Huddersfield and York

                                                      

The Radisson Blu at Arlanda was a brilliant place to stay, rental car depot across the road, four minute shuttle service to the departure terminal, so it was all very convenient.

An early departure but the SAS flight was all very smooth. We arrived at Manchester, shuttled to the rentals village, straight to the Avis Preferred office in the car park, show the licence and walk to the car. No queues no waiting. Another VW Golf, a bit older and not so clever, but fine. TomTom lined up the first stop in Huddersfield and off we went again.

 We had five addresses here to check out thanks to cousin Marilyn’s work on the Armytages, and we were here to look at Lucy Armytage’s birthplace. Lucy married Carl Eric Nelson in Auckland on August 25 1890, so this time it was Dad's paternal grandmother in the frame. The five addresses were for Lucy’s immediate family and two for her uncle James. Lucy’s father Joseph was a plumber and both her grandfather (also Joseph) and great grandfather Thomas were market gardeners, but there’s not too much market gardening territory left in the area close to the addresses. They market gardened on 2.5 acres and employed a man to assist. However of the five addresses we checked out, the first, 36 Birkby Hall, where they lived in 1881 when Lucy was 14 is now a park, the second where her grandfather lived in Nursery Terrace is now a modern close-housing development, the third 32 Blacker Rd address of Uncle James is now a mosque, and the 1861 address in Bay Hall Common St is now little factories. The 1891 address of Uncle James at 5 Wentworth St looked pretty original, and a bit more upmarket and up the hill! One of the neighbours we spoke to, volunteered that the terrace-style houses there were at least 120 years old. So one out of five is not too bad. The whole area now has a population of recent immigrants, and strong representations from India and Pakistan by the look of the retail in the area.

No more family now till we get to Nottingham, and that is the Winfield side for Ann’s mother's and grandmother’s side of the equation.

 

We’ve had a couple of days in York, in the old part of the city, not within the walls but walking distance, so the car spent most of its time parked up. This site has been occupied for more than 2000 years, the Romans, then Anglo-Saxons, then Danish Vikings followed by the Normans. The city walls have been built and rebuilt by each of the conquering entities, but generally just by building up on what the last guys did. Consequently there have been a few foundation issues (no one really did them well at all).  

      

We did a fascinating city walk of over 3 hours. One of the aspects of York it highlighted was how the range of architecture reflected its different occupancies. In the same street there might be architectural styles from the medieval to Edwardian. We enjoyed The Shambles, a medieval street, so-named as it was a row of butcher's shops with 'shamels', butcher's benches where the meat was displayed

                                                              
 

 

We also went to an Evensong service at the Minster and the choir was superb, the service is a daily part of the Minster routine.

York Minster is an impressive building both inside and out, and underneath as well. Well worth an in-depth look, which we gave it the next day! We did the tower walk, 295 steps up, a self-guided tour of the building, and a visit to the Undercroft which provides the details of the 2000 years of the occupation of the Minster site. There was initially a Roman fort and temple.

 

 

15 kings ruled during the construction of the Norman and medieval Minster, all depicted at the entrance to the Quire. Here are the last eight kings on the right above Henry VI.

 

Again, a wonderfully long history, Constantine was proclaimed Emperor of the West in 306 AD here before going on to greater things. His first claim to fame was to stop the persecution of the Christians, a novel idea at the time, and one which has since been honoured more often in the breech than the observance. The Romans left the fortress of Eboracum as their empire crumbled about 400 AD, and over time the city turned to ruins which became covered over and were eventually built over with a large Norman cathedral that prevailed for about 200 years. The present Gothic style, larger edifice was started in 1220 and was all finished just 250 years later.

 

Tales of intrigue abound in these old buildings: did the Archbishop of Canterbury really arrange the killing of his colleague Archbishop William Fitzherbert, the Archbishop of York?

                            

The cathedral is undergoing a restoration, and has had about 20 million pounds spent to date. The initially poor attention to the need for good foundations came to roost in the early 1960s as cracks appeared and the building was at risk of disintegrating. The repair works exposed much of the early history of the church and site, which is now the Undercroft, a historical museum beneath the very building. A team of stonemasons works constantly on the outside, repairing grotesques and blocks alike. Some of the repair work done in previous times has damaged the building further as an incompatible limestone, different to the original material has chemically eroded more of the existing material. The law of unintended consequences - you see it everywhere. The stained glass windows and their repair and restoration is another huge task underway and it will probably go on for longer than the original construction took.

We abandoned York to drive out to Fountain Abbey, established in the 12^th century, now a ruin, but once one of the richest abbeys in England. It was set up by Cistercian monks and was their most successful venture where they farmed their way into wealth, and built an immense complex of buildings while they did it. The Abbey suffered greatly with Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. Henry, aided by Thomas Cromwell, helped himself to everything of value in all of the Catholic Churches, starting with the lead off the roof and everything else of value. A Constantine he wasn’t!! The whole estate was sold into private hands and further water garden features were added by the Aislabe family to enhance the site. It’s now a National Trust site.

On next to Whitby, where Captain James Cook left for his first voyage of his exploration.

 We are now back to a huge tidal range, looks like 6-7m, it’s a long way down off the wharf at low tide. The tourists were there in droves, mostly English locals, about 50% of them with dogs, consequently there was a river of dog urine across the footpaths in some places as the mutts tried hard to outdo each other. It’s an amazing culture, dogs walk around the Fox and Hounds where we are staying, people get up from a table in the bar and a mutt emerges as well. Incredible. Back to Whitby. The entrance now has some very impressive breakwaters, and there is a fleet of tourist focussed boats, as well as a fishing fleet.

Found another ruined abbey - thanks Henry. The Captain Cook museum, set up in the house where he lived as he did his training was very good, lots of artefacts, including many of the letters he and other wrote which made fascinating reading, and you come away with a pretty good understanding of what was involved in provisioning for a three year voyage.

Then drove back to our walk stop Pickering, with an interesting glimpse of the area where we will be walking for the next few days, including a huge triangular structure we later learned was Fylingdales part of the early warning system for the UK.