Tour de France comes to Swaledale!

It was amazing today to see the prestigious Tour de France racing through the narrow country lanes and village streets of Swaledale, Yorkshire - the ancestral home of a good many CLOSEs in my one-name research.  The riders and their entourage came through Muker,
then on to Gunnerside,
 through Reeth,
 and past the church of St Andrew, Grinton, on their way to the last of the hill climbs: "Côte de Grinton Moor"
After all the excitement of today, no doubt by this evening Swaledale will be getting back to the much more peaceful state in which I found it on the day I took these photos.

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An enterprising Sunderland shipwright - Robert CLOSE 1825-1894.

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