Fabulous York Cat Trail and Ghostly Goings-Ons

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Friday

For Christmas, Glyn had bought me a weekend away in York as it’s somewhere I’ve been meaning to visit for sometime. We drove up on Friday after I’d finished work and arrived at our Travelodge at around 7.45. The Travelodge was an old converted coach house so had more character than some chains.

We drove into the main part of town and went to a Southern Indian restaurant called Viva Goa. The only table left was at the back by the loos, but it had a really good atmosphere and seemed vibrant. The music was very jolly and we trying to work out what it was – it sounded European but apparently was from Goa. The food was totally awesome and the service very friendly, I highly recommend it!



Saturday

On Saturday morning we started at the Jorvik Viking Museum. Glyn had booked in advance so we could smugly walk around the queue and straight into the attraction. As you would expect in a Viking museum, there was a lot of stuff about Vikings. They had a glass floor where you could see through to the excavated ground below with various Viking bits of rock, logs, animal bones and broken pottery. There were various displays and interactive screens with snippets of information. Apparently a plethora of Viking artifacts had been found under York, the peat had preserved a lot of items that would normally rot or turn to dust.

Next we were ushered onto a ride by some bloke in medieval get up. It was a six seater car, suspended from a rail that took us through a large and life sized mock up of Viking York. The animatronic Viking people spoke in some Scandinavian language, some were pretty creepy and stared me out. The whole ride had commentary in various languages – I chose English. It was pretty impressive and even had a variety of smells, one of which almost made Glyn retch.

After the ride, there were a few more exhibits and animated models of moody Vikings plus a few people dressed up. The highlight was an actual preserved Viking poo, it was pretty large too. Wow those Vikings certainly could dump a good size!

After the museum, we headed up through a market at Newgate where I bought some jewellery. Then onto the Shambles, which is one of the more famous streets of York with overhanging timber-framed buildings, some dating back as far as the fourteenth century. It was pedestrianised and very crowded. I headed into a shop called York Lucky Cats where they made and sold glass ornaments, mostly cats though. This is where I found a leaflet about the ‘Fabulous York Cat Trail’. It turns out that all over York there are life-sized statues of cats, high up on various buildings. The original cat statues had been placed on buildings a long time ago to scare off mice and rats who carried the plague. They were also believed to ward off wandering evil spirits and bring about good luck.

We decided to follow the cat trail, so that I could photograph all 21 cats. The first cat was listed as Number 8 and was on the wall of the Glass Shop, cat Number 21 was opposite. We walked down to cat Number 1 which was high up on the wall of a very old and haunted pub called the Golden Fleece. We headed up the Shambles and stopped for lunch at an Italian place called Bari as they were having a lunchtime offer and they had tiramisu. It was so good and kept me full for the rest of the day!

Afterwards we headed up to Kings Square and followed the trail getting more cats, passing by a variety of rather dull or annoying street performers, but at least they tried and it added to the bustle. Eventually the trail took us up to the York Minster. This place is absolutely massive! And covered in lots of scaffolding of course. We took a bunch of photos and decided to go in. With student cards it cost £14 each to go in, including the ‘rooftop tour’. It was expensive, but I still wanted to go in, after all, there aren’t many places like it. We wandered around and then headed to the ‘rooftop tour’. It wasn’t really a tour, they just let a group of us go upstairs in single file. It had to be single file as the stairs and passages were extremely narrow and overtaking is impossible. So we headed up 271 steps of a spiral staircase, along part of the lower roof, then up again to the top of a tower. The view may have been impressive were it not very hazy.

After a descending down the tiny spiral staircase, we wandered around the minster for some time, including the basement where there was a lot of information on the history of the building and what was there before it. A lot of money had been spent restoring the crumbling foundations as the huge building was sinking under its own weight. There are now huge concrete collars and metal pins holding it together. We headed up to the chapter house and just took in the massive size of the entire building before it shut at 5pm.

From about this time, York gets louder as it turns out that it is a popular hen and stag do destination. The level of street noise rose dramatically as people in various stages of inebriation danced to the dull bands on the pavements. The performers kept fixed smiles as annoying people, who though that they were hilarious, attempted to play their instruments with them.

We then headed down towards the Museum Gardens to find cat Number 17 nearby, then walked down to find Number 16 on Coney Street above Clinton’s Cards. The next cat (Number 13) appeared to be nearby on the map, but was actually on a roof at the back of the building and I had to go down to the river to get a view of it using my zoom lens. We found a few more cats, but the ones on Ousegate were in the wrong place on the map and the light was going. We had to google the cats and eventually found them. I also found out that there were other York cats apart from the ones on my map, but they were further away.

We headed up to Stonegate, to a pub called the Ye Olde Starre Inn, which was a lovely old fashioned but expensive pub. After a drink, we waited outside to meet up for Trevor Rooney’s Ghost Walk. Now there are a few Ghost Walks to choose from in York and we met a couple of ladies who’s been on one with a woman that they highly recommended. Glyn had researched the walks and this one had received many good reviews and claimed to be the original. So we were rather disappointed that it turned out not to be very good at all. A few of the other customers walked off before it was finished, muttering to themselves. Two of the stories weren’t even about ghosts! I’m afraid that Trevor and his apprentice Graham just didn’t know how to build up a tale or add tension to it and it was rather dull. It lasted about an hour and cost £6, but we did get to hear about some of York’s history and wander about in the dark by the light of a flaming torch.

Trevor then took us to a haunted pub and stopped for a ciggy outside. It looked rather crowded and if everyone from the walk was going in, we’d be queuing with about 50 people, so we didn’t go there. We also wanted to avoid the hen and stag type places, given the states many of those people were in at 5pm and it was now getting on for 9pm. So we went back to the Golden Fleece which was old, quaint, lively but not annoying. I had a wine and the barman gave a heavy sigh when I asked for coffee for Glyn.

An acoustic band of student types started to play, it wasn’t my bag but they were good at what they did. It was a nice atmosphere and I had another glass of wine. On the way out, we noticed newspaper clippings framed on the walls, telling tales of haunting related to York and the pub – they were far more interesting than poor Trevor!



Sunday

Glyn had pre-booked a trip to the York Dungeon and we were the first visitors of the day. It was well worth booking in advance as he saved a lot of money. There were actors dressed up as Ye Olde Worlde type people that were entertaining, funny and gave us a few scares. There was a mirror maze, a variety of effects and small frights that made me jump. We spent an hour in there and also learned a bit about medieval torture, Dick Turpin and good old Eric Bloodaxe.

Afterwards we went on a boat trip up and down the Ouse which lasted around 45 minutes. It was nice enough, but I guess the most interesting parts of York aren’t near the river. The guy giving the commentary didn’t have any charisma, but at least it was a human and not pre-recorded. Also from the boat, I managed to get a far better shot of cat Number 13 that I’d previously found on the Cat Statue Trail yesterday.

Next was lunch at a Polish Bistro called Barbakan which was very small, warm and smelled great when we walked in. We were lucky that they could just squeeze us in as it was full. Glyn had a Hungarian Potato Pancake with goulash that he loved and I had Zawijaniec which is a vegetarian pancake stuff with veggies, buckwheat and tomato sauce, topped with cheese. Very delicious and very filling!

We headed back into the main part of York where I found the last of the cat statues on the cat trail and my own cats texted Glyn to tell him to buy me a present for mother’s day. After a bit more wandering about, we ended up at the museum gardens. Here were the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, with old men playing music and smoking dodgy looking cigarettes. By this time it was getting on for 3.30 and we headed back to the car for the 2 hour journey home. I’d had a great weekend and would love to see more of York – there are still more cat statues outside the centre after all!!

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Photos

The Golden Fleece
York's most Haunted Pub

Comments

[Marjorie Taylor]

Fantastic blog Claire makes me want to back to York again.