We decided to follow a suggested route we found in our cottage among the many leaflets and brochures placed there for visitors by our landlord and -lady. The route lead us out of Ripon along Whitcliffe Lane past farms and across fields, around Fountains Abbey (or through the estate, if we wanted) and back to Ripon.
A place I had neither been to nor heard about before was How Hill. On top of the hill is an abandoned chapel that was originally dedicated to St. Michael. According to what I found on the internet, there was a chapel at this place already around the year 1200. About 500 years later, in the early 1700s, the chapel had long fallen in disuse and must have been in a rather sorry state. John Aislabie, the man who then owned a lot of land around Ripon (including the site where Fountains Abbey's ruins stood), decided to make it part of his garden scheme at Studley Royal, which you have seen a few times already on my blog (and will see again when I am back home and can transfer the pictures from my camera to the computer).
Today, at the bottom of How Hill is a cluster of holiday cottages run by the National Trust. There is also a farm, and the hill is full of sheep... and what comes out of a sheep's rear end.
We managed to find a spot where we could sit and have the cheese scones we had bought the same morning at Ripon market at the top of the hill, right next to the abandoned and boarded-up chapel. The view from there is wonderful - see for yourself! My sister took these pictures and the video with her mobile phone.
One can see not only Ripon Cathedral, but apparently even York Minster and all the way to the White Horse (where we were last year; if you type "White Horse" into the search box at the top left corner of my blog, you will find the pictures). I must admit I was unable to spot York Minster, but we did recognize the White Horse.
We like being silly :-) Can you also hear the "Benny Hill Show" theme in your head when watching this?
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