The Ham Nomads

21 Aug 2014. <GB-ENG> York, N Yorks —

Into York, to the Park-and-Ride we had sussed out the other day. Parked and took the bus into town (about 15 minutes!). The day wasn't sure what it wanted to do — we had overcast, and a few spits of rain.

We got off the bus right beside Clifford's Tower, the ruin of a motte and bailey castle first built by William the Conqueror in 1068. We went straight up to it, as we wanted to make sure we had visited this somewhat unprotected site before the rain set in. We explored it fairly quickly, as much of what was there was what we had seen at other sites. One thing we noticed was that the vertical walls and the horizontal floors were not — the motte (the mound the castle was built on) was man-made, and over the years it has settled somewhat.

English Heritage has made a concerted effort to reinforce the foundations, and there is continuous structural monitoring of the whole site to make sure that no further deterioration is allowed to happen. The external walls of the bailey form four circular towers, and there was once a square tower in the middle. The entire internal structure has disappeared, so we can only imagine the layout of the floors. The curtain walls and towers that would have enclosed this motte and bailey have totally disappeared, but there is sufficient evidence for historians to draw up fairly complete plans.

Anyway, we left Clifford's Tower and walked through the town — much of it a pedestrian precinct through streets with many medieval buildings. On the way, we noticed a camera shop, York Camera Mart, and Warren decided to try his luck — he's been wanting to replace the main lens on his camera for some time, as its automatic focusing mechanism has been non-functional for at least 8 weeks!

Not only did the man have a lens, it was a later model with a greater zoom range, and had been opened as a demonstration model, so was about £150 off. It was still over £500, but the old lens had done sterling work for 7 years, and this one was somewhat better — and fully functional! Warren is in photographer's heaven!

We then walked up to York Minster. Mind-blowing! This is a huge edifice, in superb condition. There is restoration work being carried out, and from what we could see, it will be something like the painting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge — as soon as you get it done, you have to start all over at the beginning!

The nave of the Cathedral was built between 1290 and the 1350s, in the Decorated Gothic style. The Cathedral, now Anglican, is the largest surviving Gothic cathedral north of the Alps.

We wandered the cathedral, and Warren went up the 275 steps to the top of the tower. The weather was deteriorating, but he was able to get a few shots of York from this vantage point. We then went into the Undercroft, where there is an exhibition detailing the history of the cathedral, and also the work that has been done in the 1980s to stabilise it — in fact, much of the display is on top of the huge concrete blocks that have been poured in place with huge steel reinforcing rods!

Also on show is a lot of the Danish/Viking archaeology that came out of the ground while they were preparing this work. Also in the Undercroft is the Treasury, which has Church treasures dating back to the Viking age!

After our time in the Minster, we wandered the streets a little more, and then down to the Jorvik Viking Centre. This was not quite what we expected — it was so much more. You start off by being taken on a theme-park type ride through ancient Coppergate, the street that has been excavated so extensively.

The figures of the inhabitants operate animatronically, and interact with the 'guide', the recorded commentary that lets you know what you are seeing. Warren had fun, as these interactions were in Old Norse and, in spite of being pretty rusty, he could understand most of the conversations. The thing is that the excavations here uncovered about 9 metres of archaeological remains, in moist peaty soil which preserved even the organic remains which are usually lost. This means that the leather goods and clothing were virtually intact, and even the food scraps revealed a huge amount about diet and cooking techniques.

After a most enjoyable afternoon, we went back to Clifford's Tower (where we got a couple more shots, this time in sunshine), and caught the bus back to our van. We camped a little out of town, off the A19, ready to come back into York tomorrow.

Distance driven — today, 40 miles ( 64 km ); to date, 6,210 miles ( 9,994 km )