Friday September 14, 2012

Today we are York all day.  After breakfast we walked into town.  The old part of town is surrounded by a wall parts of it were built in the years following the Norman invasion of 1066.  From where we are we have to walk along the wall, cross over the river Ouse and pass through where the south gate use to be.  When the walls were felt no longer necessary, the city decided to tear them down.  Just after they started a Bishop sued the city and won, so most of the wall remains.  Once inside of the city there is The Clifford Tower, built for William the Conquer to help with the subjugation of the north when he ordered all people and livestock be killed and all fields and houses burned (nice guy).  In this tower in the year 1190 150 Jews took refuged and committed sucide rather than face capture by a large angry mob of Christians.

Cliffords Tower

In the same area is the York Castle Museum.  The castle was a prison from the 1600s to the end of 1930.  The prison help everyone from debtors to murderers.  Dick Turpin was one of the more notable felons.  He was hanged for robbery, but he also committed murder.   A Doctor Kirk has amased an amazing collection of artifacts and he donated all of to the museum to get it started.  He had 400 year old weapon, like a blunderbuss used on ships, in like new condition.  I talked to one of the staff and he said everything was authentic, there are no repoductions in the museum.  One of the exhibits is a street which they named Kirkgate.  In York a gate is a street thanks to the vikings.We spent over 3 hours there and could have spent a lot longer.  The man must  have had money to aquire these artifacts.  Another interesting section was toys from hundreds of years ago to toys of today.  We would go along and say I had on of those, like a meccano which mine came in a similar box.  They also have some clocks which are similar to my grandmothers we have on the mantel which was quite cool. 

Kirkgate Street

After we left the Museum we walked to the Quilt museum which featured two quilters which have done fantastic work.  I will let Linda take over from here.

Linden Lodge seems to be working out okay.  After a nice breakfast we set out for the city of York.  It is so neat to see the old buildings.  Everything is so new at home and here they take the Medival buildings for granted.  We saw a part of a pillar that dates back to the 4th century.  the 4th century - imagine! 

Roy left you at the Quilt Museum.  The main exhibition is of a quilt artist named Pauline Burbidge. Her quilts are art not anything you'd use to keep warm.  She uses so many techniques and truly creates works of art.  My regret was that we were not allowed to take pictures.  There must have been 20 quilts.  In a small room they had 3 wall hangings done by the local quild.  Again, I wanted to take a picture.  The amazing quilt in the room was a Canadian Red Cross Quilt made in the war for the Red Cross by an annonymous Canadian quilter.  The quilts were distributed to families who had lost their homes in the bombing.  It was so nice to see it displayed.

The last room was my favorite.  It was filled with whole cloth quilts by Amy Emms. died 1998).  There was a beautiful robe, a bishops cope (cloak), and several quilts.   She was awarded the MBE for her contribution to quilting in Britain.  She was responsible in part for getting women quilting in England again after interested declined after WW2.  She quilted her daughters wedding dress.  It was amazing and when pictures of it appeared in the paper women wanted to take up the needle and try their hand at quilting.  He patterns were beautiful and the stitching was to be envied. 
When we left I stopped in the shop and bought a Guild Pin.  There was a fabulous pictoral quilt hanging on the wall.  It depicted many people, past and present in York.  Some people are so talented.

By this time we were hungry and more than a little weary.  Across the street was a pub called the Black Swan.  It dated back to the Lord Mayor of York living there in 1414.  General Wolfe lived there as a boy.  Food was good and we got a rest!

After lunch we walked up through the Shambles to the Minster for a tour.  It's great to be over 60 here, you get concessions on the price all over the place.
The Minster is the largest Gothic church north of the alps.  The nave was begun in1291 and the Chapter house is over 700 years old.  I am not going to put all the information about it here as it is easier to go online and read about it.  We were there for Evensong last night.The Chapter House was beautiful and had amazing carved heads all around the perimeter of the octaganal shaped room.  There 189 heads, all different.  Roy pointed out that a big deal is made out of the Terra Cotta Warriors in China being all different but it wasn't mentioned here.

By the time we finished the tour we were to pooped to pop.  We went and found a pub and each had a half.  After that we wandered back to the Shambles to an Italian restaurant we had seen earlier.  It turned out that the early bird special was from 6 to 7  and everything on the menu was 6.95 pounds.  A nice surprise and a very tasty meal.  We returned to our lodging but on the way climbed the old medival wall and walked along it for a ways. 

Tomorrow we are off to Scarbough and Pine Lodge.  Harry and Carols' friend Michael Browne has been kind enough to reserve it for us and he and his wife are having us for dinner tomorrow night.  We met them on Skype but it will be nicer to meet them in person.

Good night, God Bless