Author: htda

Dear Members,

To everyone who does not already know, this will be my last chairman’s letter. I have made a difficult decision to resign from the position due to health problems. I have very much enjoyed my time as chairman for your Association and enjoyed organising holidays and coach trips. Now, Helen Stalker has temporarily taken on the role of Chair until the AGM after which I hope someone else will take on the role, and help to arrange events for everyone to join. I will look forward to partaking in the new events, when I can, and still meeting everyone.

Since our last newsletter we have had our holiday based in Leamington Spa, when we were able to visit 5 National Trust properties. We were lucky to have our visits before heatwave conditions arose and it was enjoyable to see the gardens at the properties with a lot of colour.

We have had two garden visits: Prospect House and Thirsk Hall; the first was very good and included a talk by the owner, the second was a disappointment as the garden was in a poor state due to hot, dry weather. I have also revisited the gardens at Jervaulx Abbey and Littlethorpe Manor when they were open as part of the National Garden Scheme’s charity events. Both gardens were superb.

Our quiet garden at Fountains Abbey also looks superb and I hope you were able to enjoy it on the Yorkshire Day Picnic. I wasn’t able to make it as I was in Scotland on that day.

A final good wish to everyone, and hope you can continue to go on visits, and to the lunches and lectures. You will see in the newsletter we have changed the venue for our lunches, and I hope that will be successful.

Regards, Geoff

Dear Members,

Spring has arrived with a wonderful period of sunny weather; everywhere looks so green and fresh and, as I write this, with a fine display of bluebells.

Our AGM went well; now we welcome David as a full member of the Committee and will have a web site available to use which may bring some new members to join us and which complements our superb newsletter.
I have started to visit gardens that are open to the public for various charities so nice to see other people’s ideas for their gardens.

We now have a garden to watch develop at Fountains Abbey. Thank you to everyone who visited for the opening. It was good to see something we had contributed to with the donations and money made on our talks, lunches and special events.

I hope you will be able to join us for the Yorkshire Day picnic, and also on some of our summer visits; remember, if you do not have your own transport, you can always ask to see if lifts can be given.

Now I wish you a good summer and hope we get some (more) good weather to enjoy our wonderful countryside.  – Geoff Bayford

Dear All,

I hope 2025 has started well for you despite the snow and ice in January. Christmas and New Year is a long time ago and I do hope you had a good time with family and friends. For me, it was a time to forget as, after three weeks in hospital, I am still trying to recover.

We have had some really good events since the last newsletter. A super coach trip to Burton Agnes – a Historic House so well decorated by the staff and volunteers using traditional hand crafts.

Our usual visit to Nidd Hall Hotel for cakes and coffee was most enjoyable, giving time to chat with friends. Do let us know if you want us to continue with this event – we will have to book soon!

Then, in January, we had our first lunch at the Bridge Hotel as we had outgrown Ascot House. I was not well enough to attend this lunch but was told by everyone how nice the hotel was, with a lot of free parking, great home made food and a sound system that worked! I now look forward to the March lunch and talk.
Due to snow, our November lecture at Holy Trinity had to be postponed, so it was in January we had a superb talk by David Banks on the production of Alum on the Yorkshire coast.

Now we look forward to the long-awaited opening of the Quiet Garden at Fountains, which we have supported, and some early summer events. A coach trip on 22 May to visit Lyme Park offers free entry to National Trust members. The coach costs £22 per person. Please book early so we can fill the coach and cover costs.
We hope to arrange local garden visits during Spring and early summer, using our own cars and the use of car share.

My final point is to ask for everyone to try to obtain new members. We have yet to reach last year’s membership of 150. This will help with the plans for visits, and new members may have new ideas for events and visits.

I wish you all a good spring and summer and I look forward to meeting you all at the various events and visits. – Geoff Bayford.

I hope everyone was able to enjoy some nice days in September. Between the wet days we did have a few sunny days and now it has been nice to see the trees changing colour. Many parts of the world have had very bad weather with floods and high winds so although we must expect mixed weather, we can be thankful ours is not too bad.

Now we have had our first Winter lunches this year, and a Ripon lecture, both with a record turnout of members. Following on from the lunches at Ascot House, we realise we have now outgrown the venue. It has become very difficult moving around the dining room and for the servers to deliver the meals. With the difficulty of parking cars and not over running the three-hour time limit, plus the on-going uncertainty of the future of Ascot House, we feel, reluctantly, we cannot continue there.

So, from our January lunch, we will move to The Bridge Hotel at Walshford, on the edge of Wetherby. This will be a trial and we welcome feedback from members. People we have spoken to speak well of the food and menus there. There is a very large room which will be able to cope with our numbers, and a microphone system which will be better to use than our own speaker system. Another advantage is the very large, free car park. The dates for the next 3 lunches are on the booking form. If anyone has transport problems for the venue, do mention it to myself or Helen, as I’m sure between us we can help to overcome that.

We are looking forward to seeing many of you at our Christmas ‘coffee and cakes’ at Nidd Hall (a few afternoon spaces are still available ) and also on the coach trip to see the decorations at Burton Agnes.

If I don’t manage to see you or speak to you, can I wish all members a very happy Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.

All we can ask is ‘where has summer gone this year?’ Only a few warm days at the start of June and then so much rain – everything has grown. We just hope for some sunny dry days so harvest can finish well, as lots of fields look ripe for harvesting.

Since our last Newsletter, we’ve had a superb evening with the illustrated talk by David Beck, and seen the superb book he produced from his paintings of Wainwright’s Fells.

Low Hall Garden was the lifetime work of Pamela Holliday, née Hirsch, who had lived in the house for her 95 years; it was so good to wander around her garden and then be provided with tea and cakes.

Our evening walks this year have had a low uptake and one was even cancelled because of such low numbers. What are we doing wrong? Katie’s walk at Pateley Bridge to Merryfield mines turned into an 8 mile walk with super views of Nidderdale and a welcome ice cream at the end. Thank you to Carol Drinkwater, who was our leader. We all send good wishes to Katie who is not fit enough to lead walks at present. Let us hope for some dry weather for the several walks planned, and thank you to Jenny Goodhand Jones for a very interesting programme of walks.

Nicola arranged a tour around the War Graves at Stonefall. We had a very knowledgeable tour guide who told us many of the back-stories. Only a small group came, so the donation to the War Graves Commission was topped up by Harrogate and the Dales Association, but it was a most interesting morning.

Our second coach trip of the year was to Wallington Hall and Gardens on a wild day with wind and heavy showers. The walled garden however, looked splendid in full colour.

I have made my first planning visit to Warwickshire and found a good hotel and 5/6 National Trust properties. (details later in this newsletter). During the trip I came across works for HS2. What a lot of damage to the countryside, just to shorten the time taken to get from London to Birmingham. I just hope our new government will not allow more greenbelt to be spoiled. It seems questionable to spend billions of pounds on the railway when we need so many more hospitals, health centres and more care for the elderly. We just hope for changes for the good of everyone, and not just talk with no action, to help re-build a better country.

I wish you all good days, with some sunshine and perhaps an Indian summer in September.

I hope you have had a nice springtime. It has just been so very wet but little snow. All our walks have taken place on hard tracks as when we venture onto fields there is so much mud which makes the walks difficult rather than pleasurable. So all we can do is wait for summer: dry and sunny but not too hot. We can only hope for these conditions!

We have had a good winter season of lunches and afternoon lectures with some superb speakers on a large range of subjects. I can now tell you we have found an interesting selection of speakers for 24/25 wintertime.

We still have one special evening talk to come, with Andy Beck, who is giving a talk illustrated with his watercolours. He has completed the mammoth task of visiting all the exact spots in the Lake District where Alfred Wainwright stood to make his black and white drawings reproduced in his Fell Guides to the Lake District. Once Andy found the exact location, he made a water colour painting. These have been used to produce a superb book. I am sure we can look forward to an interesting evening.

We can also look forward to our coach trip to Wallington Hall while hoping for sunny weather so we can enjoy time out in the parkland. Wallington has a super walled garden which in July should be very colourful.

Our Quiz Night was a very successful evening with our new quiz masters. A great thank you to Kevin and June who gave us a very interesting Quiz and congratulations to winning team. The money made at the Quiz Night will give us more to donate to Fountains Abbey towards the disabled access sensory garden. This garden will hopefully be open later in summer and when we have a date we will inform you about an opening event. I look to meeting you at this and all at future events I must thank Jan for volunteering to do this, her first newsletter; a hard task to follow all the dedicated work of Helen Stalker, so Jan, I wish you all the very best and welcome you to our committee.

I hope you are all keeping well and looking forward to Spring with some sunshine but without the wind and rain we have had so far this year. It is so nice to see spring flowers, and the first lambs in the fields. I have had a rocky start to the year, but now hope to look forward to many events in our Harrogate and Dales Association.

First, I must pass on so many thanks to Helen Stalker who has produced a wonderful newsletter every 3 months of the year; not an easy job. It takes a lot of time and effort to collect all the information about our activities. As well as the newsletter, Helen has been membership secretary, booked speakers, booked venues for lunches and lectures, and taken in money for all events and outings. We, as the committee, feel it is time her workload was reduced, and now have a willing helper in Jan Jauncey, who will take over the Newsletter from June.

Now a summary of our events so far. Our Christmas event at Nidd Hall was very well attended, with a full number for each session. Our first lunch in January included a quiz, produced by Helen. This gave everyone a chance to interact and to discuss answers. Our first lecture at Holy Trinity was a talk by Lesley Newnham on Seaside Summer Holidays. Going back to 1700s she told us how the holiday had progressed and illustrated it by some super pictures. We now look forward to further lectures, walks and lunches. (See further details in newsletter.)

I must bring two events to your notice: May 16 coach trip to Kedleston Hall (we still need 6-8 more people on the trip to cover coach costs). June 19, our summer evening lecture at Holy Trinity when our speaker will be Andy Beck, who has illustrated a superb book on Wainwright’s views in his guides to the Lake District. Like last year, we will have wine and nibbles available.

| hope we see many of you at our events when we can gain an insight to new subjects. Please, as always, continue to make suggestions for events, talks, or visits to gardens or NT properties.