Kirkham Priory and Yorkshire Honey from Galgate

Up north all those days and somehow I'd missed seeing my mate, Jill, who was down in Shropshire. Bally poor timing.  But Jill, being resilient and resourceful, arranged at the last moment for us to meet up at Kirkham Priory, between Malton and York.  So we did. 

And it was beautiful.  












Like Bolton Abbey with its legend of the drowning of William de Romilly (the Boy of Egremont), Kirkham Priory is also associated with a premature death, that of the son of Walter l'Espec who was killed when his horse was startled by a boar. That incident led to his father founding the abbey in his remembrance in the 1120s.

The still impressive gatehouse was built almost two centuries later, c1290-5. 

This is John Piper's depiction, dating from 1988.

We arrived before Jill so had a wander about.

 

When Jill arrived, we popped into the gift shop to get some coffee and ice cream, and I sniffed out a couple of gifts for my parents. I have to say, the jars of Yorkshire honey from Galgate puzzled me. I know Galgate - it's the nearest village to the campus of the University of Lancaster, where I was a student in the early 1980s. And it's in Lancashire.

'Ah, but they're Yorkshire bees,' said the woman at the till.

And then we sat for a bit and contemplated the ruins. Something of which we've done a lot lately.