Catholic and Loving it!

You might expect a day trip to York takes a full day. Not so. Kathleen Lundquist and husband Gary met us at 2pm and we went through till 6pm. Mark Shea decided to try and beat the record by getting there for 2.30pm and leaving at 5pm. Lightening visits to York are becoming our speciality. Being jetlagged and having stayed up until 2am the night before Mark was understandably tired and had a bit of a lie in. At 8am Ella woke me up and told me it was unfair to keep our guest waiting downstairs while we slept and insisted that I get up. I got up and went downstairs to find (as I expected) that Mark was decidedly not up. I went back to Ella who told me "he is probably in his room reading while he waits for us to get up". Nonsense, thouht I. Still, a nagging wife can acheive many things and on this particular occasion she acheived getting me to go downstairs and make her a cup of tea.

When Mark did awake several hours later it turned out he had indeed been reading a book, briefly, at 8am. He had gone back to sleep. If only I had shared that fate... Leona had other ideas. Ella and I played some Zelda four swords and watched Friends (to brush up on our American) and when Mark got up we headed on over to York.

We parked by the River and Mark told us about William Cowper who drowned himself because of Calvinism. Apparently he thought he was damned so he decided to get damned quicker by killing himself... no I don't get it either. Anyway it's supposed to be Ella and I showing him York and there he is telling us about it. We walked around past Clifford's Tower and then on past Fairfax House which somebody told me once has some kind of Catholic link. I haven't time to look in to it now but this page seems to back up the idea.

Next stop, The Shambles. The Shambles are a very old street dating from the time of Maragret Clithrow which is lucky because that is where she lived. You may recall the controvery about the Shambles (where did Margaret Clitherow live?) so as well as going in to the shrine we also went in to the other house and I bravely asked if we could see the alleged priesthole which the nice man in Past Images kindly allowed us to go and look at the hole behind the fireplace which certainly could be a priesthole but to be honest it could also just be a hole. The controversy continues.

After The Shambles we headed towards the Minster. York Minster is not my least Minster/Cathedral (I still think it's bloody good) and today I liked it a little more because the sun was just right in the sky to light the stained glass beautifully.

Working as usual from the west end we spotted the Cathedral in the shrine of St. Cuthbert. You can see how we might have missed it. Font-tastic it is not.

When you think about the font in Durham (photos here and here) this is shocking. Also, in the background you can see another modern incursion...

Apparently named the "Semaphore Saints" these sculptures state that "Christ is here" which he was before the reformation but now you have to go down the road to St. Wilfrid's where he's been relegated to a sidechapel. Oops. Did I say that out loud? We wandered through the Nave and along the North Transept past some more lovely windows to the chapter house which is stunning but, I maintain, pointless. In the entrance to the chapter house is a statue of Mary which I think is really lovely but I can never get a good photo (it's just too dark). After the chapter house we worked our way around to the east end and looked at the choir.

When we arrived the choir were in the choir so we could hear the choir but we couldn't see the choir because the choir were there. After the choir left the choir we could go in and we could see the choir but we couldn't hear the choir.

The Choir was destroyed by fire in the 1800's and what we see today is a Victorian replacement. It lacks the medieval crazyness of the Choir at Exeter Cathedral or Beverley Minster but I really like wooden things so I still like it. Leona made some unhappy baby noises and an involved looking man looked around so Mark Shea said "future chorister" and he said (in a stern unimpressed voice) with just a little practise. On the way out we caught sight of Leona's two favourite animals the Lion and the Giraffe stitched on to kneelers...

We headed out of the Minster and made our way past St. Wilfrid's and Gray's Solicitors (they visited my blog once you know...) and on through York back to the car. We got there at 5pm. On target. York visited in 2.5 hours. We never walked any walls but you see plenty of those from the car which is still good. We had to get back to Hull because Mark wanted to be at the place where he was to give his talk 45 minutes in advance. Hah. We got to Hull with scarcely time for some fish and chips. We introduced Mark to American Chip Spice. Apparently they don't have American Chip Spice in America. Ludicrous. He must just not get out much.