Monks and their habits

I should have just parked up on the road end and walked.

It was however a cold day with a biting and deep chilling wind and that was enough of a deterrent to think about setting off down. what was nothing more than a rough, loose and very uneven farm track on foot.

So, I edged the car up over the kerb stones which formed the hammerhead of a residential cul de sac and bounced along from pothole to pothole in a seasickness inducing movement. The raised central ridge between the deep rutted channels was high enough to strike or caress the underside of the vehicle in equal and alternate measure.

At about the half way point of my reckless journey I felt that I would be lucky to actually get back to any tarmac surface without irreparably damaging the sump or suspension. It was not possible within the confines of the track to attempt a three point turn or even a hundred and three point turn.

The outer edge of my tyres were perilously close to just dropping off on either side into a shallow grave of a ditch that separated the right of way from the farmer's field.

My only course of action was to plough on, which did seem like the motion I was adopting, to my destination.

I had taken the appointment to meet the client by default.

There was no-one else available in the office when the call had come in and after an hour of a rather one sided conversation from the other end of the line I felt morally obliged to arrange a day, date and time for a site visit.

I was also intrigued by what the client had said were his longer term plans and a couple of days later I found myself on the terror trip down the track.

I felt that I was in a no-mans land, a remote and lonely place when in fact I was two fields into a three field wide Greenbelt between a suburb of the city and a commuter village and in clear view of upwards of fifty houses which backed onto the agricultural land.

Stick figures, dispersed but in each case comprising one large and one small apparently shapeshifting were in plain view and after squinting through my now mud splattered windscreen and driver-side window they gradually manifested as walkers and their dogs. The lanes and fields were obviously popular for such an activity being an extension to the residents own back gardens.

I could just make out my destination.

It was not so much the low grouping of derelict and tumble down buildings in the middle of the field as a large white panel van parked up and bearing the name of the clients business in large and gawdy sign writing.

I was waved to a stop up close behind the van.

The phone call from the previous days had referred to the very grand and auspicious sounding Haltemprice Priory as the venue for the meeting.

I had not been able to find the place on my otherwise up to date map of the area but had found an entry in a local history book attesting to the existence of a large Augustinian Monastery with buildings and land in the early 14th Century.

I could see that nothing of any substance or merit, at least above ground level, had survived the ravages of time and the pilfering of successive generations of the surrounding dwellers.

The only thing recognisable as being a former structure was what I though was just a pile of random rubble but on closer inspection in the company of the enthusiastic client it was possible to make out what had been walls, a few rough hewn roof timbers, pantiles and vague but once evidently quite prominent architectural features.

What I was being shown was in fact the former Haltemprice Priory Farm which occupied the former historic site but was itself pretty ancient.

Amongst sections of hand made thin facing bricks were remnants of dressed stone work which were too grand for a simple farmhouse and must therefore have come from the 1326 founded Augustinian premises. The stones formed parts of a plinth at the base of the former farmhouse walls and with quoins which balanced above but looked ready to teeter and fall in a light breeze.

Vegetation had also taken hold in the cracks and crevices of the derelict masonry serving to both protect from the elements but also causing further probing intrusion and fracturing.

Through the ivy and self seeded shrubs I could just make out a four centred moulded brick arch with quatrefoils to a panel above. This feature would not have looked out of place as a formal gateway to a major and regionally important establishment.

Most interesting to me was a carved stone shield of arms which although badly weathered and poorly defined was still legible with a date of 1584.

The client clambered through the rubble and invited me to follow him to a brick staircase tower but I declined because, frankly, the whole thing looked mightily unstable.

It was not so much the angle by which the tower was out of alignment or the absence of even one sound staircase tread but the odour of smoke and the blackened sooty residues on everything indicating that as recently as the night before someone had tried to set the place alight.

Some success had been had although the absence of a roof and the all pervading rain saturated materials had served as a good dampener on the aspirations of the would be arsonist.

The client was well into  proudly showing off his property investment but I was still cynical and sceptical.

The master plan was to restore the farmhouse to its former glory and then slowly applying for planning permission to bring the former monastic lands back into economic use for the 21st Century.

Just under the overgrown surrounds of the ruined pile the client was convinced that he had discovered the brick footings of an extensive arrangement of structures that were likely to have been the barns, workshops, blacksmiths forge, wash house and brewery of the Augustinian Monks.

He would be arguing the case for rebuilding from the footings as simple reinstatement but for occupation as prestigious private housing.

The wider landed areas he had researched as consisting of pike lakes, very productive tended gardens and cultivated plots all fed by natural springs that percolated through the sub soils.

His modern take was to landscape the site as a memorial garden or as a cemetery for eco and green internments and then set up an artesian well, pumping station and plant to capture and bottle for commercial sale the mineral water.

Considerable thought had gone into his vision although he did admit that the Planners, Local Councillors, English Heritage and the National Trust were all opposed to any form of development on such an historic site.

I could sympathise with his emotional outburst that "if them buggers really had a care for the place they would have done something to save it when it actually had any bollocks to show for itself".

That meeting in the windswept field was a few years ago now. As I drive today on any proper metalled roads affording a view over the Priory site I do glance across in case a small community has become established with attractive individual homes, a tasteful and reverential garden of remembrance, neatly trimmed organically crafted headstones and a bottling plant.

For an abundance of reasons nothing has yet manifested in that greenbelt stretch. In fact, year on year I find it more and more difficult to make out even the ruins of the farmhouse unless assisted by a thick and persistent plume of smoke as the budding arsonist returns to test the drying out properties of whatever is left that is capable of being torched.