After breakfast at my apartment, I walked the 20 minutes into the centre of York. It is a city with significant Roman, Viking, and Medieval history. It is perhaps the latter that is most represented in the architecture here.
I have, in fact visited this city many times, but never as an adult. Family holidays were taken in this area fairly regularly, and as visit to York would always be part of the itinerary. I also came here on several school trips, both in primary school, and secondary school. As teenagers, my friends and I found the place name “Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate” particularly amusing, so I made sure this be my first stop. The comedy of the name is not lost on me, even today.
I walked past the Jorvik Viking Centre. The size of the “stand-by queue”, as well as the lack of availability of on-line tickets persuaded me that I may not visit in this occasion. I walked through “The Shambles”, which is a close, medieval street. These days it is mainly populated by shops trading on a thinly-disguised “Harry Potter” theme, presumably due to the visual similarity between this street and those in said published work, such as “Diagon Alley”.
Notably, there is the “York Ghost Merchants”, who sell small, individually unique, porcelain spirits. The queue for this shop was down the street, and round the corner so I resolved to leave it for others.
I took myself instead to York Minster, a spectacular building with a history dating back to a Roman fort that used to exist here. Later in history, a minster was built by the Normans. This was then gradually replaced with the Gothic building that stands today.
Of particular significance to me, is the South Transept, which was partially destroyed by fire in 1984, almost exactly 40 years to the day from my visit. I remember distinctly as a young viewer of the children’s BBC programme “Blue Peter”, as 6 children won a competition to design “bosses” to replace those destroyed, or damaged by the fire. These remain, and are a unique “timepiece” as an insight into what children of the time thought would be the recent history that should be commemorated. The designed including two showing the moon landings, one showing the famine in Ethiopia, the raising of the “Mary Rose”, marine conservation (“Save the Whale”), and one depicting the Rose Window of the minster coming through the flames of the fire. One of the winners was from Glasgow and was, and will be ages with me. She now lives in Austrailia, and you can read a rather nice interview with her from 2004, when the 20th anniversary of the fire was marked.
I was delighted to see these after so many years, and noted the fact that they are still made quite a “big deal” of.
I spent about 2 hours in the glory of the minster, enjoying the architectural detail, and atmosphere of this beautiful place. I even took it upon myself to climb the stairs to the central tower. The arduous climb was off-set by the stunning views from the top.
I cought up with my correspondence in a local park, with a coffee, and then a hostelry with a beer. Dinner was taken in a quiet manner, at my accommodation where I enjoyed a pork (“figit”) pie, and a scotch egg. This seemed appropriate for the area.
