Jake Thackray in Swaledale

This documentary from 1971 finds Jake Thackray exploring Swaledale from Keld and Muker down to Richmond.

Its slight awkwardness, broken leg and all, is surely part of its charm and a reminder of the days when not everyone could provide a soundbite on demand.

The schoolchildren, says a comment on YouTube, are from Muker primary school, which closed a few years later.

Cutting access to Latin affects social mobility

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Sad news from the Yorkshire Post:

A North Yorkshire school where Latin has been on the curriculum for more than 600 years is to stop teaching the classical language for the first time in its history due to funding restrictions. 

Latin will be notably absent when Richmond School – which was founded as Richmond Grammar School in the 14th century – announces its new GCSE programme on Tuesday.

Sad,, because as I once wrote:

It happens that I went to a comprehensive in Hertfordshire where everyone did Latin in the second year (or Year 8, as I think the young people say these days). It had recently ceased being a grammar school - and a very traditional grammar school at that, because we were still wearing school caps in the early 1970s - but it was a comprehensive ... 

And I am grateful that I did study Latin there, because when I got the chance to take Latin O level up here in Leicestershire a few I jumped at it. And studying it taught me the grammar I was not learning in English and awakened an interest in the Classical world, two factors that led to my studying Philosophy at university.

English grammar is taught formally these days, but I suspect there is something in the words of the school's former lead teacher for Latin and classics, as quoted by the Post:

"Cutting access to Latin affects social mobility. It is very hard to get access to Latin and the classics anywhere outside of London and the south east of England. That has a knock-on effect on access to university degrees, especially at the leading universities."

The Station, Richmond

The Station - Richmond's former railway station. once the terminus of a branch line from Darlington - advertises itself as "the region's most exciting tourist destination":

beneath the sympathetically restored, high vaulted ceiling of this historic Victorian railway station sits a contemporary café bar and restaurant; a modern, two-screen cinema; an art gallery over two floors; a free heritage centre; and a collection of meeting rooms available for private hire. 

There is no visitor attraction quite like it. Pulling in 350,000 tourists a year and offering each and every one a unique experience, The Station is also home to six artisan food producers - open to the public and selling their produce. Visitors can buy from a medley of Yorkshire delights from a bakery, cheese-maker, micro brewery, ice-cream parlour, fudge house and honey-maker. 

The Station also runs a full programme of events throughout the year, including live music, literary festivals and seasonal food and craft fairs, and is a hive of activity among local residents, many of whom attend workshops in a wide range of subjects from jewellery-making, to painting, photography and creative writing. 

No wonder this innovative £2.7million not-for-profit community enterprise has attracted national attention and won several prestigious awards. Why not come and see for yourself?

I am not sure I would rank it as more exciting than Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, but The Station is well worth a visit and saved from an excess of worthiness by the presence of those cinemas.

Even so, I found the audio-visual presentations about the station's history (passenger services ended in 1969) the most interesting thing there. The ice cream is very good too.

Richmond and Richmond Castle, North Yorkshire

Richmond ... was like no other town they had ever seen. When they reached the top of the hill they were in one corner of an enormous cobbled square. In the centre was the squat building of a church, in the sides of which were really built some shops. At the top of the huge market square beyond some parked buses, was a great stone pillar crowned with a ball, round which were some steps on which dalespeople were sitting. Shops and inns were round the four sides of the square and between them, the children noticed, were the narrow entrances to many little courts and alleys.
The Secret of Buzzard Scar (1955) Malcolm Saville

The whole castle wall has long since fallen, all along the edge of the rock overlooking the river. Now the mown grass comes to the edge, and there is a fence, not to keep out any strangers, but to keep in the visitors. But the rest of the walls round the great court are there still, hiding the town from the castle and the castle from the town; but there is enough to show clearly what the castle was like
Earthfasts (1966) William Mayne.

My favourite children's writers had given me a clear enough picture of Richmond, yet somehow I had got it wrong. I had imagined a castle high above the town - something like the set up at Montgomery.

In reality, the castle is more intimately connected with the town than any I know. The castle old bailey is the town's market square.

My guidebook says that the ruins of Richmond Castle represent "one of the most important surviving examples of early medieval domestic architecture in the country".

They are right, but that it is not what strikes you most about the castle ruins. Its setting - perched high above the River Swale - is hugely impressive, and its modern history is important too.

Richmond Castle was used to house conscientious objectors in World War I - the Richmond Sixteen. There drawings and writings still exist in the castle gatehouse, though they are too fragile to put on display to the public.

The military authorities' plan, apparently, was to ship them to France, where they could be shot for refusing orders in the face of the enemy. This plan was thwarted, but many of the Sixteen found themselves social outcasts after the war - but they were in the right, were they not?

The castle yard was also the site of barracks of  the North Yorkshire Militia from 1855, and those buildings were the home of Robert Baden-Powell for two years until 1910 - just the period when his Scouting movement was taking shape.

The barracks building were demolished in 1931. Had they survived until the present day, they would surely have been preserved as an important part of the site's history. I met the same change in attitudes at Tynemouth Priory this summer.

Little Ouseburn Mausoluem and Walburn Hall

Twice this week I have whizzed past remarkable and unexpected buildings on the bus. Not have the OS map with me at the time, I have been obliged to pore over bus timetables, Google Maps and even Google Satellite to identify them. But I think I have managed it in both cases.

The first was on the bus journey from York to Ripon, when I saw a remarkable domed 18th century building behind an ancient church. This turned out to be the Thompson Mausoleum at Little Ouseburn, built in 1742 for Henry Thompson of Kirkby Hall.

It had fallen into decrepitude - not helped when a fully laden Wellington bomber came down in a neighbouring field during World War II - but is has been restored and is now looked after by the Friends of the Little Ouseburn Mausoleum.

Photo: Alan Murray-Rust

Then today, on the bus from Ripon to Richmond, I passed a farmhouse that looked as though it had once been something far grander. I was right.

Walburn Hall, says CastlesUK:

was originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by the Scrope family. In the late 15th century, the Siggiswick family acquired the house and founded a fortified hall. The two courtyards, were once enclosed by a high embattled curtain wall, with a well-preserved wall walk and a simple gateway. In the inner court, are remains of a small single storey hall, with the hall porch, a two storey wing and a late 16th century eastern range in the outer court. Behind the lower cross wing, is the huge stepped stack of the detached kitchen block.

Photo: C.P. Smith