A beautiful day out…

 

Just down the road from the windmill, is the Museum of the Horse – and if one expects this to be a small museum, relative to the small size of the village, one will be very surprised.  The place is HUGE!  As you look through the photos, consider that I only took ones that were of particular interest to me – and that was about only one third of what was on display.  The place is amazing!

 

John was kind enough to open the doors and give me a close look at the lovely old mail carriage…

 

This is actually the old Tuxford jail!

~ Bella

 

Setting out on a beautiful crisp morning, I went in search of Tuxford, first it’s mill and then it’s horse museum…

One of only six working windmills left in Britain, the Tuxford Windmill is the only independent working windmill in Nottinghamshire and uses grain grown in the field adjacent to the mill – it couldn’t be fresher!

This lovely lady and her husband (in the photo above) own and run the mill, and live on the premises.

…and now to find the horse museum!

~ Bella

“Let it snow”… and it did!  It was ever so pretty…

I finally managed to extricate the car and went for a short spin…

…and home safe and sound…  All this snow fell in around 12 hours – impressive!  🙂

~ Bella

 

From the first time I saw the Abbey Museum on a documentary, I have wanted to visit… and so, on a lovely clear, crisp morning, I headed off…

Across the road are the Abbey ruins – I wasn’t up to exploring those all in the same day, but might make a separate trip to do so another day…

Walking through the door, I felt like I was transported back in time to “home”…… back to the Victorian/Edwardian eras where I feel ever so much more at home than in the present…

Time for a spot of lunch…

…then off for a general driving meander…

…and headed home to my lovely little holiday cottage, just as the sun is thinking about going to bed…

…another perfectly lovely day…

~ Bella

After leaving Roche Abbey, I basically just drove for ages, no particular destination, and came across lovely Harrogate…

…then back through the hills to my lovely little cottage…

~ Bella

Leaving my lovely little cottage on the edge of the Peak District, I went in search of Roche Abbey…

This isn’t the main Abbey, but it was so lovely!

One would need very little and very nimble feet to climb those stairs!

From the English Heritage site: “Beautifully set in a valley landscaped by ‘Capability’ Brown in the 18th Century, Roche Abbey has one of the most complete ground plans of any English Cistercian monastery, laid out as excavated foundations. Founded in the 12th century as a monastry of the Cistercian order, Roche Abbey was once home to 50 monks and 100 lay brothers.”

~ Bella

 

…after leaving the canal museum, I headed toward water of a different kind…

Built in 1829, this amazing structure is now privately owned… During WWII a rather interesting form of camouflage was used for the fort during the war – it was made to look like a coastal tourist resort, with a fake lawn painted on the grounds, and ‘tea’ signs put on the structure itself!

…and then back to my lovely hotel, originally built in 1812…

~ Bella

 

I love canals, so was in my element here at the museum…

My very first bacon sandwich since I left Great Britain – ok, I know that shouldn’t be something worthy of a photo, but it was!  Yum!

I was only up to wandering around half of the museum on this visit – will do the other half next time…

~ Bella