Knaresborough

Knaresborough is a market town on the River Nidd in North Yorkshire, three miles east of Harrogate. It has a castle, but somehow we missed that - though we only had two hours, and that included lunch! Probably the most famous feature is the railway viaduct, which is 80' high. The market square is even higher above the river.

We will start at the bottom and work our way up.

This is the River Nidd. looking downstream, towards its confluence with the River Ouse at Nun Monkton. In the centre of the photo, in the distance, you can see rock side of the gorge the river has cut. The castle is over that way somewhere.


Looking the other way, from about the same position, the viaduct! The original viaduct was built in 1848, and collapsed before it was completed. The replacement was completed in 1851, and apparentky was built rather better,


Heading under the right arch, the path passes the Old Manor House, the oldest building in the town, decorated in a curious chequered pattern. It is a thirteenth century hunting lodge originally built for King John.


We turn right now, to go up the wonderfully named - and vey steep - Water Bag Bank. This is the view from the top looking back down.


At the top is a level crossing. Given how hilly the town is, they must have worked really hard to justify one. I think nowadays it is only for pedestrians. This is the signal box for the level crossing; it looks more like a house.


Unlike so many stations, Knareborough station has maintained its original buildings.


Above the station is the High Street. This is looking back down the hill. If you look along the left side there is a white two-story building and then a white three-story building behind that. The railway runs in a tunnel under the two-story building.


The Nat West bank closed in 2017, and is now Bar 1858. What is the significance of 1858? I have been unable to discover; it might be when the bank was built, but I would have guessed it was later than that.


The High Street takes us to the market square, which is used for parking when there is no market. I realised I never got a photo of the market cross. However, it is surrounded by numerous attractive buildings.



There are any number of little streets and quirky buildings.




Knaresborough is a great little town, well worth a visit, as long as you can walk up steep hills!












Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prague Part One, The River

Image
Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic, and former capital of Bohemia. I was there three days, and it is a fair-sized city, so this is the first of four parts. Other parts are here: Prague Part Two, East of the River Prague Part Three, West of the River Prague Part Four, Getting Around I was lucky enough to get a view of the city as my aeroplane came into the airport. So let us start with the river and its bridges. The Vltava is the longest river in the Czech Republic, and flows generally northwards to join the Elbe at Mělník, which in turn discharges into the North Sea northwest of Hamburg. It is crossed by 18 bridges in Prague. In the image above, you can see four of them. The one at the bottom is the most famous; the Charles Bridge. Above it is the Legion Bridge, then the Jirásek Bridge and at the top the Palacký Bridge. The Charles Bridge is the big tourist attraction, and was packed with people whenever we saw it. This is a view looking east along the bridge. Co...
Read more

Cardiff

Image
Obviously Cardiff is the capital of Wales, but it only achieved that status in 1955, and indeed only became a city in 1905. As this mile post makes clear, it was just a town in 1835. Indeed, in 1800 it was a rather small town, with a population on only about 2000, but over the course of the nineteenth century it became huge! The growth was due to the work of John Crichton-Stuart, Second Marquess of Bute; a Scotsman who owned a big chunk of South Wales, and saw an opportunity to make a lot of money by developing docks in Cardiff to serve the growing coal and steel industries in the valleys to the north. Todays the docks are a shadow of their former glory. though much of the area has now been redeveloped. This image is a good starting point, showing Cardiff bay. At one time this would have been the scene of intense industry, but today a barrage has been built across the entrance to the bay (centre of the photo), and no ships can enter. It is no longer tidal. To the left, you can see ...
Read more

The Blue Pipes of Berlin

Image
At various points around Berlin you can see blue pipes (and occasionally pink pipes) heading along streets. I have never seen anything like that in any other city, and was intrigued to find out more. Berlin was built on a swamp, and when construction work is being done, water is a big problem. It needs to be pumped away, so the construction company installs a pipeline. This image has a section that is disconnected from the rest. Left over from an earlier installation? The pipes are about 10 cm in diameter, and connected with bolted flanges so can presumably be readily assembled and disassembled. It is supported on posts of similar pipes, set into blocks on concrete, with loose fitting at the top that might support two or even three pipes at a time. the variation is height is probably just for negotiating strange angles, but might also help with expansion and contraction. Here you can see where it enters the water, briefly painted yellow. The arrangement in the water may be designed to ...
Read more