Lou suggested a walk in the woods in the Mulgrave estate to the castle.
Mulgrave Castle is a 13th C stone structure. It has been in and out of favour at various times including the English Civil War. However, it pales into insignificance when I’m told of the idyllic childhood of my dear belle. She regales me with tales of derring-do, Cowboys and Injuns (SIC), skinny-dipping, and walking donkeys on the beach.
I aim the car at the tiny entrance to the car park adjacent to the Wits End cafe and manage to steal a space on the rank a good twenty yards away from where the salty spray is coating the cars near the harbour wall. There are half a dozen fishermen with rods twitching as line is pulled towards the retreating waves and beyond them are surfers in black wet suites lit up by the watery winter sun that is turning the foam from white to gold.
The car park surface is like a skating rink and we walk with the tiny steps of an elderly couple (we’re nearly seventy four y’know)! As I look around even the youngsters, normally cavalier about such trivial things as sheet ice are adopting the same gait.
The sea is quite animated and we spend some time gazing at the intensity as we walk the short front of Sandsend composing the odd photo of Whitby Abbey a couple of miles away silhouetted on the horizon with the beach and waves crashing in the foreground.
We’re still taking great care as we make our way across the road to tackle the car park currently shining like a mirror and more slippy than Teflon. We don’t know it yet but this is going to be the challenge for three quarters of this walk so track edges will be the order of the day and soft leafy glades will be a luxury.
The sun is a welcome treasure and the limited heat is creating an eerie mist that drifts into the trees. The lack of wind and ice induced ‘tense exercise’ keeps us warm and the two miles of tracks is negotiated with extreme care and (slightly anxious) pleasure.
The final two hundred yards are up some steps that have been recently renovated. The wooden risers that have been installed are anchoring the loose scree and light cover of snow well so the initial concern that one or both of us would become the cabaret wains and before we know it we’re up and installed safely on the higher track that hugs the walls of the “Old Castle”.
This site has a couple of names to differentiate it from the “New Castle” that is still habitable and currently occupied.
Old Castle or Ancient Castle.
We read a helpful plaque that informs us of its previous lives as a fortification, demolition during the English Civil War, an ornamental feature and recently a ‘renovated ruin’. I like the last one as it describes it well and the work that has been done has retained its general layout and charm whilst making (most of it) safe!
The steps up through what was the Gatehouse are like greased snot and we cling to the rail as our feet slide sideways on the icy stone.
In the keep area now near a tower that was originally built in the 13th C and rebuilt in the 19th C and again forty years ago. In the centre of the grassy area is the original keep that was remodelled as a 17th C hunting lodge then restored as a picturesque ruin in the 1990s.
As we walk around the inside of the battlements/walls/chapel/towers all in various stages of distress and all having been restored to ‘picturesque ruin’ status forty years ago I’m listening to Lou’s childhood memories and they’re fascinating. Like me, she was brought up in the country and between meals and between darks she was expected to be out. There was never any chance of ‘getting under an adult’s feet’ because there was a five hundred acre playground out there and it got well used. She lived ‘below stairs’ in one of the towers of the ‘New Castle’, a castellated mansion that stands above Hell Scar towards Lythe Bank on a hill giving commanding views to both inland valley, and to the east, the North Sea. It is now called Mulgrave Castle. Lou points out the flag pole and recollects her dad having to go up the tower to raise the flag when his lordship was in residence, and, of course, lower it when away.
She played in these woods as a child and this ruined castle would have been the best playground and eight-year-old could have.
It doesn’t take too much imagination to visualise shooting apples off children’s heads and Rowdy Yates exploring the area to avoid ‘pesky injuns’ (in those days, sadly, they were always portrayed as evil and dangerous). There was also the reassuring presence of Mat Dillon who would venture from his marshalling duties in Dodge City to comb the woods for bad guys. When she played in the woods and the castle, Lou and the gang would take on the persona of all of these characters with her imagination being spurred on by any and all of the following:
Gunsmoke with James Arnes
Wagon Train with Lloyd Bridges,
Cheyenne with Clint Walker,
and Rawhide with Clint Eastwood.
She was the original tomboy and leader of the gang who would generally be blamed for anything mischievous.
Sandsend
If she walked east through the woods then the sands at Sandsend would be the playground. She managed to talk her way into looking after the donkeys and leading them a hundred yards either way with an excited punter sitting on their back. After several hours leading the donkeys, and if she was lucky, she’d get the opportunity of a free ride as they were taken away from the sands. On days when there were no donkeys then there were rock pools, The Famous Five and the Secret Seven adventures often near the sea or on the sands would spark imaginative play with smooth stones, fossils, exotic shells and sand sculptures. Days were long and sunny in the 1950s and 60s. Such was the life of a lucky little girl being brought up in the baby boomer era.
Mine and Lou’s parents adopted the ‘Roots and Wings’ approach to parenting and we’re both grateful for their encouragement and trust. Our childhoods were idyllic but I didn’t have a real castle ruin like this one and our interaction with the sea was once a year when we would be taken to Redcar or Scarborough by charabanc – so Lou wins!
We begin our walk back and the air temperature is such that all of the ice and fine snow that was present this morning is still there and we’re still anxious to avoid a fall so strides are short and each step is accompanied by a little twist to check for friction or lack of it!
The path we take is from Lou’s memory and is not shown on the OS map that I’m using so Lou and Sandsend Beck are the guide and an excellent guide they are as we climb out of the valley to complete the loop along the base of Sandsend Rigg.
It’s a wonderful and interesting walk, which is normally easy, but ice is the challenge today.
Enjoy the snaps.
Love G x
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