City Walls and Towers

As spring is upon us here in York, I thought it would be nice to include some various pictures of all the daffodils and the city walls. Here's a map to give you a bit of an idea of what the city is like. The college campus is at the top of the map where the walls meet at a ninety-degree angle.


There are four major gates for the city: Bootham Bar, Monk Bar, Goodramgate Bar and Walmgate Bar (shown respectively). Though they are gates, they are called bars because that was the term from the Vikings, which is why in York a street is a gate, a gate is a bar and a bar is a pub.



As well as the bars, there are also a number of towers. Seen here are the Red Brick Tower, Robin Hood's Tower, Victoria's Turret and Lendal Tower.



To finish it off, here's a picture some of the wall segments with daffodis on the embankments. (As always but especially with the panoramic, click on the image for a larger view.)

Castle Howard

To we visited Castle Howard, a stately home 15 miles north of York. One of the grandest private residences in Britain, most of it was built between 1699 and 1712 for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, to a design by Sir John Vanbrugh. It is familiar to television and movie audiences as the fictional "Brideshead", from adaptations of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Today, it is part of the Treasure Houses of England heritage group.

For starters some exterior shot of the estate:



The turquoise drawing room and dining room:


The octagon room and a gallery:


Two of the staircases:


Two bedrooms:


Some parlors:

North Yorkshire Moors

Today we took a hike through the moors, the large open country of northern Yorkshire. Here's some photos of the journey.




Castle ruins that were once occupied by Richard III.


I didn't take this particular picture, but we did see a lot of grouse and pheasants in the moors.

York Minster Library

Yesterday we went to the York Minster Library. The Library is across the Dean's park from the cathedral.


One of the most interesting parts of the collection is the York Gospels. The volume came to York with Archbishop Wulfstan around 1020. Written in a fine Carolingian miniscule typeface, the Gospels are a beautiful example of medieval Bibles. Here's the first two pages of Luke and details.


The library has many other historic manuscripts like a glossed Psalter from Byland Abbey, a 13th century pocket Bible, a 15th century Bible and a Geneva Bible from 1594. There's something quite impressive about holding a book that's hundreds of years old and was written all by hand.

Finally, here's the dean's house located next door to the library. I'm pretty sure no Reformed pastor has received such a nice parsonage.

York Castle Museum

York Castle Museum is a museum located in York, on the site of York Castle, originally built by William the Conqueror in 1068. The museum is housed in prison buildings, which were built on the site of the castle in the 18th century.

Here I am holding an authentic musket from the collection of the museum. They also have a large collection of assorted weapons from history.


The museum's displays include recreated period rooms such as a Victorian parlor and a Jacobean dining room, displays of everyday life in Dr. Kirk's Gallery and the Hearth Gallery, and craft workshops in the cells of the old Debtors Prison. There is also a recreation of a Victorian street.


The former Condemned Cell, once occupied by Dick Turpin, is also there.

Saltaire

Today we visited the village of Saltaire, founded in 1853. Sir Titus Salt, a leading industrialist in the Yorkshire wool industry, made textiles from worsted alpaca in his model village. Salt moved his entire business (five separate mills) from Bradford to provide better arrangements for his workers and to site his large textile mill by a canal and a railway.


Salt built an impressive village for his workers. There were neat stone houses, wash-houses with running water, bath-houses, a hospital, as well as a school, with a library, a reading room, a concert hall, billiard room, science laboratory and gymnasium.


A Congregationalist, Salt also built a large church in the town for his workers. Salt attended the church himself and is said to sit in the third row every Sunday. Today, the church is listed as Grade I by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site and the surrounding village as Grade II.



Sir Titus died in 1876 and was interred in the mausoleum adjacent to the church, today a member of the United Reformed Church. At the time of his death, he was worth approximately £2 million (£480 million in 2009 pounds).