The National Trust in York and a Priory

I really wanted to visit Goddards in York but it is not really gettable to by car and York itself is extortionate to park so I used the park and ride and got a bus into the city armed with the city bus routes I needed. Unbeknownst to me the park and ride route was changed due to roadworks and it dropped me where the bus I wanted stopped.

Now here's the thing I knew where I had to get off but when to ring the bell? As there is no info on stops I tracked myself on googlemaps on the phone.... for me this is an achievement of awseome  magnitude ;) I rang the bell but still the driver said I was a little late ringing. I smiled and said sorry what I wanted to say was as a tourist how the hell do I KNOW when to ring the bell? There is no info on next stop etc but life is too short! 

So Goddards.... this was home to the Terry's family the chocolate family. The property is in the  arts and crafts style. It is used as offices but some rooms and the gardens are open. The rooms tell the story of the family and the confectionery business.

The gardens are very pretty.

You can watch the races from the gardens.

The little pond had ducks!!!

I will comment on the scone later!

So I hopped across the road and got the bus back to town.

The Treasurers House..... 

See below....

It was relatively early so I headed to Kirkham Priory. The ruins are fairly scant now but it's a lovely setting.

As you can see it was once a very big site

This lancet at the east end of the church shows you how impressive this must once have been. When I looked at it I couldn't help but think of the many great churches we lost at the reformation. Can you imagine 600 years time seeing great churches like Selby, Beverley, Chirstchuch Priory and Tewkesbury as ruins?

The scones. Now regular readers known I am a big fan of the National Trust and I was excited as I am told both venues do excellent scones (see National Trust Scones praise above used as advertising by Goddards). 

So £3.25 for a scone? REALLY? Given your average scone of the month is £1.85 that's £1.40 for the small pot of marmalade that I said I didn't want (no nothing was knocked off my bill, I didn't expect it to be though). And the cup of tea? £2.15 which I think is above normal NT pricing. And as I've visited well over 200 properties I claim a bit of expertise. The scone? well it was all right. It had seen an oven but the centre was cool. It was certainly no more than a 3.5 effort and barely Quacks worthy.

The Treasurers House also gets rave reviews for its Scones but this was dry and I ended up leaving it!!! And the tea was £2.15. Over £4 for a scone and a cuppa is high by NT standards. I know they used to do Lavender Scones but I was offered fruit or cheese.

Disappointing!