The White Rose City

Leaving the Bloc hotel at Gatwick airport, we walked to the train stion – conveniently located at the airport - and travelled to London St. Pancras station.  We crossed the street to King’s Cross which was lighted up in red in honor of Remembrance Day

and boarded our train for the trip to York. I had booked first class tickets and assumed that food would be served on the trip, as it usually is.  Well, apparently the Grand Central line doesn’t think that you should get anything other than a slightly larger reserved seat because all we were offered was coffee or tea.  Bruce went to the dining card to get us something for lunch and was told that they were out of everything except potato chips.  Happily we still had some digestive biscuits we had bought in Norway.  Annoying, though.  It made me think of our trip to England in 2019 when Virgin still operated trains.  We took the train from London to Liverpool and had a marvelous time.  The cocktails flowed, there was hot food delivered to your seat and the conductors were great. Too bad they got out of the train business. We arrived in York hungry, but happy to be in the lovely city.  We caught a taxi to our Airbnb, which turned out to be the nicest Airbnb we’d ever booked. Huge rooms, tastefully appointed and very welcoming. We went out for an early supper and found a tapas restaurant that had good reviews.  We weren’t terribly impressed by either the food or the service, though the almond-stuffed dates were delicious. We did pass a lovely building, the old Merchants Hall, on the way there, though.

The next morning we left the flat to join a walking tour of York that I had booked.  York is often represented as the white rose city, a reference to the War of the Roses when the House of York was pitted against the red rose of the House of Lancaster. Anyway, this was undoubtedly the most entertaining walking tour I’d ever taken. The tour leader was an older woman who sounded very much like Maggie Smith and who had a wicked sense of humor.  There was one Scot on the tour and five Americans, and we took a lot of ribbing from her, especially the Scot. She started by pointing out the Medieval arch, erected around 1200.

The old city of York is surrounded by “Roman Walls.”  She elaborated on that for us: apparently there were walls left over from the Roman occupation but they were nothing like the ones you see now.  In the 1700s, the people of York were going to tear them down, but an artist named William Etty led an effort to retain them and, in fact, beef them up.  Sturdier walls were built that allow you to walk all round the city.  It wasn’t until sometime in the 20th century that railings were added and our guide said that when she was a child children would try to toss each other off the wall. Charming.

We then walked to the ruins of the Abbey church – really lovely. 

Maggie (she never told us her name, so I’m calling her that) said that the people of York would put on passion plays on the backs of carts parked in front of the walls.  The tradition was revived in the 1950s and continued until the 1980s when “those people from Health and Safety decided it was too dangerous.” They then started building a proper stage for the event which she said took all the fun out of it.  She showed us a photo of one of the passion plays from the 1950s with Adam and Eve wearing flesh-colored body stockings, surrounded by young maidens in flowing robes.  One of the maidens pictured was a very young Judi Dench, who hails from York. (This isn't the photo we were shown, but it does show Judi Dench as Mary in one of the passion plays in front of the wall of the Abbey.}

Our next stop was the York Museum which was built in the 1830s and originally housed a meeting room and observatory for the Literary and Philosophical Society.

It now houses a diverse collections covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy. We followed Maggie (at a breathtaking pace) to a bit of the wall that had two types of stones.  The lower, smaller stones are from Roman times, the larger upper stones were added in medieval times and include arrow slots used to protect the Yorkshiremen from the dreaded Scots.

Next we were off past the York Minster.  Maggie explained that the Roman Headquarters had been located under the site of the minster.  This was discovered when one of the stone columns was sinking and excavation had to be done around and underneath it.  The Romans had an outpost in York from AD 71 to AD 410.  It was in York that Constantine was proclaimed emperor and there is a statue of him in front of the Minster.

After the Romans, York was taken over by the Vikings in 866 and they remained there until William the Conqueror’s successful invasion in 1066.

The Abbott's House (aka the King's Manor) was our next stop.

It is now part of the University of York, but was built in 1270 for Simon of York, the Abbott. Only parts of the lower walls remain from that building, the rest dates to the end of the 15th Century when it was rebuilt. In the mid-16th Century the house was taken by Henry VIII as part of the dissolution of the monasteries. It became the headquarters of the Council of the North. As such it was the residence of the president of the Council and played host to visiting royalty.  Henry VIII, Charles I and James I all stayed here.  At this time, the former medieval Abbot’s house was enlarged and extended, including the completion of the first courtyard and the addition of a residential wing and service building. The coat of arms above the main entrance is that of King Charles I. Maggie pointed out that it was a bit aspirational, because in addition to the red and white flag of England and the blue and white flag of Scotland, he included a dragon representing Wales, a harp representing Ireland and fleurs de lis representing France. She said that Charles I was delusional, Charles II was stupid, and the jury's still out on Charles III.

When Charles I was defeated in 1644 by Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarian forces at the Battle of Marston Moor, just outside York, the king lost control of the north of England and King’s Manor surrendered. The house has been used as a school, among other things, and reportedly where Ann Lister studied. (You might know of her from the TV series Gentleman Jack.) We walked the walls across to the Monk Bar. The gateways in York's defenses are called "bars" because they were originally simple gates used to block the gateways to keep people out. The Monk Bar has the only working portcullis (sliding gate) in York.

The Monk Bar is the tallest tower in the wall. It's partly Roman and partly medieval. The stones wear down over time and Maggie told us that from time to time a wall is disassembled and rebuilt to ensure safety and stability. We passed Barley Hall, allegedly the oldest in York, which was the home of a rich wool merchant.

We didn't go inside but one of the walls is glass, so you can view the dining hall.

We walked behind the Minster and Maggie pointed out the stained glass window which is the tallest in England. There are empty niches on either side of the building which once held statures of saints, but which were destroyed during the reformation.

Next to the church is a stonemason workshop where apprentices are being trained.

We then stopped in front of The Treasurer's House, a National Trust property that we had planned to visit later. This being the "Sorry, it's closed tour", we were not surprised to learn that it was closed while it was being decorated for Christmas.

The Treasurer's House was bought in 1987 by Frank Green, the grandson of a wealthy industrialist, and by 1900 he had transformed it into an elaborately decorated town house, ready for the visit of Edward VII. It is said to be an over-the-top delight. Perhaps we'll see it another time.

From there it was a short walk to the Shambles. "Shambles" is an obsolete term for an open-air slaughterhouses and meat market. Streets of that name were so called from having been the sites on which butchers killed and dressed animals for consumption. Some of the buildings date to the 1400s. One interesting feature is the design of the buildings which get wider as they get taller. This stems from the fact that taxes were collected based on the footage of the ground floor. The result is that the buildings look like they're leaning in to each other.

On the street is the Shrine of Saint Margaret Clitherow. She converted to Roman Catholicism when that went against the established religion. She risked her life by harboring and maintaining priests, which was made a capital offence by the Jesuits Act, 1584, and holding Roman Catholic masses in her home. A frightened boy revealed the existence of a priest hole (a small room where priests could hide if authorities searched a house.) Margaret was arrested and called before the York courts for the crime of harboring Catholic priests. She refused to plead, thereby preventing a trial that would entail her three children being made to testify, and being subjected to torture. She was sentenced to death. Although pregnant with her fourth child, she was executed on Good Friday in the Toll Booth at Ouse Bridge, York, by being crushed to death, the standard inducement to force a plea.

We were in the home stretch. I'm actually amazed that we didn't lose any of the group because Maggie all but ran. She also started her spiel before everyone caught up, so we raced to keep up with her. She pointed out a house across the street from the end of the Shambles that probably dates to the 1400s. It's currently being assessed for age and because the technology for that has greatly improved, she's confident that all will be revealed and the house may be opened in a year or two.

One of the group told us that although the Minster was closed, one could still evensong and that would allow at least a partial view of the Minster. We did that and it was incredible. No photos are allowed inside the church - sorry. The choir was outstanding and the choice of vocal arrangements divine, pun intended. Even Bruce was impressed by the music. It was a perfect end to a very interesting day.