Google is a wonderful thing and it allowed us to get background on the owners of this property.
The owner is John de Bruyne the son of Norman de Bruyne who was the inventor of Araldite glue
In 2010 the property had a value of £4.7m
We took the following photos this morning
The library
The main entrance
The honesty bar
The main building from the gardens
Looking down on the garden from the roof terrace
Today we moved on to Cambridge which was about a 3 hour drive south from York and is a/the University city housing the 31 colleges which make up the renowned Cambridge University.
Our accommodation is in a very graceful English mansion built in the 1700s known as Anstey Hall
Having arrived in Cambridge we parked the vehicle at the Hall and took the park and ride the 3 or so miles into the City.
Like most of the cities we have visited on this trip Cambridge oozes beauty with the University buildings scattered throughout the city and the River Cam meandering through the town with numerous punts making a graceful sight
The city centre retail area also has its own grace and if one isn't careful you would get knocked over by one of the many bicycles that silently creep up on you as you wander the streets not conscious of anything other than what has attracted your intention - The students and even the not so young obviously enjoy getting around on the two wheelers.
The traffic in the area was diabolical at evening rush hour as the bus taking us home was around 40 mins late getting to the pickup point and then took another 45 mins to travel the 3 miles to Trumpington where the Hall is located.
For dinner we walked from the Hall to another village about a mile away and in doing so passed Lord Jeffrey Archer's home "The Old Vicarage" which was built in 1685
On the way back from dinner we spent a short time watching a game of cricket being played on the "village green" - the time was 8.30pm and there were 8 overs of a 20/20 game still to be bowled
Tomorrow we do it all again!
Posted with Blogsy
It is said that everyone of us has a double somewhere else in theWorld and so far on this trip we have seen doubles of:
Bjorn Ulvaeus of Abba
Sir Richard Hadlee
The late Robin Williams
Steve Franklin (our gardener!)
After today we are museumed out as this morning we went
to the Yorkshire Castle Museum which was in the old
Women's and Debtors prison.
It was a very interesting insight into life in York and for that
matter England through the 1800 & 1900s. There were scenes
of various rooms from houses of the period which were very
realistic and also there was a street which one walked
through and it was as if you were actually living at that time
York has numerous tourist attractions one of which is the National Railway Museum which we spent the morning at today - interestingly the museum is a free entry attraction unlike the majority in this part of the world. Yesterday for example we paid £10.00 each to go into the York Minster.
If you are a train buff or even have a mild interest in rail then this is the place to go. We didn't see Thomas The Tank Engine but there were examples of many other locomotives from the steam era right through to a Shinkansen!
The Gladstone in the top photo is a B1 class loco built in December 1882 and remained in service until April 1927 and is the only preserved B1 class.
Some where in the UK is a railway station with a name we are familiar with and they also have on display the longest place name in Europe and second longest in the world behind our own
One could spend many hours in this museum but time did not allow so we had to move off to another museum we had wanted to go to - The Jorvik Viking Centre where there are well preserved remains of the Viking city Jorvik which archaeologists discovered in the years 1976-1981.
There is also a tour through an imaginary city which depicts life in that city in the period around 900 AD
Leaving the centre late in the afternoon we then walked another section of the wall around the town, this section perhaps not as scenic as yesterday's section because of the absence of a modern safety rail gave a more realistic impression of how it was in its heyday
Still more to see tomorrow
...and I never played golf today but I scored one on the drive from Sunderland to York this morning. It was a rather large individual that struck the left front of the Peugeot with some force but alas there was only one winner as the explosion of feathers was to prove.
We arrived in York around lunchtime and immediately started to explore this semi-walled city.
There are some narrow streets free of pedestrians with quaint retail shops in a street called
We walked a section of the wall which also gave good aerial views of some typical English gardens
The wall was in the area of the Minister, a cathedral which was first constructed starting around 1000. It is one of the largest cathedrals in Northern Europe
We have more to explore of York tomorrow with the hope that it is slightly warmer!
Today in the UK it is Father's Day so I get to enjoy two of those in 2015 and in this hemisphere it is also the Summer solstice so there will be approx 17 hours of sunshine (let's be honest and just call it daylight) today
Our drive from Edinburgh to Sunderland took us down the A6 and at times we had good views of the North Sea
It seemed an eternity before we crossed back into England and the only sign that we were was a layby where the English flag was fluttering
During the drive I was receiving text updates from home on the Warriors game and their comprehensive win made the drive that much more enjoyable.
Around lunchtime we arrived in Sunderland. We were not expecting much and we haven't been disappointed though having said that we enjoyed a visit to the National Glass Centre where we saw a glass blowing exhibition
after which we walked to Sunderland's own "Viaduct"
before driving towards Seaburn where we had a walk along the Roker Pier which was first constructed in 1904
The Black Caps were playing the final ODI about 20 miles away at Chester-Le-Street and if you followed that game you will know that the weather was suspect through the better part of the day but from around 4.30pm onwards the sun broke through to give a pleasant evening.
On reflection perhaps Sunderland was a little better than we imagined it to be!
Not far from our accommodation is Arthur's Seat so this morning we decided to go and have a look.
It is a lookout some 251m up on top of an extinct volcano & gives a fine view out across the city and The Firth of Forth.
The route we choose was said to be the "medium" effort climb but it wasn't too long before we realised that by the time we got to the top we would have raised a sweat & raise a sweat we surely did as we clambered up some relatively step and rough terrain.
Arrived at the top and was very disappointed - there was no bloody seat!
But there was a fine view
After regaining some strength in the legs we started off back down walking some of the way with a tourist from Sweden who had twice visited New Zealand.
The route down had us back at ground level in the vicinity of the Palace of Holyrood House and from there we took a bus to Leith where the Royal Yacht Britannia is an attraction.
For the next 2 or so hours we toured around the vessel - it was a well set out tour allowing visitors to gain a very good impression of the running of the vessel as well as the luxury that the Royals enjoyed
It is a small world and nothing made that more apparent than what occurred this afternoon. When we bussed back into the City it was a very different City than we had noted in previous days - there was traffic and people everywhere, queues of cars & buses, shoppers galore.
We were walking up Bridge Rd from New Town to Old Town when Sherry started waving to someone on a passing bus - it was the Swedish tourist we had met some 6 hours earlier on the climb.
After a very nice meal in an Indian restaurant we made our way back to our accommodation for the last time in Edinburgh.
I guess I need to comment on the weather after previous comments over the past two days - today was significantly improved on yesterday as it was about 1 degree warmer however the wind which had been the problem was not present to the same extent and as a consequence it felt 5-10 degrees warmer.
Would we come back to Edinburgh? Yes provided we could be guaranteed warm weather!