Motor tours in Yorkshire

by Mrs. Rodolph Stawell

I

THE DALES

In the motorist's life there are hours that can never be forgotten. It may be some hour of sunshine that haunts us, when the warm wind, we remember, was heavy with the scent of gorse or pungent with the stinging breath of the sea; or some hour when the road lay white and straight before us across a moor, and the waves of heather rolled away from us to the horizon in long curves of colour, and as we sped over the miles we seemed no nearer to the shore of the purple sea nor to the end of the white straight road; or it may be, perhaps, the hour of our gradual approach to some ancient city transfigured in the sunset, "soft as old sorrow, bright as old renown." But, whatever the scene may be, whether moor or fen, forest or shore, there are two elements which are always present in the motorist's memory of a happy run—a good surface, and a good engine.

No one could travel in Yorkshire, I think, without adding to his store of unforgotten hours. So great is the variety of scenery and interest that all must somewhere find the landscape that appeals to them. Some will remember those moors of Cleveland that have no visible limit, and some the many-coloured dales of the West Riding, and some the straight roads of the plain where the engine hums so gaily. Some will ever after dream of the day when they followed the course of the wooded Tees; others will dream of the distant towers of York or Beverley, or of the heights and depths of the Buttertubs Pass. And, to be quite frank, there are some to whom this last exciting dream will be rather of the nature of a nightmare.

In more ways than one Yorkshire is a good field for motoring. Throughout the greater part of the county there are few hedges, and the stone walls that take the place of these are low. The roads are wide and their surface good, except in unfrequented places. Now in Yorkshire the places that are unfrequented are very few indeed, and it is in connection with this fact that the motorist has the greatest advantage over every other kind of tourist. He can choose his own time for visiting Bolton or Fountains or the incomparable Rievaulx; he can see them when the dew is on the grass and the glamour of solitude is in the woods. To be alone with our emotions is what we all desire in the presence of wide spaces or stately aisles; and in this county, where there is so much beauty to be seen and so many to see it, those only who possess "speed as a chattel" can ever hope to be alone. It is almost impossible to lay too much stress on our advantages, as motorists, in this matter of securing peace.

Looking back upon a tour among the Yorkshire dales, I see that the keynote was struck at the very outset by the little town of Skipton, with its grey granite houses and slated roofs, its wide street and the castle above it, the ancient church and the tombs of the great. Such are a hundred Yorkshire villages and little towns. Each of them, it seems, is connected with some historic name. In the case of Skipton the name is Clifford. If the first builders of the castle and the church were not Cliffords, but de Romilles, it was the Cliffords who made both castle and church what they now are. It was a Clifford who built the long gallery and the octagon tower that we see beyond the grass of the great outer court; it was a Clifford who repaired all the other towers; a Clifford who devised the curious shell-pictures that line the guardroom; Cliffords who lived for centuries in the castle, and the few Cliffords that died in their beds who enriched the church with their tombs. Their motto, "Désormais," stands up against the sky in letters of stone above the round towers of their gateway, and their arms are carved above the inner door. The court on which this door opens, the "Conduit Court," as it is called, is the very core of Skipton, and one of the most romantic places I have ever seen. It would seize the dullest imagination—this little paved enclosure shut in on every side, the long flight of steps, the doorways with the crumbling carvings, the mullioned windows, the yew-tree that has seen so many centuries, the low stone seat with its shields, the Norman archway through which all the Cliffords have passed. Most of the feet that came this way awoke ringing echoes under the old arch, for the Cliffords were wont to be dressed in coats of mail. They were all mighty in war. The first armour-clad baron of the name, he who began the building of this court and died at Bannockburn, has clattered through this doorway; and after him the hero of Créçy; and later on that other who fought for Henry V. and died at Meaux; and he who fell at St. Albans in the cause of Lancaster; and his son and avenger, called "the Butcher," who slew that "fair gentleman and maiden-like person," the young Earl of Rutland, and was himself slain at Towton; and the great sailor, Cumberland, who made nine voyages and fought the Spaniards for Queen Elizabeth. Here, too, when he came to his own at last, has stood that strange, romantic figure, the Shepherd Lord, who spent his youth in hiding among the northern hills, yet who, despite his love of solitude and learning, could not forget his long ancestry of fighting men, and himself fought on Flodden Field.

Among all these heroes the kings who have come through this doorway cut rather a sorry figure: Edward II., a sorry figure in any company; Richard III., a usurper here as in larger courts, playing the master while the true lord of Skipton was keeping sheep; and Henry VIII., who came here to take part in a wedding—a spectator for once. The bride on this occasion was his niece, Eleanor Brandon, the daughter of that love-match that was so great a failure, between the Duke of Suffolk and Mary, Princess of England and Queen Dowager of France. The wedding ceremony took place in the long gallery, which was built for the occasion by the bridegroom's father. Lady Eleanor's granddaughter, Lady Pembroke, was more closely connected with this spot where we are standing than any Clifford who came before her.

THE CONDUIT COURT, SKIPTON CASTLE.