John Bunting

 Deep in a book, Madeline Bunting - The Plot (The Story of a Father and an English Acre), and checking the internet find I have already written a few words, see below.

But whenever I look up at the print over the fireplace it brings back memories.  Sutton Bank is a cliff escarpment and you must go down a very steep road with a switchback of bends, in winter it may be closed down and you are told never to drive down it with a caravan in tow.  But it is the only road to Thirsk from where I live.  20 odd miles to get to this small market town, the last branch in the area of my bank being there,  and will result in one or two visits.  But it was the advent of Lucy coming into our lives that we had to make the journey.  She was to be found at the Dogs Home just outside the town.  Still with her owners but on offer because of the life she had to lead.  Which basically meant being shut in a shed early every evening with two other cocker spaniels and barking all the time.

We fell in love with her prettiness and agreed to come back and collect her at a later date.  Little did we know, the handful she could be!  We picked her up and a broken piece of crockery (her treasure!!) and drove home with her on the back seat.  Paul had never owned a dog in his life, except for a brief flirtation with a puppy which his mother had got rid of after a few days.

Sutton Bank is beautiful and we stopped on the way to eat our one bought box of sandwiches, which we shared with Lucy.  She now has plenty of soft toys, often left out in the garden to get wet.  She is a lovely companion except when she is having one of her psychotic turns and then she is horrible, as she knocks things down and creates mayhem - was it the shed?  Luckily age had somewhat calmed her down.

Reading Bunting's excellent book, must be the third time now, and I relate to all the places she mentions, Rievaulx and Byland Abbeys, the Kilburn White Horse, taking photos on a hot summer's day.  Not quite being able to make out the solitary White Horse on the steep cliff it had been etched upon.  We ended up in a tangle of little lanes, heavily banked with trees giving us respite from the sun.

I realise I have covered much of the area Bunting lived in, Oswaldkirk where she was born has two churches, one Catholic, probably related to Ampleforth Abbey school.  The other of a much older dedication - St.Oswald and Martyr, 900 years old but today it is a modern version.  Though still with some telltale signs of its earlier history - must visit.

The history of the Scottish wars under Bruce of Scotland in the 14th century is interesting.  He laid waste to the countryside round here, killing people, slaughtering animals, destroying crops and King Edward 11 our English king, was hopeless in strategical battles and lost at the Battle of Old Byland.  Just a couple of miles away from here in the village of Salton, the church also bears witness to a fire which happened at the same time.  The villagers had barricaded themselves into the church which was set alight by the Scots.

Her book is a delight, it explores the difficult man her father was, the reasons he chose to build a chapel in the middle of nowhere to war heroes that he knew of, especially from Ampleforth College where he taught art.  He was a sculptor by profession, a worker in stone and some of his work can be found at the chapel.

https://northstoke.blogspot.com/2017/11/sutton-bank.html

John Bunting's carvings

A soldier, see the rosary beads in his hand?

Mary and child

The Chapel

http://www.docbrown.info/docspics/suttonbank/sbspage03b.htm