I seem to be doing a tour of Northern universities at the moment. Three weeks ago it was the Engineering Department at Durham; this week I’ve been visiting the Physics department at York University. I really wasn’t comfortable with going all the way there and back in a day, as it would have been a really long day, and I didn’t want to have to hurry the meeting to get a set train home. So I decided it was more sensible to stay overnight, and get a midday train home the next day.
It’s a very long time since I last went to York. I went there for my first proper holiday on my own – when I was working as a sponsored student engineer in my pre-university “gap year”, I spent my very first bonus on a weekend break in York, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. A good few years later, Christopher and I had a short break there the year after we were married, but I’ve not been back since.
I didn’t have a great deal of time to spend sight-seeing this time. After all, it was predominately a work trip, and that had to take priority. But I did manage a whistle-stop tour of Clifford’s Tower and York Castle Museum, both of which were just a few minutes walk from my hotel. They were both interesting – the tower is a mediaeval ruin sitting on top of a Norman mound, clearly once part of a motte and bailey castle. The castle next door is a mix of styles and ages, and was used as a prison for many years. One of the more interesting exhibits, which I remembered well from my previous visit, is a reconstructed street of Victorian shops.
I then walked to the railway station along the top of the city walls, which are still remarkably intact. The mound that they are built on is apparently Roman, outlining the city of Eboracum. The stone structure is mediaeval. As you can see in the photo above, there is quite a sharp drop on the inside of the walls, and no guard rail, which rather surprised me in today’s health and safety conscious world. You can also see York Minster in the background. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get there – I had a train to catch. Maybe next time.
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well us northerners are generally tougher than southerners and dont worry to much about H&S, should have seen workmen who did our solar panels, no safety harnesses for them, if they fell (they did !) they just bounced on scaffolding planks.
Three cheers for York in NOT errecting a horrible yellow and black safety barrier.
forgot to say, safety barrier would ruin photos and its worth loosing a few southern tourists (as theres plenty more left down south) for the sake of a good photograph