A Tribute to Yorkshire Heritage
In April of this year, it snowed in the middle of quite a warm spring. The snow stayed on the hill tops for the next couple of days, despite the spring sunshine. It created a great new vista of the Lower Wharfedale valley.
Lower Wharfedale
The climb out of Burnsall
A nice day in the Yorkshire Dales
Clouding over
Moorland
Other Yorkshire Rich People.
Overall, the wealth of the top ten in Yorkshire at £7,22 billion.
The annual Sunday Times Rich List is based on identifiable wealth (land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or significant shares in publicly quoted companies), and excludes bank accounts (to which the publisher has no access).
Related
Yorkshire Rich at T&A
Yorkshire is blessed with dramatic and unrivaled scenery. From the East coast through Moors, Dales and Wolds there are umpteen images to catch the imagination.
You can access these images via short or long distance walks, from car windows, glossy books, old postcards or surfing the internet as you are currently doing.
Roman road roam’n’ all over the place?
‘The Yorkshire Moors and Wolds’ Book by Mark Denton
A collection of wonderful panoramic Yorkshire images of Moors and Wolds. These are two very different landscapes separated by the Vale of Pickering and encompassing forests, remote farmlands, dramatic rocky landscapes and gently rolling hills.
Credits
The Beauty of Trees. Thixendale,Yorkshire Wolds. UK. by Philip Ed CC BY-NC 2.0
Rosalie Winterton better known as Rosie was born ourside the county in August 1958. She has been a Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament for Doncaster Central since 1997.
As one of ‘Blair’s babes’ she was a minister in both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown Governments. Rosie was Labour Chief Whip and is now in the shadow cabinet as Shadow Chief Whip.
Caroline Flint has been the Member of Parliament for Don Valley since 1997. She has had various roles including Minister of State for Housing and Planning in 2008, the Minister for Europe and Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. In October 2011 Ed Milliband appointed her Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities. Famously Caroline resigned from the cabinet in 2009, citing the leadership (or lack) of Gordon Brown as a reason.
Yvette Cooper was born north of the border in March 1969 and has been the MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford since 2010. She is the current Shadow Home Secretary and believed to be set for further advancement. Yvette is married to Ed Balls another local Morley and Outwood MP.
Rachel Reeves age 33 is an economist and the Member of Parliament for Leeds West since 2010. She served as Shadow Pensions Minister and is now Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Ed Miliband.
Mary Creagh is a Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament for Wakefield since 2005. A former councillor in the London Borough of Islington. She was appointed to the shadow cabinet Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in 2010.
Maria Eagle was born in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire on 17 February 1961. She is an MP in that other little county but her birth right gets her in this cabinet. Maria Eagle is currently the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport.
Angela Eagle is Maria’s twin so obviously she was also born in Bridlington. Under Ed Milliband Angela is Shadow Leader of the House of Commons despite being MP for Wallasey.
Credits
Wikipedia, Labour Party PR machine
18. The Father of the House of Commons joins the Yeoman Usher by UK Parliament CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Yorkshire contributes significantly to the number of women in the Shadow Cabinet. It wouldn’t be PC to call it a kitchen cabinet because it is a kitchen shadow cabinet.
In your garden bluebells are fine in April and May and disappear underground for 8 months of the year. However the leaves can be a soggy mess for one month after flowering.
If you want tips on how to keep garden bluebells tidy see Gardeners Tips
Bluebells also come in white perhaps in tribute to our own Yorkshire Rose!
If you know of any other Bluebell walks or interesting locations please let us know.
All Yorkshiremen have a favourite Fred Trueman story and mine goes something like this: Opening the bowling as usual from the Kirkstall Lane End Fred’s first ball rapped the openers pads and Fred bellowed Owzat only to get a firm shake of the head from the umpire, the next ball created an audible snick and firmly Fred appealed to get an even firmer ‘Not Out’, on the third ball Trueman flattened the middle stump and remarked to the umpire ‘Well umpire we nearly had him that time!’
Fred was a great raconteur and afterdinner speaker amongst his sporting tallents and this CD brings back many memories and the dulcet tones of a great Yorkshire personality and character. I for one wish he were still around to give vent on Twitter, that is about twitter not using it like some current footballers.
Take a walk on the wild side in April or May and the chances are you will smell the wonderful scent of our Yorkshire bluebells.
Bluebells grow best under the edge of woodland in dappled shade of deciduous trees. The sun and light in spring, before the tree leaves fully develop, encourages the nodding, bell shaped, violet-blue flowers of our native bulbs.
Unlike the foreign imports from Spain and Italy our Yorkshire Bluebells have a wonderful scent. They can also be recognised by the curved back petals and creamy-white anthers.
The scent attract insects to Bluebells delicately scented flowers which aids pollination. The resultant seed helps spread the bluebells into large drifts.
Pamper yourself at the Turkish Baths in Harrogate. In the 21st century it is seen as a luxury way of relaxing but it was not always so. At one time it was a treatment and possible cure for a range of diseases.
In 1596 William Slingsby discovered a chalybeate spring in Yorkshire and that became a forerunner to Harrogate’s prominence as a Spa town. He built an enclosed well at what became known as the first resort in England for drinking medicinal waters.
The Victorians built the current Turkish bath which is still operating from the entrance on Parliament Street. the Moorish design includes elaborate Islamic images, arches and screens.
As the Bath’s promotion says it is a place to ‘unwind your mind and invigorate your body’. A minimum 90 minutes is recommended and towels are provided. Children under 16 are not permitted because you go for relaxation and kids can prevent you doing that.
Areas have Roman names rather than Turkish ones; Tepidarium is the Warm Room, Calidarium the Hot Room and Laconium is the hottest Room to purify and detoxify the body by opening the pores and stimulating the circulation. Then you can take the plunge in guess what the Plunge Pool.
Credits
Turkish Baths by UK Pictures CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Harrogate by kpc CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Bath Time by Superlekker CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ‘Victorian Turkish Baths in Harrogate. Where staring at the ceiling is utterly entertaining, not to mention to very very hot rooms and nice steam to make you so clean… Believe me, two hours and a half in there just fly by.’
Download a pdf brochure on Harrogates premier Turkish Bath.
Sir Fred Hoyle FRS 24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001 a Yorkshire man who coined the phrase ‘ The Big Bang’ and missed out on not one but two or three Nobel prizes for physics.
Fred Hoyle was born in Gilstead and went to Bingley Grammar school and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. During the war he worked on radar and assessing the height of enemy planes. After the war and a period as a lecturer at St Johns College he reached the top of ‘world astrophysics theory’ and was appointed to the illustrious Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge University.
Fred Hoyle: A Life in Science by Simon Mitton
A fascinating biography ‘The scientific life of Fred Hoyle was truly unparalleled. During his career he wrote groundbreaking scientific papers and caused bitter disputes in the scientific community with his revolutionary theories. Hoyle is best known for showing that we are all, literally, made of stardust in his paper explaining how carbon, and then all the heavier elements, were created by nuclear reactions inside stars. ‘
Fred Hoyle: Fellow of the Royal Society, Astronomer, Stellar nucleosynthesis, Cosmology, Big Bang, Science fiction, Geoffrey Hoyle.
In 1997 at the age of 82, while hiking across moorlands in West Yorkshire, near his childhood home in Gilstead, Fred Hoyle fell down into a steep ravine we know as Shipley Glen.
It was approximately twelve hours before Fred Hoyle was found by a search dog deep in amongst the rocks and trees.
He was hospitalized for two months with kidney problems as a result of hypothermia, pneumonia and a smashed shoulder.
It is probable that he never fully recovered as from around that time he suffered from memory and mental agility problems.
It seems Fred Hoyle had a way with words and could help the uninitiated get their heads around difficult astronomical concepts as he did with his use of the phrase the ‘Big Bang’ as opposed to his own theory of ‘steady state’.
‘Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards.’
‘When I was young, the old regarded me as an outrageous young fellow, and now that I’m old the young regard me as an outrageous old fellow’. Well I guess that generally goes with being outrageous.
‘The Cambridge system is effectively designed to prevent one ever establishing a directed policy — key decisions can be upset by ill-informed and politically motivated committees. To be effective in this system one must for ever be watching one’s colleagues, almost like a Robespierre spy system.’ Not exactly a tow the line academic!
‘The successful pioneer of theoretical science is he whose intuitions yield hypotheses on which satisfactory theories can be built…..’ Fred put this to the test many times with his own theories. Many of his views were disproved or ridiculed by the establishment and he certainly used intuition in developing his own inimitable style.
‘Things are the way they are because they were the way they were.’
Fiction some co-authored with his son Geoffrey include The Black Cloud, The Westminster Disaster, Molecule Men, In to Deepest Space and Fifth Planet from Amazon
The lower slopes of the Yorkshire moors can be thickly covered with bracken (one of many ferns). Despite some belief to the contrary it has been shown that any increase is slow but it is still an invasive species. Gone are the days when it was valued and cut as bedding for horses and cattle, now it only seems fit for breeding insects.
Among several Yorkshire ferns are the attractive upland Lemon-scented Fern and the beech fern Phegopteris connectilis which is now very rare in West Yorkshire.
Credits
Fern in sharp lighting by Mirror | imaging reality CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Bracken by Anita363 CC BY-NC 2.0 Bracken growing like swathes over the hills
Fossilised frond from a seed fern, Alethopteris, GL1339 by Black Country Museums CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Ferns by amandabhslater CC BY-SA 2.0
The best Yorkshire falconry locations for demonstration, education and sport include the following:
Yorkshire Hawking Club the Newton Arms Sprotbrough.
Lightwater Valley has a birds of prey area.
If we have missed your business or a falconry site please let us know via the comments and we will be happy to provide a link.
The British Falconers Club Yorkshire region.
Credits
Falcon by Ian Blacker CC BY-ND 2.0
Falcon by Thundershead CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Falcon by sonyaseattle CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Perigine Falcon
Hooded Falcon by hans s CC BY-ND 2.0
Falcon by Stephen & Claire Farnsworth CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Falconry books available from Amazon
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