Lydia and Simon Potts

Leaving Conisbrough we skirted Doncaster, just making time to stop for lunch at The Glass Strawberry Café there, and headed north towards Selby. This scarcely populated Yorkshire/ Lincolnshire border area is very flat with big open skies and has a continental feel with fields of bright yellow sunflowers and hamlets of cottages with red roof tiles. We followed the New Junction Canal – although it wasn’t anything like the canals we are used to, being dead straight and impossibly wide. The dimensions of the canal, and its metal swing bridges, allowed the passage of 300 tonne coal boats from the South Yorkshire coalfields up to the Humber via a short stretch of the Ouse at Goole.

When we booked our accommodation at Snaith, a small town just south of Selby, we were amused to find that the large rambling townhouse was called the Old Chip Shop. Little did we know that the bedroom of this sprawling property turned out to be above the new chip shop in the town! The house was Victorian and had a walled garden with a peach tree; it was opposite Snaith Priory of St Laurence, the oldest part of which was 12th century. The priory was a small cell of two Benedictine monks under the jurisdiction of the much larger Selby Abbey. It is thought to have been a pilgrimage site for the followers of St Ethelreda (founder and abbess of Ely Abbey), and until the 1860s was a ‘peculiar’ church (like Pott chantry, not under the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop) and had its own consistory (ecclesiastical) court (unlike Pott chantry, as far as we know).

The trail took a circuitous route north to Selby then south-eastwards following the Ouse towards the Humber. As we ate up the miles we could see an immense structure in the far distance, the Humber Bridge. At Blacktoft the Ouse and Trent empty into the vast Humber estuary; the area was scarcely populated and we barely saw a soul here as the path meandered through miles of reed beds with just the odd tiny settlement until we reached Brough.

The bird life on this stretch was spectacular with regular sightings of marsh harriers over the reed beds and barn owls hunting in fields nearby. We took the opportunity to go a little off track to see some rarities while we were in the area, these being a white-tailed lapwing at RSPB Blacktoft Sands and a breeding pair of black-winged stilts and their young at Potteric Carr.

We finally reached the vast Humber Bridge at Hessle, Yorkshire and took a detour, crossing counties across the Humber to a fascinating town called Barton-upon-Humber on the North Lincolnshire bank. Barton-uponHumber was famous for rope making, the original rope works was opened in 1762 and made rope for shipping. They also made the ropes used in the conquest of Everest. The old rope works, now called The Ropewalk, is the longest Grade II listed building in Britain – it has a ¾ mile long pan tiled roof. It now houses Ropery Hall, a contemporary theatre, plus a craft shop, art gallery, sculpture garden and fabulous vegetarian café. Walking beyond The Ropewalk, there are fantastic views of the elegant Humber Bridge.

Just below the bridge is another tourist attraction, The Old Tile Works. This part of the Humber estuary is rich in clay and was the largest centre in Britain for brick and tile making in the 17th century when thatch was gradually being replaced with more permanent materials. Handmade roof tiles, plant pots and garden ornaments are still made here, by a couple of very skilled potters using traditional methods and clay from the banks of the Humber. The next instalment of this very enjoyable series will see Lydia and Simon reach their destination…

A little boy had spent all afternoon playing outdoors, and accidentally left his jacket at the end of the garden. When his mother realised this a couple of hours later, she told him to go back and get it. But by now the garden was dark, and so the little boy hesitated. “Don’t be frightened,” she said. “The Lord is out there too.”

That gave the little boy an idea. He opened the back door and called softly: ‘Lord, please could you pass me my jacket?”