Not actually Loes's house, but rather nice Christmas decorations at one of the other similar properties in her road.

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Christmas Day dawned, weather-wise dull and grey !       My starting point for the walk today was the Muddy Boots Cafe (aka the Village Hall).

Loes was suffering from the widely popular "2022 winter flu" so I took the opportunity for a dog walk by myself while she stayed indoors in the warm.

Following the map on my phone I headed down a footpath alongside one of the older village houses.

My route took me down to the main road where there was an old mile stone . . . so you may know where I am.

Main road walking is not the best, but it was part of a larger round walk, most of which was within Harewood Park.

Back up on the hill a slight diversion found me at the old Harewood Church.

Sadly it is hardly, if ever used and in now in the care of the Churches Preservation Society.

The main road was down in the valley, close to the River Wharfe.  The lane to the church is behind me.

On the return leg of the walk I had climbed back up onto the high ground, so the views north were extensive, if slightly damp today.

Hardly a white Christmas !

Click here or on the photo above for a larger version

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We had lunch and the afternoon with Loes's daughter and family (Dani, Peter and Isaac) during which we exchanged presents.

Even the dogs had not been forgotten.  Their Harewood coats would dry them after muddy walks . . . well that's the theory !

Clear blue skies this Boxing Day morning.

Harewood is famous for the breeding and the re-introduction to the wild of the Red Kite in this area of Yorkshire.

Their size and loud call, like a buzzard's only more piercing, would always make me cast my eyes upward.

Looking out over the Harewood Estate at the start of the walk.

Well there they are . . . quietly grazing in the fields below.

I walked the estate roads, down past the farm and business centre.

The smoke in the picture is coming from a new bio-mass plant, presumably for heating and hot water for the estate.

I turned and followed a track around the other side of the Fish Pond lake.

This would take me in a suitable sort of circle, back towards home.

Distant views of Harewood House on the high ground above the lake.

Mr Capability Brown obviously knew how to design a classic landscape !

Click here or on the photo above for a larger annotated panorama

Zooming in on the main house and its lower gardens.

The lake is fed from the Sturdy Beck and the outflow from Eccup Reservoir, a few miles to the south.

I crossed it on the structure known as Rough Bridge.

The old bridge, presumably dating to the construction of the lake, is now unserviceable.

so the track has an more modern alternative structure to carry it over the river.

Fine views of Harewood House this beautiful morning.

A wonderfully proportioned, free standing parkland tree . . . note the Canada Geese on the ground below.

From the top of the rise I could look over and see the church again,

this time from the opposite side compared to yesterday.

The grand Arch at the eastern entrance to the park.

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As a new resident of the extended Harewood Estate, Loes has signed up as a "Friend of Harewood"

which allowed us free entry to the grounds and the Christmas display within the main house.

Harewood House dates from 1759 when Edwin Lascelles employed York-born architect John Carr, fashionable interior designer Robert Adam,

England’s greatest furniture maker Thomas Chippendale and visionary landscape gardener Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown

to design and build his grand Country House.

Today Harewood is an independent charitable educational trust set up to maintain and develop the house, its collections and grounds,

for public benefit. - Its ultimate owner is David Lascelles, Earl of Harewood.

We called over to the main house in the afternoon to view the Christmas exhibition "Long Live the Christmas Tree"

Rather than a traditional Christmas display, the house has taken a more artistic view of the season.

This was a giant wreath in the main foyer.

As kids, our family had one of those brass boxes, presented to the troops one wartime Christmas.

On through the house in colourful style.

Here a Christmas Angel within a Christmas Tree artwork.

This rotating tree was made of copper pipes

and the many large and small crystals hanging from its boughs reflected and refracted the spotlights all around the room.

	- - - o o o - - -     The exhibition not only allowed us to visit the impressive main rooms of the house but also directed us downstairs to the kitchens and the working rooms of the lower house.     Upstairs . . . downstairs you could say !   - - - o o o - - -

These had also been given the Christmas treatment, with lights and tree displays.

The centre display on the main table was an illuminated gingerbread Harewood House !

Outside, the terrace had also been illuminated, in simple but equally festive mood.

The centre piece is a bronze statue of Orpheus with a leopard on his shoulders.

- - - o o o - - -   " Orpheus was the son of Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. He perfected the art of music, taught how to play the lyre by Apollo and known for his love for his wife Eurydice and his journey to the underworld to rescue her from death."   The magnificent bronze sculpture by German-born British artist Astrid Zydower, was installed by the present Earl and Countess on the Terrace at Harewood in 1985, in place of a frost damaged central fountain which had collapsed in 1976.   - - - o o o - - -

The front view of the house as we walked the terrace in fading light.

- - - o o o - - -   Time to  return home as the exhibition and house was closing for the night.   The lights on the front of the main building took on the appearance of an illuminated Advent Calendar to emphasise all the intriguing items within.     - - - o o o - -

Time to follow the lights along the driveway, back to Loes's new home.