Recycled Pilgrimage of Grace Ride – 54.7 miles

June 23rd 2017

Present: Dave W, Steve, Nick, Sheila, John, Alan, George, Conrad, Helen

It might be history but it feels familiar. A self-serving, hard Brexiteer with a shaky power base determined to make a break with a multinational bureaucracy rife with corruption. A northern populace, fed up with rising food prices, austerity, and of being dictated to by the wealthy south, ready to shake things up. Yes, this was the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Yorkshire rebellion of 1536 against Henry V111’s Dissolution of the Monasteries and his rejection of the Roman Catholic Church. Of course, many northerners are on the opposite side today, anti- not pro-Europe, and it’s hard for us to imagine, as the second Elizabethan Age nears its inevitable close, why Henry was so desperate to produce a male heir to ensure the succession. But as the storm clouds of populism and discontent gather around us, one wonders how far away civil disobedience in our own time really might be.

Our own flame-haired leader for today, Steve Superman Watts, played the Robert Aske to our motley group of rebels, and what a superb job he did. Far from being a despotic tyrant, he handed out leaflets about the Pilgrimage, stood as traffic policeman guiding us at every junction, and even told us where the next set of toilets were! He warned us of sudden hills (“It’ll attack you”). He’d even stocked up an emergency puncture repair kit at the Burnby Old Bus Stop bike box as the last lot had been nicked. That was a location he was saving up to surprise us with on the way back…

1

Although the weather was promising, not too hot with a cooling breeze (which inevitably turned into a headwind as soon as we got above sea level), we were a bit nervous about what was going to be a challenging ride for some of us, further than we’d been before and very up and down. Nick’s wife had promised to rescue us with her horse box if required.

Conrad had picked a real toughie for his first ride with us and he peeled off shortly before Market Weighton. The rest of us forced the first diversion into Café 34 for a coffee. Which, of course, turned into coffee with bacon butties, scones, Victoria sponges et al. “A pre-lunch” Dave called it. John and Sheila introduced me to a new cycling word: ‘musette’. Originally used by soldiers on the Western Front, it’s a sort of nose bag used by the cycling racing pros in the ‘feed zone’, for stuffing with grub and drinks, and is then discarded en route. There’s even an online sewing guide to make your own. I think for Dave’s next birthday we should make him a musette and stuff it with ice cream so he can be permanently in the feed zone. Dave and John both praised the Café 34 butties (“the best bacon butty I’ve ever tasted”).

We rang George from the café but he was already waiting for us at Burnby where he’d travelled by car and declined to join us at our first feed station. We still had to get through Londesborough and Nunburnholme before we even got to the beginning of the official ride at Burnby. What a lovely route though, pyramidal orchids all along the Goodmanham Gap, ancient churches, red kites and yellowhammers enjoying the great views across the Vale of York with us. George recommended the church at Burnby.

Then the big haul up the scarp began through Warter to Huggate. It was tough but I really enjoyed it. Amazingly Alan decided to peel off before the last push to Huggate, saying he was “wimping out”. It turned out he was getting cold waiting for us ‘granny gear’ huggers to catch up at every junction. He should try taking his camping kit with him like I do.

2

At the pub in Huggate we forced more food down, although we were stunned when Dave announced he’d lost his appetite. This was most disconcerting, but he put it down to his recovering from a heavy cold. Nick managed a fish pie but Steve couldn’t polish off his bacon butty so I got him to put it in a doggy bag and I took it home for tea (turned into a nice bacon risotto, Steve, thanks very much.)

The journey back took us through Millington Dale, one of the most beautiful of the dry valleys carved out by ice meltwaters. Full of wild flowers and birds, it was gorgeous, and, joyfully, mostly downhill. After Pocklington we returned to Burnby before retracing our steps, with a few variations, across the Wolds.

The places we’d passed on our journey to and from Huggate were all gathering points of the monks and farming folk who had joined the rebellion. Nunburnholme and Warter were both priories and many monks had joined the rebels along with local gentry whose land and rights were under threat. The leaflet Steve had given us told us that Nunburnholme had been Yorkshire’s poorest priory and that many Yorkshire folk had thought Henry V111 was mad. “In the previous few months he had buried one wife, beheaded another and married a third just 11 days later.” We don’t do that sort of thing up here.

The Catholic Church was central to people’s lives then, not just for spiritual succour in a hard world but because the monasteries provided education, healthcare and poor relief as well as being centres of wealth and employment from the wool trade.

I heard two uplifting stories of kindness from our group at Huggate, which seemed appropriate to the lofty ideals of the pilgrims.

One was from Nick, who’d described bumping into people celebrating at Coronation Gardens the previous Saturday. Asking what was going on, he discovered it was Beverley’s “Great Get Together” in celebration of the life of Jo Cox, the murdered MP. They were short of musicians, so off he shot to pick up his bagpipes and play some tunes. The comments about Jo by one of our own elected representatives, Dominic Peacock, and the support he received from some locals and fellow councillors must rank among Beverley’s most shameful moments.

3

The second story which touched me was from George, who described how he’d rescued a blackbird trapped in netting in a neighbouring garden. George had talked to the bird gently as he freed its legs, cradled it then let it soar off. Our very own St Francis. George seems to be the go-to man in Cherry Burton for acts of kindness. On the way home from a ride two weeks ago we found George sweating in the churchyard having mown the entire area. When we arrived back at Burnby he was really taken with the community takeover of the ‘Old Bus Stop’ which Steve had earlier provisioned in another random act of kindness. It doesn’t just have an emergency bike box, where people can leave contributions (and sadly steal them), it has a community notice board, a book exchange, maps of the area, and has been tastefully planted up around its seat. If anyone can introduce a community bus shelter to Cherry Burton, George can.

We looked round St Giles Church, a lovely simple one with early Norman features, and a row of early arches on the north side which had been revealed as late as 1908. These arches show that the church once had an extra aisle so was bigger than now. It’s suggested that it was demolished in the 16th Century, perhaps another casualty of the failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace. There was an old-fashioned pump-up organ and George recalled his dad’s job as a lad was to pump up the organ in his local church.

It was after five when I got home, wobbly-legged and coccyx-sore, but we at least we survived without a rescue from the horse box.

4

The original Pilgrims of Grace suffered a terrible fate. Over 40,000 of them could easily have defeated Henry’s 5,000 troops under the Duke of Norfolk near Doncaster, but Robert Aske believed Norfolk’s promises to pardon the rebels, reprieve the abbeys and hold a parliament at York, and he dispersed his men. All were betrayed and over 260 were executed. Our own Sir Robert Constable was hanged in chains at Hull, as was Robert Aske at York. Lesser folk were hanged, drawn and quartered and their heads stuck on poles. One rebel wife was burned alive. The monasteries were no more, and the Tudors survived.

Thus began our modern nation state.

HK

Leaders Notes

This was a fine effort by the cyclists who turned out today. It was the furthest that we had ever gone and some of the hills were pretty gruelling. Although it was pretty exhaustive I think that we all really enjoyed the ride. Thanks to Steve for organising and also to Helen for her brilliant report.

The following photo of a field of poppies was taken by Alan on his way back via the Warter to North Dalton road

5