Our Northern Ways: The Mills of Yorkshire

| Salt Mill in Yorkshire – the inspiration for Malbrough Mills, perhaps? |

England Trip 2015 Travel Journal
Sunday, March 29 – Part One

What a country! Today was quite a literary and historic adventure. We visited the Brontë Parsonage and an old woolen mill in a countryside dotted all over with mills – some abandoned, some repurposed – on wild, windy hills. I felt like I'd been dropped into North & South, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre! Truly.

There is nothing like Yorkshire scenery!

These surroundings obviously contributed so much to the stories and literary styles of Mrs. Gaskell and the Brontë sisters. The wild and rugged scenery, with heaps of clouds swirling furiously across the grey sky and the constant wind seem to have bred the independent spirit of their fierce characters, and woven itself into the stories themselves. It begins to weave itself into you if you stand out in it long enough!

We were on our way to Keighly (pronounced "keeth-lee") where some 'North & South' scenes were filmed, when we saw a sign for Salt Mill, a preserved historical site (indicated by the sign's brown color). So I made the decision to take a quick detour to explore it and to see the inside of a textile mill. It was basically on our way, after all, and it turned out to be an exciting, memorable experience!

Salt Mill with its smokestack.

On the third floor is an exhibit on the history of the mill, opened in 1853 by Titus Salt, and it was considered to be a model mill in its time, innovative with its technology and clean working conditions. (He sounds a bit like Mr. Thornton to me.) There were two original machines on display, and imagining one of these enormous rooms packed with rows and rows of them helped me to understand better than I ever had before Margaret Hale's initial repugnance at the idea of a mill, and especially of mill owners, as well as her pity of the working people. My understanding was quite vivid, in fact. The monotony of the nose and confinement oppressed my very imagination. And that was looking at an exceptionally comfortable mill!

Original machines from Salt Mill, used in making wool cloth.

One of the upper floors of the mill, now a little museum.

The back of Salt Mill

The ground floor of the mill. It's rather beautiful now, making it a bit hard to imagine it filled with the whir of machines.

A model of Salt Mill – it's like a small city!

 The third floor had an impressive view of the town outside – a town that looks exactly like I imagine Milton would look, with its grey stone and the spires of other mills dotting the skyline.

The town of Shipley, looking out from Salt Mill.
Doesn't it look like Milton??

North & South was set in a real time and based on real places and people so seeing these real cities and mills brought that history so much closer. It almost felt real enough to touch. This is why I love to travel! Well, one big reason.

A project to remember the people who worked in Salt Mill.
Here is Sarah Ann Morton – who knows, maybe we're related! That made history seem really close...

© 2016 Anna Morton

York the Magnificent

| The mighty York Minster |

England Trip 2015
Saturday, March 28

(10:56 PM) I am greatly enjoying my chocolate malted bar recommended by our poet barista Josh at the Costa Coffee in York. :) He was pleasantly friendly, chatting with me while Mom was off, and we had the longest conversation that I've ever had with anyone besides Mom since we got here. There is something special about making human contact while you're traveling because you find you have things in common with people and you learn some insightful things that you didn't expect.

Our barista Josh made clear that he doesn't like the busy-ness of London, preferring the slower and friendlier way of life in the north – another northerner who loves his part of the country. :)

Then I discovered that he loves poetry – he actually loves sitting by the river and writing it himself! We do differ on what sort of poetry, as his favorites are '50s beat poets, but he also enjoys 18th century novels. :) It was discovering that I studied English literature that brought on the subject. Much of this conversation surprised me, I admit, because I guess I didn't expect to meet a young working man in York who loves literature – even though I should have known better than to have any such preconceptions! After all, I've seen 'North & South' about fifty times! Oh well, I'm glad to say that I was pleasantly surprised out of my prejudices, not unlike Miss Margaret Hale. ;)

That was at the end of our day in York, so I will now say something about the rest of it, starting with the beginning.

We took advantage of the Park and Ride from the outlets on the south side of York, which dropped us nearby to the city's center and most of it's famous sights.

The Shambles in York

We had splendid weather! More glorious sunshine passing in and out of the clouds, lighting up the Minster and the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey beautifully. The latter would have put Marianne Dashwood into raptures, it was so picturesque.

We walked through the famous Shambles first, which is also picturesque, but a tad touristy with its shops and tea rooms. (FYI: "The Shambles" is where a large chunk of Tudor buildings have been preserved.) Still, its Tudor architecture is worth seeing because it takes you back in time in an amazing way! The slightly off-kilter buildings lean into each other over the street just like on a postcard.

We found these fellows over a shop window.

As we left The Shambles from this street in the photo above we entered a sort of square where a weekly market was going on. There were lots of fun local vendors selling crafts, toys, a dangerous number of delicious desserts....

A market at York.

....and some deerstalker hats.

How could I resist?
(Technically it was Mom's idea... Well, the collar bit was mine.)

We almost missed Molly's Tea Room because it is tucked away above an antique store. So when you follow the map to the spot you can't see it from the street. They had the most delicious looking cakes, so we had to have some after our pea soup and our cheese and chutney sandwiches. Another lovely touch was the lady charge calling everyone 'love' or 'darlin''. :) That never gets old!

Me with my lemon poppy seed cake and tea
at Molly's Tea Rooms

Mom with her coffee and walnut cake
in Molly's Tea Room

Split pea soup with a sandwich.

We glimpsed York Minster (the famous and enormous church) and found a used bookshop with seven rooms of books around the corner... How we got out of there in fifteen minutes is mystery.

The Museum Gardens with the Abbey ruins is just down the street. (Everything in York is nicely close together. It was constantly surprising me.) It is a lovely park! There are Roman, Medieval and Tudor ruins, and it was lush and green with daffodils and tulips everywhere.

The Roman wall in the Museum Gardens.

St. Mary's Abbey ruins in the Museum Gardens, built in the 14th century and destroyed by Henry VIII in the 16th century.

It's the epitome of a picturesque scene! (Picturesque in the 18th century romantic sense, that is.)
St. Mary's Abbey ruins.

Proof that we were there. :)

We found the Minster again, and Mom thought we should try going in even though it was closed by then. But this time being a rebel paid off. We went in the open door and realized that it was 5:14, which meant that we got to stay inside and listen to the evensong service that was to begin at 5:15! We stood in the corner listening to the choir and we got to take pictures. A total win. (Unlike in Westminster Abbey where one is never allowed to take pictures.) It was filled with that glorious golden light, making the warm stone glow and the stained glass windows jump out from the walls in vivid color.

There it is: York Minster!

We'd heard of its reputation for being enormous, and boy did it live up to that. It's massive!

The nave (or whatever it's called... it's the main part of the building, anyway).

One of the stained glass windows above us.

Later we found the city wall, which gives a great view of York. That is another Roman remnant – they're everywhere! York almost feels like a history book with its variety of architecture from the Romans to the Normans to the medieval period to the Tudors to the present day. Mom and I just loved it!

The Roman wall around York. One of the most complete of its kind at over two miles long.

Climbing up on the wall gives you a fabulous view of the Minster.

It was nearly dark, so after stopping by Clifford's Tower (built by William the Conqueror in the 1080s), we caught the park and ride bus back to the Outlets, stopped by Sainsbury's, and made it home safely.

Another bastion of William the Conqueror: Clifford's Tower, right in the middle of York.

© 2016 Anna Morton

Yorkshire: It's the North

| The wild scenery of Yorkshire. |

England Trip 2015

Friday, March 27 

What we're full of now is our cottage and its wild Yorkshire surroundings. No matter where we've been in this county the view is simply historic. Even the trees radiate history! I can just see Richard III or Hotspur riding about while looking fierce in their cloaks and girded with swords. (I wish I would see Hotspur, specifically in the guise of Joe Armstrong...)

The trees are bare, except for the blossoms bursting out alongside the leaves. The sun was casting a glorious golden light, making all that fierce nature glow.

But we're supposed to lose the sun tomorrow to the presence of a definite rain, but I'm hoping for a sudden change that will prove the predictions wrong. Yet the sun today was one of the many things that reminded me how God is taking care of us, because it would have been utter chaos and terror for Mom (and me) trying to drive in the rain. I cannot be thankful enough that God spared us from that!

It was quite nerve-wracking enough without the rain. But Mom showed her skill with a stick shift, and God showed His love in protecting us. :) Its a little red Renault – quite snazzy – and by tomorrow it will be quite insured, no thanks to me.

The boot of our snazzy rental car.

Apparently all UK car rental companies must include CDWs (Collision Damage Waivers) in contracts – which nulls any coverage your credit card will give you (at least the one we had with Mastercard) – but if you book on a US website the CDW is (for us) conveniently optional. Thankfully we were able to change to another level of travel insurance that includes a zero deductible (we only had to cancel our current plan and buy the other for our remaining time). 

I am rather fond of World Nomad travel insurance after today. As we recovered in the New Moon pub in Collingham from our first terrifying leg on the road Mom got in touch with them and found out the good news (after she waited on hold a little and we prayed a lot). A cup of tea was so comforting just at that moment!

Landing in England! We're home!

And now we are relishing the comfort of the cottage we are allowed to call home for four days. It feels nearly as good as home! Coming back to England made me feel so happy, and compared to Paris and Haarlem it actually feels familiar.

Except for the accents.

I love these accents. It's like we've been dropped into North & South! Our immigration officer had a textbook northern accent, and when we told him about our visit he said, "We're very proud of our country up here" (or, more accurately, "oop eer" :) ). He was friendly, replying to my comment that London is different from where I come from by saying, "I think London is different from anywhere." :)

Our lovely lodgings in the quaint village of Selby.

Our host has a southern (English) accent, and is a very sweet lady, who appears to enjoy gardening with her husband in their large and lovely garden. They seem to be fairly well off, educated, hospitable people, providing us with Twining's tea and stacks of Yorkshire magazines and travel resources. I have put together a pile of books and magazines for my entertainment. :)

Studying up on my Yorkshire knowledge and history. ;)

Time for tea!!

© 2016 Anna Morton

I'm Back! The Ten Booms in the Original Haarlem

| Our first journey into Haarlem, The Netherlands' smaller, but still unforgettable city. |

Note: One last entry from memory! Which is one reason why this post has been so delayed, for which I apologize. But I hope you enjoy hearing of our jaunt into Haarlem, one of the pleasantest cities I've yet to visit!

Never have I been so pleasantly surprised by any city on our travels as I was with Haarlem. To be honest, I was a little nervous about visiting a country where we knew absolutely nothing of the language, nor had done hours of research to understand the culture. But all of our fears were needless, for The Netherlands seems to be home to the nicest people, who all want to practice their English on you. :)

We left the Gare du Nord on a Thalys train quite early in the morning. It was quite pleasant to arrive at the station in time and without rushing like maniacs on our way there, huffing and puffing with all of our baggage. We got to walk down the platform in a leisurely fashion and take our seats like normal people. We had breakfast from the dining car while watching the French countryside go by. We went through Brussells, Antwerp and Rotterdam, craning our necks to see what we could of those unfamiliar places, before arriving in Amsterdam to take the train into Haarlem.

We had a little trouble finding our way around the station. One would think that finding a ticket window would be simple. Oh, and finding a working ATM was even worse! I think we asked about three people before locating one that worked.

Our train had two levels, and we took seats on the top to have a better view of this fascinating and unknown country, lying under a dreary grey sky, though it was. Now, if you ever visit a completely unknown city, always get directions to you accommodations, or you will wander around said city for ages trying to figure out where in the world you are even going.

As you might guess, we did not follow the aforementioned advice. A very helpful security man in the train station tried to direct us to our AirBNB based on its address, as did a bus driver and a nice lady on the street. But to no avail. The street was nowhere to be found. Finally an older lady who had once lived on that street was able to give us definite directions – thank the Lord! However, we were running out of time to visit the Ten Boom museum, so we decided to find it before we walked across town to our AirBNB.

Any excuse for some Dutch coffee and cake!

We needed wifi in order to contact our host, since we were already rather later that we had told him we would be, so we found a sort of cafe in a clothing shop to rest our feet and have an energizing cup of coffee while we got online. We couldn't resist the idea of some apple cake, too...

Our host was very kind, getting back to us right away to tell us we could arrive whenever we were done touring the museum. So we popped into the Ten Boom house to inquire after tour times, and happily there was an English tour coming up. We bought our tickets, then, with an hour to spare we decided to check out the local shops. There was a sort of miniature Ikea/Tuesday Morning sort of shop with all sorts of fun knick knacks and home stuff that we enjoyed perusing, and we bought a a few little odd things like a Union Jack luggage tag (of all things), chocolate and a tea bag holder with pretty little blue wooden shoes painted on it. We found something practical, too: plastic rain ponchos to cover our luggage. It sort of worked... They did keep our luggage from being soaked by the rain, at least.

The Ten Boom family museum.

What an amazing experience – absolutely unforgettable. Our tour guide around the Ten Boom museum was a little elderly Dutch lady who had lived in Haarlem during the Nazi occupation of WWII. What a woman she was! Not only did she have a strong spirit and great compassion as she shared Christ and the gospel more than once, but she was such a character, often making us laugh with her humorous little comments. On the tour with us there were a couple other Americans, an English couple, a family from Romania (I think) and a couple of German ladies. We all sat in the parlor where the Ten Boom family would have gathered to conduct church services or play games with the Jews they were hiding. It was small, but cozy, and had a clock or two that were actually made by Mr. Ten Boom himself.

The door to the Ten Boom museum.

The upstairs bedroom, which was Corrie's, was the most chilling and at the same time the most thrilling. It was where the Jews who were waiting to be smuggled out of the country were hidden whenever the Nazi soldiers came to search the house. They would all climb in through the linen closet...



... And then hide out in the narrow space behind the wall. The wall itself was fascinating because it was specially constructed out of brick – and this was because if someone knocks on the wall it doesn't sound hollow like wood does. And the Nazi soldiers would go around knocking on peoples' walls to check for hiding places.

Mom behind the Ten Boom wall.

And me... It felt a little small. I couldn't imagine
being stuck in there for days! And sometimes
they were.

From the rooftop of the Ten Boom museum.

The next stop was the rooftop. It was an important place during the war years because it was where the hiding Jews would come to get some much-needed fresh air once in a while. There are walls up there, which hides them while allowing them an opportunity to get outside.

It was an inspiring and humbling experience to see this house in person, to be in the places where there had been so much fear and yet so much kindness and bravery – the Ten Booms had faith in God's promises to Israel, that those who blessed Israel would be blessed by God, and hundreds of people escaped through that families ministry as a result.

After our tour we took some time to walk around the city. It seems like a sort of northern European version of Venice, with it's unique architecture and lovely canals. Even on such a gloomy day the red brick and pointed rooftops gave this city so much charm!

The canals of Haarlem.

St. Bavo Square, Haarlem

We finished our day in St. Bavo Square, dominated by the gargantuan, yet somehow not overpowering, Cathedral of St. Bavo.

Cathedral of St. Bavo

We chose to eat dinner at a restaurant in the square, because we couldn't resist having a view like this! The restaurant was Brinkmann and got good ratings on TripAdvisor. But we had a bit to learn about ordering in Dutch restaurants, and about Dutch servers in particular, which I will now share for everyone's future reference. It's quite simple, once you know. But if you don't know then you will have to learn the slow way like we did, and I literally mean slow. We had been sitting at our table for maybe fifteen minutes without even a glance from a server, when a couple at the table next to us took pity on our confused looks and asked us if they could help. It was then that we told them our dilemma and they explained that in the Netherlands diners must always physically wave down their server before they will come to your table.

The fact that we Americans don't usually do this in our restaurants gave this couple a mild moment of panic since they, being Dutch and having visited America, were waiving down their servers during their time in the States. But we reassured them that American servers wouldn't mind – we do have a reputation for being friendly and informal, after all. :)

Our food came after we flagged down our server, and we had a fun time chatting with our helpful neighbors while we ate. They were as friendly as every other Dutch person we'd met, and enjoyed telling us about their travels in the US and the UK, which we were happy to hear. They were also the ones who informed us that Dutch children learn English from an elementary school age, and that whenever a Dutch person meets an native English speaker they want to practice their English with you. :) So it's hard for English speakers to practice their Dutch!



I have not yet mentioned our accommodations and the pleasant surprise we discovered there, which I shall now do. We did eventually find the place, and it was down a quiet street across a canal, with vines growing up over it's front. The rooms were not large, but clean and cheerful, and our host welcomed us by making us a nice warm cup of homemade cocoa, which the chilly weather outside made even more lovely. After talking to him a bit about our adventures of the day and what it was like for him growing up and living in the Netherlands, we discovered that his entire family was Christian! And not only that, but we shared the common struggle of finding a church committed to preaching Biblical truth.

There is nothing like meeting a fellow brother or sister in Christ who lives halfway around the world... They are family, and you can tell that bond is there just by talking with them for a few minutes. It's amazing!

He carried our suitcases up the narrowest, steepest little staircase I have ever climbed, and to our room. It was pink! The bedding, decor, chair cushions, and even a bit of wall paper and paint (which of course I loved, as it is my favorite color). It was as warm and cheerful as the Dutch people themselves.

Our pink room in Haarlem.

We returned from our dinner well after dark, and dragged ourselves out of bed at six the next morning so we could get to the airport on the city bus. Our host had promised us breakfast, which in itself was an exciting prospect, but we were not prepared for the bounty that appeared on those trays!

Our breakfast in Haarlem.

Yes, we each got our own. We had coffee, tea, cocoa, milk, orange juice, an egg, a huge slice of homemade bread, yogurt, a tangerine, a banana, ham, cheese and cereal. We knew a minor catastrophe had occurred when we heard quite a crash on the stairs, which turned out to be one of our trays on its way up. But another one was quick to appear. :) It was delicious! The bread was especially a treat, and it was sad to have to leave any of it. But no matter how much I wanted to finish it, there was no way that I could.

We made it out in good time, and happily we had a crisp sunny morning while we walked to the bus stop. It went straight to the airport from the center of the city and dropped us off right in front of the Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport about 45 minutes later.

That is one nice airport! I loved it. It's new, clean and pleasant; although these aspects were certainly enhanced by the fact that we were there in plenty of time and didn't have to rush around.

Our destination was the Leeds-Bradford airport in Yorkshire on a Jet2 flight, but I shall defer my account of our arrival there to my next post.

Thanks for reading! It's good to be back. :)


© 2016 Anna Morton