The Yorkshire Vet: Day tripping down memory lane and into religious history

A promisingly spring-like day (despite sodden countryside) could certainly not be spent traversing the slopes, moors or edges on two wheels. It could just about be managed at the pace of a slug, pathetically hobbling along with one crutch (yes, three weeks in I had progressed, precociously, to needing just one).

A promisingly spring-like day (despite sodden countryside) could certainly not be spent traversing the slopes, moors or edges on two wheels. It could just about be managed at the pace of a slug, pathetically hobbling along with one crutch (yes, three weeks in I had progressed, precociously, to needing just one).

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Anne suggested a day trip- maybe a country house or something. Once upon a time, when the kids were small, this kind of activity was commonplace on any weekend off duty. But I couldn’t remember the last time we had visited such a place. I quickly suggested Mount Grace Priory.

The last time we’d been there must have been twenty years ago, maybe more and I remember it being idyllic.

Over recent years, I’ve passed Mount Grace most days but it’s easy to whizz by, since it’s hidden from view on a fast-flowing part of the A19. I was excited to pay this historic place a second visit and we were not to be disappointed.

I’d been to the outskirts of the Priory on many occasions as I used to do work for farms which surround the site. I have treated all manner of ill farm animals- sheep with liver fluke, cows with fog fever and heifers with pneumonia all under the gaze of Mount Grace.

By chance, on the drive up to the English Heritage site, we bumped into the retired farm manager, Ray. Still with his impressive white beard, he was unmistakable. I wound down the car window to chat, hoping he’d still recognise me. He did and we briefly reminisced about halcyon days.

Ray was a brilliant farmer. I remember early in my career, undertaking a blood test on every cow in the herd. The vagaries of the handling system meant it was simpler to take the samples from the jugular vein in the neck (if there is easy access to the back of the cow, it’s often simpler to sample blood from a small vein on the underside of the tail).

Ray, heroically, skilfully and empathetically held the head of each cow still so I could collect the required blood. He was the best farm manager I’ve ever worked with; pragmatic, caring, knowledgeable and sympathetic to a newly qualified vet.

At the Priory, Anne and I read the information boards and looked around this magnificent place, which is the finest example of a Carthusian Priory that we have in the UK.

The main monastery is in France- Chartreuse, where they famously make the green, herbal liqueur. The monks here had individual “cells” where they had a solitary existence, mainly involving praying and studying. Solitary as it might have been, the little bachelor pads seemed very luxurious, each having its own water supply, toilet, tree, vegetable patch, bedroom, study and feeding hatch.

Even by twenty-first century standards, this was pleasant. In those days, it must have been Utopia (although I don’t suppose that particular book would have been on their reading list). And there was no mention of any alcoholic beverages in the North Yorkshire branch.

Back in the day (the fourteenth century, to be exact) Mount Grace was thought to have had wealth on a par with the much more acclaimed Cistercian version- Fountains Abbey- twenty-five miles to the south west.

If you like this sort of thing, Mount Grace Priory is a gem not to be missed.