I really love York, I think it's my favourite city in the country. Not only is it crammed full of history from Roman times to the present day, it's also stuffed with beautiful buildings, a great selection of independent shops and lovely cafes and restaurants. It has a real buzz about it.
We were there last week for our son's graduation and have been there on a number of occasions over the last 3 years, but I haven't really taken many photos. Why? Partly I think it's the style of photography that I enjoy, in that I don't really do panoramas, or photos of icons unless I can find a new angle on them. Rather, I usually focus on the detail (the more rust the better) and take many more photos of nature than I do of buildings. Also as I have written about in a previous post I don't do pretty. I managed to take one photo of York this time round, mainly because of the glorious colour of the evening sun on the stone of the lantern tower, spotted as we were on our way to have dinner.
At this point I thought I would review previous pictures I've taken in York and include a couple here. When I looked however I only found about 5 and I didn't like any of them very much - they were mostly bits of houses obscured behind flowering trees and didn't really give any sense of place. So I have decided not to include them.
Other than the graduation ceremony itself the highlight of this trip was a visit to Castle Howard - again no panoramic pictures of the grand facade, you can watch either of the versions of Brideshead to see this.
Instead, as usual, I have focused on the small elements that took my fancy in the house and garden. To be fair, I don't love Vanborough and the Palladian style of architecture or Capability Brown style gardens. I was however drawn to the sheltered rose garden and the rather grand fountain. First though we went round the house which was only partially open due to the filming of a drama called 'Murder at Pemberly' Austen sequel? the mind boggles!
The first room that really caught my attention was a child's bedroom which is not mentioned in the guide book
I loved the old toys especially the ship
I was also drawn to this bust in the antiques corridor, apparently collected by the 4th Earl when on a trip to Italy in 1738, and this detail of a Burne-Jones stained glass window in the chapel
Now to the outside, the view from the Boar Garden was impressive,
but what really drew my attention was the Atlas Fountain installed in 1853.
Its not the kind of thing I normally like but it looked so right in the grand surroundings and the play of the water on the statue is quite magical, as were the vista's on every side of this giant water spout.
Even if I had wanted to take a panoramic view of the front I wouldn't have been able to as there was scaffolding up for the filming and large numbers of white vans parked out front!
On to the Rose Garden - the perfect time to see it in all its glory, though again the prettiness didn't attract the photographer in me, although the gardener was very impressed.
I particularly liked this, with the seeds reminding me of pomegranates, I think it was a peony
Back to York and a couple of final photos I took while having lunch outside before driving home
This is the herb garden by the patchwork museum and co-incidentally our favourite Italian,
and I'm including this one just because I like it!
