Then there was York, one of our favorite towns-to-visit. We stayed at a well-placed hotel across the circle from Clifford’s Tower. Of course I had to climb to the top of the old castle with its retaining wall of a height so low that I dared not get too close to the edge. We spent hours in the nearby York Castle Museum with its replicas of nineteenth century English shops and homes. Later we balanced this experience with a ride through underground excavations from the period of the Viking invaders – complete with re-created smells as well as structures. There was also the town-wall to climb for a walk around York to get an overview of what the Vikings had left and the Anglo-Saxons retained. Along the way we met a woman from Wales who presented us with the longest name of any Welsh town: Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. It was easy for her; impossible for us.
York is the town where streets are “gates” and the gates are “bars.” Micklegate Bar is not a place for a pint, but rather the arched gate to what might be called Mickle Street. And High Petergate is another street, not a large archway. The River Ouse, flowing through the town, has banks that are pleasant for quiet walks; it is easy enough to catch sight of single and double manned sculls enjoying an outing among a variety of ducks.
York is, also, the place for bell-ringing heard along every lane but silenced, in some mysterious way, so that peals are not heard within the Minster from which they go forth. Each morning, tower bells sound throughout the town, adding an extra touch to a stroll along its narrow streets from our hotel near the river.
One morning I took an early stroll so I could be engulfed by the bells. Karen remained in the hotel. Another sudden shower appeared; Karen was able to capture on film a wondrous full-arc rainbow passing from York Minster across the medieval landscape to reach its own pot-of-gold. Bells and Bows, essential images of York.
Then there is the Minster, itself, a molded mountain of stone supported by multi-rolled pillars blended together into massive rings vaulting to the man-made heaven above. The usual rood screen became a thick wall impregnated by a row of English kings, from William the Conqueror to Henry VI, separating the clergy from the commoners milling about the nave while a mass is hymned and hidden from view until a climatic chiming of hand bells announces everyone must stop gossiping and pay momentary attention to the miracle taking place at a distance from where they stood.
Along one side of the transcript the giant clock could be seen by a crowd of tourists, either modern or medieval, waiting for the two metallic knights to strike the hour. However, no mere sound awakens the knights and bishops sleeping on or under their monumental tombs. The hubbub is ignored as well by all of the white, ruffled collared men and women praying in the private chapels built for them centuries ago. Many of the side altars are protected from the casual passing tourist by patterned grates with openings large enough to accommodate a camera lens so that a photographer can get a clear view of the multi-colored holy figures protected behind the iron walls.
We climb the narrow steps leading up an interior hill to the Chapter House where the Minister’s brothers met in ages past beneath a vaulted ceiling with the Lamb of God at its apex. They sat in carved indentations under narrow, mile-high windows, their private locations divided by columns topped with paired, carved heads, many of whom enjoyed making strange faces to be seen by the living monks, who could also gaze upon small representations of strange animals – in particular, monkeys – gamboling above them.
It was a most pleasant experience a return to the Cathedral at dusk in order to participate in Evening Prayer with those Anglicans who continued to practice the rites initiated by their Roman brothers centuries ago. The incense smelled as sweet as it has for a thousand years; the music in Latin or English retained the same comfort for those who listened in the semi-darkness and semi-brightness of burning wax candles.
The town of York, although dominated by its Minster, has other amazing places to visit. The Castle Museum, rising up near Clifford’s Tower, provides hours, if desired, of viewing English history of the common folk who lived in Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian times. Household rooms from each era are on exhibit; each with its own clutter of every knickknack held dear by the Brits of the day. Ready comparisons are available for bathroom facilities as well as for iron stoves and ovens. These furnishings are also visible in miniature with an extensive collection of multi-floored dollhouses. Another wing houses replicas of shops where real items are viewed behind small-glass-pane windows. They even sell a few items to modern tourists interested in an old-fashioned souvenir.
Of course the best way to view York is to walk on top of its walls, which encircle the town. Their width varies from a single-file passage to multiple couples walking abreast. The visitor has uninterrupted views of backyard gardens as well as laundry hung out to dry from on more than Mondays. It’s also a short side-trip to view the ruins of St Mary’s abbey, built in 1088. Apparently throughout England it is easier to build around ruins than to cart them away as is the case in the U.S. On this particular excursion we were caught in another shower, one lasting for only a few minutes. Indeed, it is highly advisable to carry a portable umbrella and wear a trench coat all the time. No doubt, this is what makes the grass and shrubbery so green, even in autumn, and the flowers so bountiful throughout the year.
Before leaving York and his monumental structures, we had to pass through the neighborhood called The Shambles with its timber-framed shops and houses close enough so that occupants could shake hands across the street from their second floor windows. The tiny stores were now more than butcher shops as they had been in the fourteenth century. It was adventurous to see what was for on sale for tourists, even if the English had to buy their boar-heads in a different place such as an open-air town market or as enclosed market-hall. (I had encountered my first boar-heads in London in Harrod’s grocery maze.)
Although we have visited York on each of our three vacations in the United Kingdom, it remains among our favorite locations for another exposure, should the time and our condition allow for such a possibility. York is also an excellent center for day-trips to such places as Castle Howard, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Estate.
Castle Howard was begun in 1699; it is the movie-location for Brideshead, Evelyn Waugh’s view of life in England. As with every castle, there is no landscaping in front of the structure. It gives the appearance of solid rock rising directly from the earth. It reeks of authority. On the other hand, the gardens hidden (and private) behind the main mountain of stone provide lush plants and wandering peacocks. Here are flowers and fountains, streams and statues (usually Roman or well-established royalty.)
Fountains Abbey consists of ruins with windowless windows and roofless roofs. Solid archways remain with extensions of broken walls. Modern iron rails are used to keep people away from any falling hazards. Grounded flood lights illuminate the ruins at nightfall. On the day we visited, there were school children carrying colored soccer balls over their heads to represent the planets revolving around a boy with his golden globe raised above his blond haired head. Ancient sites are ideal for modern astronomy.
Studley Royal Estate lies nearby, with its lakes and wrestling statues along with a folly or two; and a deer park for fawns, does and a lonely stag. There is also a sign to beware of “free range children” playing along the road.
To the southwest from York, across the Island, is Chester on the River Dee. Once a true Roman fort (castra) without any embellishment of name, such as Eastchester, Westchester, Leicester, Worcester, Dorchester, etc. This Chester comes with the usual black and white Tudor shops. We stayed at Blossom Hotel protected by statue of a medieval knight, representing still another age in the city’s history.
We enjoy the views from the ever-present medieval walls, making a circumference around the city. Modern buildings seem to out-number the old, perhaps from postwar construction. A major attraction in the center of the town is the black, red and gold Eastgate Town Clock, constructed in 1897 for Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. A street performer, a fire-stick juggler, entertains pedestrian tourists, most of whom ignore him.
The Chester Museum, like the one in York, exhibits models of English homes through the ages. It is good to leave the confines of another, albeit interesting, museum for a stroll through Grosvenor Park with formal plantings and lawns that provide a sunny place to sit on a bench and meditate. At its edge we spy an ancient small castle with laundry hanging in the backyard. We pass the ruins of the Church of St John and enter its replacement where a touring choir is performing.
Most of the streets are closed to traffic but are crowded edge to edge with shoppers. St Peter and Paul cathedral replace Stanta Werburgh whose banner has her holding a bishop’s staff next to her tomb. She was probably an abbess rather than clergy, per se. In a nave, we discover a labyrinth made of tall white candles on black iron sticks; Karen walks the route in quiet meditation. Fortunately the candles are not burning; the path would have been extremely hot otherwise. We also find a Cloister courtyard with statue of Christ and the woman at the well. They are joined at their feet to form a circular structure with them face to face …. depicting the waters of eternal life in the bowl they hold between them.
Across the moors to Inverness in Scotland. Although we would like to have traveled further north, this was to be the closest we would ever come to the North Pole. The major site to see was the tide flowing into the Moray Firth on its way to Loch Ness. We never saw a real sea monster in all of our travels; but I have recollections of a fake one on some lake in Italy!
In Inverness we ordered a worthwhile remembrance of our visit to Great Britain. Karen chose a kilt made from the Colquhoun tartan, of which her Scots-Irish ancestors would approve. As for me, I bought a tie with the lighter, fighting plaid; her kilt was of the darker, dress tartan in deep greens and blues with dashes of red. She also found a clan badge with its antlered stag and motto: “si je puis” – “if I can.” We agreed: she could!
Finally, we headed south. Our hotel in Edinburgh was combined with a large department store located across from Princess Park with its canopied memorial to Bobby Burns. Through the oversized windows in our room we had magnificent views of the City from the Castle to Holyrood Palace with its lion- and unicorn-guarded gates. We visited both of these locations and several others over the next few days.
The Seven Hills of the Athens of the North (and, yes, it is Rome that is known for its seven hills!) share their castles, monuments and ruins. One of them holds the remains of Arthur’s Seat. How the legendary king from southern Camelot ever sat this far north, I’m not sure. Nevertheless, an ancient, inactive volcano desires a noble nomenclature. We were young enough at the time to make the walk from Edinburgh Castle along Princess Street to the monuments on Calton Hill and over to Holyrood Palace. It is great that we began our worldwide travels when we were in our fifties!
St Gile’s Cathedral, displaying the Presbyterian founder, John Knox, was worth a visit; but it was in the Catholic cathedral of St Mary’s, where we attended mass, that we learned firsthand about the reputed values of being a Scot At the end of the liturgy, as the bishop processed out of the Cathedral, the lights were turned off, aisle by aisle, as he marched up the nave. On the other hand, the lights found in my memories continue to burn ever so brightly.