Tales of a Ricardian Traveler – Part Two: Rievaulx Abbey and Helmsley Castle
Lady on Horseback, mid-15th c., British Museum
My previous Travel Tales blog talked about the Forest of Bowland and Skipton. Today, we’re going to two places that sometimes get forgotten by the traveler who is interested in visiting places having some Richard III connections: Rievaulx Abbey and Helmsley Castle.
Rievaulx Abbey – Refectory and undercroft
From our temporary homebase in Ripon-Masham, we drove 30 miles to visit one of the gems of English medieval history. Like Fountains and Byland Abbeys, Rievaulx was one of the great Cistercian monasteries of medieval Europe, and its ruins are said to be the “most complete” of any of the dissolved religious houses in England. It has one of the most spectacular natural settings within a deep valley in the North York Moors National Park; however, to take a photograph from the best vantage point one has to pay an admission price of…
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