{"id":8676,"date":"2023-10-23T03:29:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T03:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/castle-howard-english-castle-absolutely-visit\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T09:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T09:55:12","slug":"castle-howard-english-castle-absolutely-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/castle-howard-english-castle-absolutely-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Things To Do In Yorkshire, England: Castle Howard, Whitby And More"},"content":{"rendered":"

For as long as I can remember, I\u2019d always wanted to properly <\/em>visit Yorkshire<\/a>. In fact, now that I think about it, I actually almost ended up studying in York (twice!<\/em>).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been in Yorkshire very briefly but never actually gotten round to exploring it \u2013 not even the beautiful city of York<\/a> which I went past on the train to Scotland many, many times!<\/p>\n

All of that changed a couple of weeks ago when, finding ourselves with a few days free, we finally decided to head up to explore Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

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Funnily enough, all the travelling that we do, only serves to make me appreciate being back in England that much more.<\/p>\n

It makes you realise how beautiful your home is (shout out to London!<\/em>) and like I\u2019ve said time and time again on here, it makes me wanna explore more of what\u2019s on our doorstep. \ud83d\ude42 (Especially so after doing a trip like this one here!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The train from London to York is just 2 hours and despite never actually visiting the city before, we decided to skip it on this trip! We had grand plans to squeeze in as much of Yorkshire as possible over 2 days (well, technically 3 days and 2 nights) and trying to squeeze in York in that time felt a bit much \u2013 we\u2019ll save that one for another day.<\/p>\n

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On this trip, we picked up the rental car and headed straight for Castle Howard<\/a>, an amazing place I\u2019d only heard about weeks before and one of the few privately owned castles in England (a lot of old wealthy families lost their wealth and couldn\u2019t keep up so they ended up giving it to the National Trust which helped maintain the homes and leaves us Brits with the strong architectural heritage we still have till this day).<\/p>\n

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Castle Howard is absolutely magnificent! It\u2019s the kind of place you struggle to step into when you first arrive because you spend so much time marvelling at it from outside\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026before getting distracted by its picturesque grounds.<\/p>\n

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If the Castle looks familiar, it\u2019s apparently because it\u2019s been featured in a lot of films \u2013 the most popular of which is probably Brideshead Revisited.<\/p>\n

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Funny, when you\u2019re up in places like this, the cold, dark weather only serves to make this place look even more dramatic and definitely makes stepping for tea all the more welcome!<\/p>\n

With that, we set off to explore the many halls and rooms of Castle Howard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Castle Howard is as grand inside (perhaps grander?) as it is from the outside.<\/p>\n

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The rooms are all done up for the season, Christmas trees everywhere you look, presents (just begging to be taken home with you) in other rooms and grand beds that make you feel like you\u2019ve just stepped into Downton Abbey (*Sidebar: Downton Abbey is \u2018technically\u2019 set in Yorkshire \u2013 the family is supposed to be Northern, although most of the filming was done down south.)<\/p>\n

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My favourite spot definitely has to be right in front of the gigantic Christmas tree in the grand hallway (not the official name but you can probably see why I\u2019d refer to it as that).<\/p>\n

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For a place, I didn\u2019t know much about before visiting, I was head over heels in love with this Castle within a few minutes of stepping in.<\/p>\n

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When you\u2019re here, you should definitely check out the many living, drawing and dining rooms here. All decorated to still showcase what grand old English living would have been like, they\u2019re absolutely fantastic and gorgeous. (I have to admit, my mind did wander off here as I wondered what it must be like for someone to call this place their \u201chome\u201d).<\/p>\n

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The highlight of the afternoon came not in the form of decadent designs, beautiful architecture or a ginormous Christmas tree but in the form of afternoon tea! Afternoon tea in a Castle no less!<\/p>\n

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We headed over to the Grecian Hall in the main house for afternoon tea. It couldn\u2019t have been more perfect. The fireplace was roaring and instantly made you feel at home, Christmas music was playing in the background and the Christmas tree filled the room with that distinctly festive aroma.<\/p>\n

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I started off with champagne (none for Lloyd \u2013 he was on driving duty), swiftly followed by that iconic Yorkshire tea.<\/p>\n

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The food then arrived, an assortment of freshly made sandwiches, scones, cakes and other delights (*Yorkshire as a whole does food really well, by the way \u2013 everything was perfectly done).<\/p>\n

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Afternoon tea here is just the perfect way to finish off a visit to Castle Howard<\/a> \u2013 just be sure to book in advance. They do try to leave some room for walk in\u2019s but it\u2019s pretty popular (quite a few people had to be turned away) so save yourself some disappointment and book in advance. I think you can book online here<\/a> but if not, you can also contact them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With that, we hopped back into our car and hit the road, thoroughly refreshed, watered, fed and ready to see even more of Yorkshire!<\/p>\n

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The destination for the evening would be Ravenscar, where we would be calling home for the next few days but on the way over there, you pass by the Hole of Horcum – an impressive heather filled canyon, albeit perhaps even more so in daylight\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026before carrying on to Goathland. A quaint village particularly well-known to Harry Potter fans for its train station which served as the station for Hogsmeade.<\/p>\n

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In my opinion, the station is cute but the village is absolutely worth visiting in and of itself (perhaps even more so than the train station). It feels like you\u2019re in old England here \u2013 it\u2019s the kind of place where the sheep don\u2019t even know to be wary of cars. (As you can tell, I\u2019m a sucker for places like this!)<\/p>\n

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Eventually, we made our way to the Raven Hall Hotel<\/a> where we would be staying in one of their lodges.<\/p>\n

When we arrived, I was expecting a typical hotel room but what you get here is like a mini apartment (in fact, it\u2019s bigger than a lot of London apartments). Suffice to say, we settled in very quickly\u2026 perhaps too quickly as we ended up being late for dinner in Whitby.<\/p>\n

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Now everyone we\u2019ve spoken to about Whitby had nothing but good things to say about it but as we arrived at night, there wasn\u2019t really much room to explore Whitby itself. Instead, we headed over to much-talked-about The Star Inn restaurant<\/a> for dinner.<\/p>\n

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Now, I didn\u2019t know this at the time but The Star Inn is owned and run by a Michelin Star chef (and all round Yorkshire food hero) Andrew Pern and it even has it\u2019s own ice cream parlour next door (sea-side perfection, really).<\/p>\n

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Usually, I\u2019m not the biggest fan of bread served before a meal (I think I ate too much bread as a child \u2013 plus I don\u2019t wanna spoil my appetite so I\u2019d rather wait for my proper meal to come out) but when you find out the bread is warm and the butter\u2019s perfect, you jump right in.<\/p>\n

(*I think my other problem is that I don\u2019t have any moderation and would probably eat all the bread placed in front of me till I realise I\u2019ve probably eaten a portion to be shared amongst several people).<\/p>\n

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Seeing as Yorkshire is known for its seafood (I had no idea about this, by the way, Lloyd did), we decided to go all in on the seafood starting with deliciously batter calamari for myself, Celeriac & Spiced Quince Soup for Lloyd\u2026 and \u2018scraps\u2019 (also for Lloyd).<\/p>\n

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Now ‘scraps’ is something that\u2019s quite popular in Yorkshire, it\u2019s effectively the leftover bits you have after the fish at the fish and chip shop has been fried but the scraps here are so much more than crispy batter.<\/p>\n

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They\u2019re little parcels of the most delicious, flakiest fish and almost guaranteed to induce food envy no matter how good whatever else you ordered was. (I maaaaay have ended up eating almost half of Lloyd\u2019s scraps \u2013 again, no moderation on my part \ud83d\ude00 ).<\/p>\n

We have an interesting palate cleanser of beetroot ice cream, goats cheese, lightly toasted nuts and other stuff I can\u2019t quite remember right now. I just remember being pleasantly surprised at how well the ice cream and goats cheese paired together (who\u2019d have thought it, eh?).<\/p>\n

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For mains, I went for the local lobster while Lloyd went for fish and chips.<\/p>\n

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Seriously when you\u2019re here, you very quickly see why the chef has his Michelin star. It\u2019s good food through and through, and if you check the website here<\/a>, the prices are very reasonable \u2013 something which never seems synonymous with Michelin-star chefs (especially back in London). Needless to say, given how amazing afternoon tea was and then how dinner was, I knew by this point we would be in for quite the treat on the food-front while in Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

Oh, dessert \u2013 I almost forgot to say \u2013 for dessert, I went with the caramelized apple rice pudding (another brilliant choice on my part\u2026 though I probably should be giving the chef credit for how fantastic it was \ud83d\ude00 ).<\/p>\n

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With that, stuffed so full I could barely walk, we headed back to the Raven Hall Hotel<\/a> where I promptly fell asleep almost as soon as I got in.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d only been in Yorkshire a few hours but I was utterly in love with Yorkshire and knew I\u2019d made the right choice in deciding to spend a couple of days here. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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16 Best Things To Do In York<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n