Day 16 - Longborough to Sutton-in-Craven via Coventry Cathedral

We were rather sad to leave our home in Longborough.  It really is a lovely little village.  And it is little.  A lot of places are called villages, but seem rather big for such a title.  

One of the programs I like to watch on TV is Escape to the Country.  It's always fascinated me how close the houses/cottages are to the road, and how close major roads are to the houses.  Now we can see why.  Some houses have a wall on the street/road, then the village grows and the road gets used more.  I don't suppose the original builder/owner ever conceived of traffic as it is today.

Navigating the roads can be quite an experience, knowing who is going to give way, and then checking to make sure they have given way!  As with everything in life, some people are polite and helpful and some are not.

We had a longish journey in front of us, about 3 hours 40 mins and 285 kms according to the GPS taking the motorway.  I wanted to take Peter in to see Coventry Cathedral.  As the old cathedral was bombed in the Blitz in 1940 and a new cathedral has been built next to the bombed out shell of the old  cathedral.  It is a very moving memorial to the people who lost their lives and an amazing piece of architecture and design.  The stained glass is amazing as is the huge weaving above the altar.

For once travelling into a city was quite easy and we found the parking for the cathedral without too much trouble.  We went up to the cathedral and there, if you only wish to visit the ruins of the older cathedral it is free, and on Fridays, which it was, there is a short prayer service at Noon, in memory of the fallen.  If you wish to see inside the new cathedral you pay an entrance fee.  I fully recommend visiting the new cathedral.  I've included a picture of the major stained glass window, it is very hard to photograph because the centre of the window is very pale, radiating out to very dark red, greens, blues...  The contrast is hard and even the postcard the cathedral had available doesn't do it justice.  Another thing about the cathedral is there are lots of art works and other memorials to the devastation during WW2.

The last piece of stained glass I photographed on a whim because I liked it so much, it was the only detail photo I took!  Then went downstairs to the obligatory shop on the way out...  There they had some copies of stained glass details and one copied onto plastic film which could be attached to a window...  I thought, I'd like one of those, when we got back to the car, I realised it was this same detail!!!!  How amazing is that?

We then drove north.  We had lunch at one of the service stops, which had the food services on a bridge that went the whole way across four lanes of traffic each way.  There was KFC, Burger King, Starbucks and a carvery/bakery on the top floor, toilets, a newsagent and supermarket on the ground floor.  Sitting up on the bridge with the traffic going past underneath was an experience.  Some trucks could make the whole thing move a little.

GPS lady or we have trouble with the instructions when changing from one major road to another, so we were a bit longer getting there, especially because there seem to be very busy roads, and so many roundabouts, which don't work that well with the amount of traffic there is!  There are roundabouts which take you from motor ways to A roads or vice versa, which are so big you loose track of where you are on them and GPS lady says to take the roundabout to London and take the third exit for example, however, you don't WANT London, you want the third exit!  The other problem is, she is usually a bit behind, so, you get the turn left, just as you should be turning left or should have turned left!

Anyway, we got to Keighley and then followed the instructions from the owner of our next home away from home.  These included follow the road up over the crag and then down the other side.  The views were amazing! And it was just as the sun was setting.  We had stopped at a local shop and bought some milk and Indian for dinner - they had frozen homemade chicken madras and peas and potato and rice.  It was delicious but very spicy!

When we got to Banksfoot Farm, our host, Peter met us and showed us thru.  It is another lovely property.  He mentioned that the house is available until Thursday, as we had booed until Monday, and if we wished, we could stay longer.  Both Peter and I are very tired, so we have decided to stay here another two nights as we were going to go via the Lake District, but we can do that from here.  And also visit Hadrian's wall.

This house had a kitchen/diner, very large living room with two sitting areas, a laundry/utility room, so we've managed to get some washing done, and upstairs two bedrooms and the bathroom.  The location is lovely, and Ihope we get to do some walking in the local area as it is lovely.

This last photo is the view from our bedroom window the next morning!  Lovely North Yorkshire!