Sheriff Hutton Castle; found it at last

I've driven through Sheriff Hutton a fair few times and always spot the castle on my way through, but have never seen anything indicating how I get to it, so today on my way back from Yorkshire Lavender in no particular hurry I decided to have a scout around. There are no signs until you are pretty much in front of it and even then they're not obvious, I'm half convinced that if you asked a village resident how to get to the castle they'd deny that they even had one.

Some ruins

 Turns out you need to follow the sign for 'Parish Church' (on the right coming from York) then there are couple of spaces outside the shop where you can park for 20mins (that's all you'll need, unless you're a slow walker). From there you walk further down the lane until you seen a green "public footpath" sign on the right, follow this.

Ruins from a different angle with more trees in the way

You'll walk up a drive way until you find signs for a circular walk around the perimeter of the castle. There's another sign saying that 'bona fide visitors' are welcome provided they call first. Given the circular nature of this walk it doesn't matter which way you go round.

Another view of the ruins

If seeing the crumbling remains of what was probably a great castle from several different angles through varying amounts of folliage then this walk is right up your street. Also if you're trying to kill time before going home after a day out north of York and sitting in a layby for 15mins doesn't appeal, this would also suit you. Or, if you've only ever seen this when driving through the village and you've always wanted to get a slightly closer look then it'll satisfy you too.


The Sheriff Hutton website has a little bit of history about the castle if you're interested: http://www.sheriffhutton.co.uk/history.htm

Yorkshire Lavender

Seeing as how today was lovely and rainy, we decided we should go and spend the day outside like sensible people do. The plan was to go and explore Kirkham Priory, but alas, when we got there we discovered that it was only open Thursday to Sunday (this being Wednesday). Undetered we decided that we would cross back over the A64 and go to Yorkshire Lavender at Terrington. It hailed on our way there, glad I took layers with me.

View from the top

In spite of the slightly unpleasant weather the view from Yorkshire Lavender was still pretty good: you could see Sheriff Hutton castle and two of the three power stations that are visible on a good day. It was about 1pm at this point, so we decided to go for some food in their tea room. The sweets menu is rather lavender influenced, but what would you expect from somewhere called 'Yorkshire lavender'. We went savoury; I had a slice of quiche with an enormous amount of salad, including colslaw and pieces of fruit, no scrimping here. The coffee was pretty decent as well. The ladies on the table next to us had slices of sponge cake with blueberry and lavender jam filling, and each slice was about the size of my face!

Part of the site, cafe and shop on right, scultpure people play cricket on the far hill

It's free to wander around the garden (big thumbs up in my opinion) and they keep adding bits to it; since I last came a pond has appeared, there are a few more people scultpures playing cricket up on the hill, and they seem to be working on a tiered garden. There are plenty of plants available to buy so if anything takes your fancy on the way round you can probably find it to put in your own garden. There's a combination of beds planted with various lavenders to create nice patterns when they're flowering, bit hard to tell at the moment. Then there are features you can interact with, like the lavender maze (no cheating please!), and a game of snakes and ladders on the side of the hill. There's also some deer down at the bottom of the hill, which seems a bit random for a lavender garden, but they're quite cute so I'm not complaining.

Oh deer

 So if you want to kill an hour or so in a delightfully scented garden, with a lovely view down towards York, then this is the place to do it. There's plenty of open space and its quite hilly, so you can wear children out for a quiet drive home. Then before you leave you can buy a multitude of lavender related goodies on your way out, and if its a warm day pick up a tub of lavender ice cream (surprisingly good) to cool off.

Me on a random bridge in their signature colour

Link to their website: http://www.yorkshirelavender.com/home