A Cistercian Abbey by the River Ribble
My old “Around-England” site ran successfully from 2008 for almost ten years, and built up a substantial collection of posts showing the English countryside, with admittedly an emphasis on the North. During the years that I was focused on 24/7 care for Hilda with her dementia my websites including Around-England had to be neglected and several of them were severely hacked to the extent that they eventually became inaccessible. As I once again now try to get to grips with my online presence I have completely deleted many sites as irrecoverable.
It may be possible rescue and continue Around-England, but that will take some serious work and won’t happen immediately. Thankfully, though, much of the content was archived so in the meantime I’m planning to post some of the old content here on my blog. This is a quick example, an almost random example that I picked out as a trial.
Part of the ruins of Sawley Abbey
The River Ribble rises in Yorkshire but comes to maturity in Lancashire. Not long after crossing from the white rose county to the land of the red rose it flows past Sawley. More accurately, I suppose, one should say the village of Sawley grew up by the banks of the Ribble. Before there was much by way of a village there was the Cistercian Abbey, and before them both there was the Ribble.
Another section of the Sawley Abbey ruins with Pendle Hill behind
On a warm Summer afternoon it is nice to stroll around the ruins of the abbey, maybe sitting for a rest after a walk by the river. There are no extensive building such as those over in Yorkshire at Fountains Abbey or Rievaulx, or for that matter further west into Lancashire at Whalley, but this is a pleasant spot surrounded by beautiful Lancashire countryside and English Heritage have provided information boards giving something of the history of the place.
