Old York

“It was a sweet view—sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive.”

— Jane Austen

Like a friend giving a proper send-off, the Peak District graced us with a warm and pleasant Sunday (May 21) morning departure.

The Crooked Spire

On our way north, we made a quick stop to see the famous crooked spire in Chesterfield.

Completed around 1360, Chesterfield's parish church of St Mary and All Saints is famous for its peculiar twisted spire, which leans an alarming 9 feet 5 inches from plumb. The combined effect of the twisting and leaning is astonishing.

The explanation most cited is that the builders used green timbers, which warped over time. Of course medieval builders used green timber all the time, but the timbers on St Mary’s spire are covered in 32 tons of lead tiles, which created an extraordinary strain that twisted the underlying timbers.

Oddly, the builders did not install cross-bracing inside the spire.

The omission of cross-bracing is believed to be the result of the spire being built during the period when the Black Death devastated England, between 1348-1350. The spire may have been started by experienced workmen, who then died in the Plague, so the work had to be finished by inexperienced men, who simply didn't know enough to put in cross-braces.
We filmed the tolling of the Chesterfield Bells here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUSpQiKB9dI

Malfoy Manor

From the crooked spire to the home of a crooked family. Well, only in the Harry Potter movies of course.

Hardwick Hall was built by the formidable Bess of Hardwick, who also developed the surrounding estate in the late 1500s. Her descendants, the Dukes of Devonshire, treasured Hardwick, while lavishing much of their attention and money on nearby Chatsworth House.

It’s a wonder a TV series has never been made about Bess. She was a remarkable figure who, through sheer will and shrewd business acumen, rose from near obscurity to become the most powerful woman in England—second only to Queen Elizabeth I.

For Harry Potter fans, Hardwick Hall was the home of Malfoy Manor.

Perhaps someone who understands film making better can explain why directors film an actual property when they are going to have to make so many alterations in post-production. Why not simply create the whole building by computer? Does a real building provide an element of realism? Is it less work to modify some aspects rather than create the whole thing from scratch?

In any event, no Harry Potter actors ever set foot in Harwick Hall, but film crews did capture the front elevation for use as Malfoy Manor. You can see they added the gables perhaps to give it a more “wizardly” look, but also to cover the ginormous “ESs” around the top of the actual building.

Bess of Hardwick worked hard and was eventually granted a title. She was so proud of that title that she had it emblazoned all around the top of Hardwick Hall—Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury.

The director also filmed the Great Hall inside Hardwick and used it to create the Malfoy Manor base of operations for Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters—to the immense discomfort of Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco Malfoy.

The meeting with a special guest Charity Burbage.
Nagini - Dinner!

Most of the noble and ancient families of Britain stored and preserved family records, as well as old manuscript treasures accumulated during the centuries, in **muniment rooms** such as this.

The public entrance to the home was via a grand stone stairwell lined with massive handmade tapestries.

When Hardwick Hall was built in the 16th century, glass was expensive and large windows a symbol of wealth and status.
The rhyme “Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall,” referred to the progressively larger windows as you moved up higher in the house. By the time you made it to the **High Great Chamber**, the windows were an impressive four panels high.
The walls includes not only painting and tapestries, but detailed full relief carvings.

The servant’s passageway seen between the High Great Chamber (left) and the Long Gallery (right).

The massive public meeting space in the **Long Gallery**.

On the left is Mary, Queen of Scots, and on the right is Bess of Hardwick’s grand-daughter **Arbella Stuart**. The portraits were there to remind visitors that through the marriage of Bess’s daughter Elizabeth Cavendish to Charles Stuart, their child Arbella had a claim to the thrones of Scotland and England. Bess very much desired Arbella to become Queen, but Arbella's royal claim was never to be realized.

This image shows how the tapestries would have looked in the 1500s.

York

We have dreamed for so long of visiting York. New York? Sure. But the original old walled city of York? Yes please!

Any time you mention to someone in England that we were going to York, they would immediately say something like, “Oh, York is a lovely city, isn’t it.”

(If you’re British, you are compelled by the power of the British idiomatic spirits to soften every statement into an unassuming question. The two most spoken words in England are some variation of isn’t it? doesn’t it? could you? aren’t they? wouldn’t it?

Americans may use a lot of filler words, but the two-word-end-of-sentence-not-really-a-question-question is a most-annoying habit of the Brits—isn’t it?)

Now that I got that off my chest, please join us for a short video tour of our flat in York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rIYwJ0dIEo

York has more miles of intact city walls than anywhere else in England, and some sections of the walls date back to Roman times. The old Roman walls were in a poor state of repair by the time of the Danish occupation of the city in 867. The Danes restored the walls, and left the Anglo-Saxon Anglian Tower—the only such tower remaining in England.

The majority of the wall dates from the 12th to the 14th century, with a few small areas which were restored in the Victorian period.

The four main gateways into the old city stand at Bootham Bar, Monk Bar, Walmgate Bar, and Micklegate Bar. The two lesser known gateways are Fishergate Bar and Victoria Bar. The name "bar" refers to the simple bars which were levelled across the gates to restrict traffic in and out of the city. The bars also acted as toll booths during the medieval period.

I’m not sure we’ve ever said we’re going to go “into the city” for dinner before and meant it quite so literally.
Amanda is standing in front of **Monk Bar** (above on Sunday, May 21), the most elaborate of the city gates. It consists of a four-story gatehouse which dates from the early 14th century. The gatehouse was designed to stand as a self-contained fortress, with each floor capable of being defended individually. Absolutely amazing!

Shambles

After dinner we walked home via Shambles—the historic street lined with crooked medieval buildings.

Shambles is the ancient street of the Butchers of York, mentioned in the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror.

It takes its name not, as you might expect, from the narrow passageway lined with old, leaning buildings, but from the word shamel meaning the stalls or benches on which the meat was displayed, later versions of which can still be seen. It was rebuilt about 1400, when it assumed its present character.

It is undoubtedly the inspiration behind Diagon Alley.

It’s difficult to belief the narrow way, with its higgledy-piggledy assortment of angled timbered buildings, is not part of a movie set, but rather the genuine condition of an ancient passage.

Of course a street like this is practically compelled to open a Harry Potter store…or three.

Here is our video walkthrough of the Shambles, complete with Harry Potter theme music: https://youtu.be/_qGa6jd2o2g

York Minster

On Monday (May 22) morning we wore up ready to dig a little deeper into the ancient city of York.

Years ago I read how “compassion fatigue” negatively impacted charitable giving when several large natural disasters struck in succession.

Today I’m wondering if “cathedral fatigue” is impacting my charitable impressions of York Minster cathedral since my visit is one in a long succession of cathedral visits. As Amanda put it when she opted to skip the tour today, she was “cathedraled out.”

Perhaps my impressions are skewed, but I found my phone stayed in my pocket more than normal as I walked through the cathedral. Well, I still took some pictures…here are a few…(and it really is an impressive cathedral!)…

Looking past the King’s quire screen and organ (left) into the South Transept and up into the Crossing.

The Crossing with the organ pipes at the top

The organ pipes above the King’s Screen, with the Crossing above (I love how etherial the air looks up inside the tower).

The Great East Window "Apocalypse" tells the story of the beginning and end of all things.

Despite my earlier misgivings, cathedrals are endlessly fascinating because they brim with stories. A single window contains more than 100 stories. The shape and orientation of everything has meaning and purpose, so unlike the way we build today (even churches are just tilt-up concrete slabs).

The **York Gospels** was probably made by Anglo-Saxon monks at Canterbury around 1020 and brought to York by Archbishop Wulfstan. It is the only book from before the Norman Conquest to survive at the Minster. For centuries new canons have sworn their oath of allegiance on this book. They still do so today.

One of the wood carvers who built the cathedral liked to hide wooden mice in his work. This was the only one I could find, but apparently there are many more hidden around the cathedral.

Outside, on one of the many plinths left vacant by the murderous reigns of Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell, now stands a memorial carving to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Near this place, **Constantine** **The Great** was proclaimed Roman Emperor in **306 AD**. His recognition of the civil liberties of his Christian subjects, and his own conversion to the Faith, established the religious foundations of Western Christendom. That does give you a sense of how ancient is York.

This Roman column once stood within the Great Hall of the headquarters building of the Fortress of the Sixth Legion (whose emblem was a bull) in the 4th century AD.
It was found in 1969 during the excavation of the South Transept of York Minister, lying where it had collapsed.
In 1971 it was erected here to mark the 1,900th anniversary of the foundation of the city by the Romans in 71 AD.

Minerva marks where **Petergate** once stood. The gate was named after St Peter, to whom York Minister is dedicated.

Petergate was once on the Roman’s *Via Principalis*, their main east-west route through their fortress during the 1st century. The history oozes from everywhere!

Gatehouse Coffee

On Sunday evening we entered the city for dinner through Monk Bar (one of the six gatehouse into the city). On Monday I had coffee inside Walmgate Bar.

Walmgate is the only medieval bar to retain its barbican (fortified forward extension of the gateway). It also still has its portcullis and inner doors! The gate was built in the middle of the 12th century and a barbican added in the 14th century. The Bar was rented out as a dwelling in 1376 for an annual fee of 10 shillings. The gatehouse continued to be used as a residence until 1957. Today it is home to Gatehouse Coffee.

Here is the front door to Gatehouse Coffee, accessed from the City Wall walkway, one level above the street below. Coolest coffee house entrance *ever*!

Order your coffee downstairs and then walk up to this room, complete with original arrow-slit windows, or take the old stone steps up to the roof…

Or sit around the barbican. The choice is yours!
The coffee shop is in the lower center room, indoor seating is in the upper center, and the rooftop seating is at the top center, which is accessed through the original spiral staircase up the left tower. Seating around the barbican is accessed through the absolutely tiny door on the right. Coolest place to drink coffee ever!

After coffee, I walked along the inside of the City Wall to meet up with Amanda again.

**Micklegate Bar** is the most important of York's gateways and has acted as the focus for various important events, such as greeting a monarch on a royal visit and to display the severed heads of traitors. In a ceremony that dates back to Richard II in 1389, monarchs touch the state sword when entering Micklegate Bar.
The name derives from the Viking "mykill gata" or "great street.”
The earliest surviving piece of the present gateway was built in the early 12th century, but there has been a gateway hereabouts since the Roman period.
Roman stonework and even Roman coffins were reused by the medieval builders in its construction.
In 1350 the gatehouse was heightened to include a portcullis (still there!) and a barbican (now gone).
There were people living over the bar as early as 1196 and the last resident left in 1918.

Jorvik Viking Center

Between its capture by the Vikings in 866 AD and the Norman Conquest of 1066 AD, York was an important Viking trading hub; however, little evidence of a Viking settlement had been unearthed.

In 1972, an archaeological dig revealed the moist and peaty remains of items mostly from Viking times. The peaty soil had preserved the organic remains of timber buildings, textiles from clothing, and leather shoes—things which rot away to dust on most archaeological sites.

A major dig completed from 1976-1981 unearthed a further treasure trove of Viking remains.

Today the Jorvik Viking Center sits on top of the former excavation site. They have done an exceptional job of recreating the site as it might have looked in Viking times, faithfully reproducing buildings as they looked back then.

House foundations, fences, pig pens—everything is as close to what was found as possible.

Right on down to the outhouses with moss for toilet paper! Best if we give this guy some privacy.

We finished the day with a quick stop at **Clifford’s Tower**. Built on top of a man-made earth mound, the stone tower that stands today was built in the mid 13th century. It has an elaborate four-lobed plan, modeled on a tower at Étampes in France, which is unique in England. The castle's courtyard was located at the base of the mound, protected by a stone wall with towers.

The rooftop offers a nice view of the city.

**Bootham Bar** (above)—Wednesday (May 24) was our final day in York and we enjoyed an evening stroll along the city wall between Monk Bar and Bootham Bar. Here is a short video to see what it’s like following the old city wall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCkSZfgOptM

The spires to the Minster rise behind Bootham Bar. In the foreground is part of a wall (separate from the city wall) that once stood around the old abbey.
The wall was broken through and the gateway you see added in July 1503 for the visit of Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII, during her journey north as the new bride of James IV of Scotland.
She was the honored guest of the Lord Abbot of St Mary’s in York for two days, and the gateway added in her honor.

We have been watching (and rewatching) The Big Bang Theory throughout this trip. Despite the frequency of our viewing schedule, we were stilled gobsmacked (a great British term!) that we happened to be watching Season 11, Episode 6, while in York, where Sheldon said,

“Some things shouldn't be rebooted. Some things were perfect the way they were. Like the walled city of York, it was a delight. But New York? Blech.”

Much like Edinburgh, York managed to exceed our lofty expectations. With the remains of 2,000 years of civilization on display, it’s a truly unique place to visit and we’re so glad we were able to set aside ample time to explore this world-class destination! The walled city of York truly was a delight!