An unexpected bonus of a visit to North Norfolk for a wedding was realising that the Sandringham estate was round the corner and open to visitors.
(L) Sandringham house, shut up as the royal household was not in residence, and (R) parkland in the estate. It felt a bit odd to be wandering around in the grounds!
(Top left) Curious mechanical boot cleaner outside a back entrance to the house. (Top right) The stables have been converted to to a transport museum (although this had yet to re-open post COVID). (Bottom) One of several memorials in a section of the estate wall next to a pet cemetery.
A welcome return to some kind of normality after two years of COVID disruption – a wedding with all the usual trimmings. The venue was the magnificent Godwick Great Barn.
The disused cemetery at Ushaw College is clearly being kept in order, but is hidden at the back of the buildings away from public access.
Pictures from a walk starting at Edmundbyers, in the north of County Durham and close to the Derwent Reservoir. Curiously the village is spelled both Edmundbyers and Edmondbyers, apparently at random. (Top left) the deserted farmstead at Belmount is associated with an unsolved murder from 1880, and (top right) a catchwater on the Burnhope Burn which feeds the much larger Derwent Reservoir. (Bottom) The parish church is dedicated to St. Edmund, although there is probably no real connection between the royal saint and the Edmund after whom the village is named.
