Three Magical Videos of the Tour de Yorkshire Finish in Settle

I really do hope these links work - Sound ON:



Tour de Yorkshire passes the end of Station Road


Stage 1 overview -Sound ON!



Tour de Yorkshire Finish Line in the Market Place

https://youtu.be/PEOL7fikLlQ

Tour de Yorkshire Day 1 - Settle En Fete

We took the easy route and watched the Tour on ITV4.    Settle was the only place to see sunshine at the dramatic finish of the race.   Here are some pictures I took this morning, hinting at the elaborate preparations.

The market place was jam packed full of TV vehicles.

And the biggest VIP vehicle you could imagine.

Here is the finish line in the Market Place- complete with live TV coverage of the race.

And below is Duke Street completely lined with crowd barriers.   By the finish these were absolutely packed with spectators:

 


  

and the finish!

Tour de Brrrrrrr

I  do hope the weather improves for the Tour de Yorkshire!

Getting ready for the Tour de Yorkshire

FoSCL star volunteers Margaret Moss and her mother Brenda have been busy knitting and crocheting flags to decorate Settle Station in T de Y colours.   Each flag takes around two hours to make and there are 61 of them.

click to enlarge

Hollywood - eat your heart out.

Settle is abuzz with preparations for the Tour de Yorkshire first stage finish here next Friday - 29th April.   The race is televised live on ITV 4 so viewers worldwide should be in no doubt where they are.

Here are rock climbers doing their thing on the Castlebergh:

click to enlarge

Rather them than me

Roof Lettering from Castlebergh

A serious telephoto image of our roof from Castlebergh showing the Settle lettering and bike.   The image will be clearer from directly above.   Anybody got a drone?

This has saved me the effort of going up there to have a look.

Che Mother 'Appy

There is little more boring than listening to details other people's ailments but I cannot resist this picture of my morning dose of pills.   Or breakfast as I prefer to call it.

The big pink ones are the chemotherapy.   Another four 12 hours later.

resist the temptation to enlarge by clicking

The instructions for the chemo torpedos tell you not to handle them with bare hands (as they are poisonous).   OK to swallow them though.

All Seems a Long Time Ago - but it wasn't

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I really do not think we expected the result we got.

February 2011

And here we were on Google Street View a summer or two earlier = almost hidden by trees.

Horse Power

What a lovely picture this is but a sad one too as it shows the very last shunting horse on British Railways, in the 1960s:

click to enlarge

Here are the details from the National Railway Museum website:

Charlie, the last horse to be used for shunting, with his handler Lol Kelly, Newmarket, 1967. Newmarket was the last British Railways depot to withdraw horses for shunting. They were retained there until 1967 to move special vehicles used for transporting racehorses. Horses had been used to haul vehicles from the earliest days of the railways. Although locomotives could move heavier loads, horses were cheaper and more flexible, so for many years were kept to shunt at small depots.

People often ask about the horse hooks on our coal wagon and are surprised to hear that horses once did this job.

I imagine the man in charge of the horse would nowadays be dressed from head to foot in orange.   Maybe the horse too.

Here's another one from 1953 at Witham.   The horse seems keen to go a bit faster than the shunter would like.   The wagon is just like ours.

This must have been pretty much the scene under our tower when railway horses were stabled here;

And finally, Moreton-in-Marsh C 1890.   The horse was obviously very much part of the team:

But the station cat is nowhere to be seen.

What a Difference a Day Makes

But next morning, the same view as the previous posting:

 click pics to enlarge - well worthwhile

Can there be many rooftops with a lovelier view:

And slightly more to the south east:

But the boys' train track which runs all round the tower was well and truly iced over:

Tropical Sunshine and then Snow

At lunchtime today I sat on the rooftop sundeck and had to retreat to the shade.   This evening it is snowing heavily:

Seriously big snowflakes made of cotton wool.  

A Bicycle on the Roof

In support of the Tour de Yorkshire whose first stage ends in Settle on 29th April we have not only painted SETTLE on the roof but also parked a bike up there.   Securely (I hope) roped on to the stove chimney.

click to enlarge

Unusual View

Here is an unusual view of the tower from the High Road between Settle and Langcliffe.   The telephoto lens compresses the rooftops and makes it appear that the tower is being invaded by industrial units!

The ladder to the roof shows that the picture was taken during March when we were painting SETTLE on the roof.   It also shows the metal fire escape ladder from the annex roof to the tank.

Picture David Henderson

click to enlarge

The Tower from the Air

Courtesy of new neighbours Ged and Chris Benn who are moving in to Dr Hogg's old house at the back of the tower here are some fascinating aerial pictures showing their amazing house and grounds and the water tower too.

Here is our tower and summer house from the Benn's garden, which may help with orientation:

 click to enlarge

This image from 1988 show the Benn residence with the by then empty water tower top right with quite a meadow where water once occupied the tank:

The final image is presumably pre 1968 as the tank is brim full of water.   The rather sorry bridge across the tank is plain to see.  Less obvious is the overflow outlet from the full tank which appears, just as a black dot at the top right corner of the tank.   The area in front of the tank house appears to have raised beds on it, no doubt the work of gardening enthusiast Stationmaster Taylor.