people from south of Yorkshire coming here and taking our jobs, driving down the price of ferrets and being ruled by those unelected, unaccountable commissionaires in Harrogate. We need to regain our freedom to have bendy village poles and drink full pint measures of ale!”

Grumblexit is likely to trigger more independence claims with the great city of Leeds saying they are better off going it alone, not shackled to the fortunes of all the foreigners on the other side of the Leeds-Liverpool canal.
Continue reading →

Posted in Our Yorkshire, Wit and Humour | 41 Comments

Garden to Visit in Yorkshire

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Hortoris

Harlow Carr the formern Northern Horticulture HQ and now owned and managed by the RHS has a varied display of Alpine plants in the well designed alpine house shown above.

Within 10 miles of Harrogate there are several stunning gardens and historic houses to visit. Newby Hall and Ripley Castle are covered in some detail on the Yorkshire Gardens page of Gardenerstips alongside some valuable comments about the Royal Horticultural Gardens at Harlow Carr above.

What is unaccountably missing is any reference to Harewood House .

Since the mid 18th century the gardens around the great house have been enhanced by a series of garden designers starting with Capability Brown. The Walled Garden was built in stages from 1755-1780 followed by the Rock garden created to prevent a lake flooding. The Woodland Walk the Parterre and the Archery border provide enough interest to fill the best part of a day and there is still the house to visit.

Make a point of visiting these great Yorkshire gardens and houses this summer starting at Newby Hall in Spring, Harewood in summer and the the others to suit. All of them make a good half day or full day trip or you could arrange to visit all four during a planned holiday.

Posted in Yorkshire Trips and Places | Tagged gardens | Comments Off

God's Own County