York - Day 2

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Geo: 53.9636, -1.08518

My first call today was on the York Minster, to see the interior this time. Admission includes a free guided tour, which is quite good because for 10 quid I'd want something a little more than the standard information pamphlet. Our guide was another lovely older lady and the tour was really very good, more churches should do these. However she did mention the Minster had 200 employees and 450 unpaid volunteers. It would not survive without the efforts of the volunteers.

The current York Minster is actually its fifth incarnation. The first was a wooden structure, built for the baptism of the King of Northumberland, King Edwin. It was a condition of his marriage that he become a christian, so his wife (who's name I forget) and her chaplain traveled to York so he could convert, which took 2 years. He built the first Minster from wood and then replaced it with a stone one. I don't recall what happened to the second minster but the third one burned down and then a new site was chosen. The fourth minster was built by the Normans on the site where the minster stands today. It was later expanded (5th minster) to its current Gothic style.

The site of the first three minsters is unknown. They have a habit of losing things here, the history goes back so far. Yesterday Greta told us a roman graveyard had been found containing the bodies of 50 men believed to be gladiators. This means there must have been an amphitheater somewhere but no-one knows where it is. Another fun fact, the roman emperor Constantine (the first roman emperor to become Christian) was in York when he became emperor. There is a statue of him outside the minster.

The minster largely avoided looting by the royals during the reformation because it was a ministry not a monastery. (Damn those rich drunk monks) although it did not escape completely unscathed. Much of the catholic sigils were removed as it was converted to the Church of England. OK and maybe Henry and Liz took a little bit of gold.

The upkeep of the minster does take a lot of investment. The stained glass windows have to be taken down every 160 years, cleaned and releaded. That doesn't sound like much but when you consider it takes one glazier four months to repair one panel, it starts to add up. There are a lot of stained glass windows. Up the back of the church they are going through this process at the moment, it estimated it will cost £21million. When the windows were installed back in the 1200's they paid the glazier a princely sum of £56. But I guess that's inflation for you.

After the Minster I made my way to the Jorvic museum which is about the Viking days of York. Underground they had constructed a little village. I got into this carriage (the type you see on carnival rides) and was transported around the village. It was OK but just a tad lame. They had a few guides around the place dressed in costume who were happy to give out explanations of displays and so forth, but it was definitely geared toward the little people.

After the museum I started looking for a good place to eat. On my meanderings I came across the this big ol' medieval tower standing out in the middle of the road. I decided to go check it out. Clifford tower used to part of the castle but is now freestanding. You can climb up onto the battlements which I not very cleverly decided to do. Getting up there was no problem, spiral staircase, steps were a little worn, but nothing to dramatic. Being up there was a different matter. Walking on the parapet meant the battlements were only waist high, on the other side of the parapet was a rail fence but the drop to the floor was quite....noticeable. I couldn't turn around and go down the way I came up as there were people behind me. The only way out was go forward all the way around and down another spiral staircase. So I sucked it up and started walking, got halfway around and came across a woman who was almost as scared as I was. Did you know seeing other scared people only makes one more freakin terrified? I took some pics of the view with incredibly shaky hands (god knows what they'll turn out like) and made my way around to the downward stairwell. Where I had a full blown freakout! The guy before me actually turned back and asked if I was OK. That little bit of conversation restored my sanity and I was able to calm myself enough to get down. When will I learn?

After that heart pumping experience I decided it was definitely time for lunch, and the toilet, and a scotch. The next pub I came across was the slug and lettuce, not fantastic food but by then I was more focused on the loo and the scotch. Later on I moved onto Micklegate bar, that's not another pub, its one of the city gates. There is a museum there which I thought would be interesting, until I saw it was 20 quid and run by the same people as the Jorvic museum. I decided to walk the wall instead. I climbed the staircase and looked over the wall. It was kinda high and the parapet a little more narrow than I liked, but still wider than the parapet at Clifford tower and nowhere near as high so I figured I'd be OK. I was half way around, when the railing on the inside of the parapet stopped and there was a 200m section of the walk where there was only the wall on one side and nothing on the other. The drop wasn't that bad really, but as I'd sufficiently scared myself earlier, my tiny overworked mind couldn't handle another fright. So I turned around and walked back. The walk wasn't to far, thank God York isn't that big (Jennifer McGurgan, I can hear you laughing while you read this......yeah I know, shuddup!)

After sufficiently scaring myself I decided to spend the rest of the sunny afternoon in the gardens by the abbey ruins, eating chocolate and reading my book. OK I might have snuck off for a cheeky beer later on, but you get the idea.

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Comments

[Jo]

A sneaky beer. Wow you've changed.

[Jennifer McGurgan]

You know me too well Tracie!lol