Joseph writes to Hannah Rowntree

Joseph wrote to his sister, Hannah, on 1st September 1919 about a holiday he had enjoyed at Goathland on the North Yorkshire Moors. His love of nature and the countryside and his keen sense of observation shine through in his writing – “Our finest motor drive was on the high moor, where we had heather on either side of the road, and, if the day were clear, a view of the sea. After riding for some miles you get a commanding view of Whitby Abbey (St. Hilda’s), a good deal damaged by the bombardment, and soon the town of Whitby itself. There is a sudden descent from the high land, where heather and bracken is the surrounding vegetation, to the village of Staithes, with its beautiful flowery gardens, now gay with roses.”