While staying in North Yorkshire, reader Lorraine Coverley went to visit Rievaulx Abbey. She writes: ‘A metalled road sweeps down to it, depositing the luckless traveller in a car park, where their first view of the Abbey is obliterated by a charmless English Heritage shop and a loo block squatting squarely in front. We, however, had not approached it by car. We had trekked through woods and valleys from Helmsley, through some of the most gorgeous scenery in Yorkshire, to approach it from the other side. From this vantage point, Rievaulx’s golden walls glowed in the distance as we approached it. This way, we saw the Abbey as it was meant to be seen, appearing to hang in the air against the forest behind it, the most wonderful example of a building in harmony with the nature that inspired it.

‘We trekked this two-and-a-half miles with dozens of other walkers, and we met some of them coming away. They all looked despondent – they’d just seen the prices being charged by English Heritage to stand close to the ruins. If you didn’t pay to go inside, there wasn’t even a bench to sit on. They’d chosen instead to perch on a farm wall in the rain, munch the sandwiches they’d brought along, and walk back.

‘English Heritage is 75 per cent funded by the Government. That means it’s come from me. And you. Shame they haven’t put it to better use.’



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