Ings Bridge

As many of my blipfriends will know, I am fond of packhorse bridges and, quite often when we travel, I consult a lovely little book called Packhorse Bridges of England by Ernest Hinchliffe to check whether there are any we could visit. This one, however, we discovered for ourselves as we drove across Pickering Beck from our B&B for dinner in Pickering. Furthermore, as we later discovered, not only does it appear in the book, Mr Hinchliffe chose it for the front cover - probably because in his photo his wife is standing on the bridge.

It really is a dinky wee example although, according to Mr Hinchliffe, it probably did not serve a major packhorse route. However, the local council must have respected it as, rather than widen it for modern traffic they built a new bridge right next to this (so much so that the barriers obscure a side view). I can't help but wonder whether Mr H was on hand to advise...

On our route to our B&B seeking a café, we stopped in Grosmont, finding one close to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway just in time to watch Br 4-6-0 No.75029 ‘The Green Knight’ (see extra photo 1) closely followed by LNER 4-6-2 No.60007 ‘Sir Nigel Gresley’ (extra photo 2).

Replete in body and spirit we resumed the journey to visit the Bridestones, wind-eroded pillars of sandstone in the Dalby forest, to the strains of a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no cheeeese from yellowhammers. Extra photo 3 is one called the Pepperpot. This was just a taster visit, there is much more than we had time to see.