6/23 Ryedale Folk Museum, North Yorkshire Moors National Park

This is a small place, but it is packed full of buildings and typical contents from the Iron Age to 1800s.  It is located in the very small town of Sutton le Hole, which seems to be a strange name for an English village, but a detailed explanation and some history of this very old place can be found here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton-le-Hole 

It was a beautiful day, in spite of threatening clouds, so I enjoyed walking around here and looking at the historical buildings and displays.  

One of the first buildings contained a row of shops that might have been found in 1800s shops.   

 

Each of these shops contain tools and examples of the products that are made there, but I don't want to bore you with all of them, so here is the interior of the apothecary.  My immediate reaction was all the chemicals and how most of them probably caused more harm than good.   

 

I especially enjoyed this house which was a common type found in this area.  This one was built in the early 17th Century in Danby and modified slightly in 1704. It was moved here in 1968.  Notice the photo on the right of this newspaper page that shows the type of construction. 

 

Notice the beam construction on the end of this building.   

 

 Here, it is reflected in the inside of the long house. 

 

 Not a nail in sight!  Beams were laid on one another or pinned together with hand-carved wooden pegs.  Notice how they used logs with only minimal squaring and shaping.  Consider, however, that this house mostly held together for several centuries before it was moved to this museum.   

Following are several photos of how furniture would have looked.  

A couple of the other farm buildings.  Nearly all buildings in this area were built of limestone rock because wood was not readily available, and there were several quarries from which to easily obtain these building stones.  

 

 

 

 

This is supposed to be a witches home, or at least a place where suspected witches were forced to live.   

 

 

 

 

This reconstruction of an Iron Age Roundhouse was one of the reasons I came here.  It is very large, and no doubt held a large extended family, maybe up to 20 individuals.  

 

 

 

The entrance is to the right below.  

 

 

The entrance was long, and probably had a door made of skins hung to protect the interior from wind and rain.   

This interior reminds me a lot of the very early Native American homes, with a fire pit in the middle and benches around the edges for sleeping.  

 

A good friend who is an excellent photographer once reminded me to always look up at the ceiling.  The construction of this house is impressive and must have taken a large group to build it.  

A bed??