Monday morning was foggy and wet. Nonetheless, we decided to take a ride for the day to Bridlington, about 27 miles south. That’s an hour’s drive on the back country English roads. Our first stop and main reason for going there was Bondville Model Village. We have rarely visited England without visiting a model village, so add them to the things the English like: tea, gardens, dogs, fish and chips, old estates, etc.
Frankly, the model village was not up to the par of some of the others we have seen. The best was probably Babbacombe in Bristol. Bondville is designed for kids, and the kids there were having a great time. We enjoyed watching them and chatting with parents and grandparents.
Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews show just thumbnails of the pictures
We then circled back into town and part near the church, the Priory Church of St Mary. This was a surprisingly interesting church that was being lovingly cared for by volunteers with whom we had interesting conversations. They currently have a project/exhibition commemorating the soldiers of the Green Howards (see next section) who gave their lives in World War I. They are creating cardboard cutouts in the shape of a soldier for each of the soldiers who died in the War. The picture of the memorial board shows how many there were. The Priory is most of what’s left of a huge medieval monastery.
Nearby the Priory is the Bayle Museum. In the Middle ages, the Bayle was the entrance to the 900 year old Augustinian Priory. Now it;s just a gatehouse in which you can visit the three floors and see exhibits from Bridlington’s past. Perhaps the most interesting part was to learn about the Green Howards. The Green Howards were (are) the Yorkshire Regiment of the British Army. They have a storied history.
Then it was time for lunch. We drove down to the waterfront/harbor area and parked. We went into a pub and ordered beer and wine and perused the menu. Luckily, it wasn’t appealing, so we finished our drinks and moved on. I say luckily because then we happened upon Bridlington Spa, the city’s theatre and cultural center which contains a nice cafe. They had a lovely buffet for just £4.95, and it was absolutely delicious. Just the ticket with more beer and wine. And it overlooked one of the prettiest beaches in the UK. While we ate, we watched the RNLI lifeboat being launched. According to the servers, it was not a drill. The lifeboat went out and was circling around, obviously looking for something. We will never know what as they were still out when we left.
Back to Hi Ho and home. It was actually dry and not very foggy while we were in Bridlington, but home in Whitby, there was rain and fog. Tomorrow the weather should improve. Dinner at home was simple: grilled cheese and ham sandwiches.
Very cool pictures. Looked like UK’s own LegoLand!
Enjoy the cool, it was our first 110 degree day yesterday.