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Travel Story

Inside York’s city walls

Climbing England's largest Medieval cathedral, shopping in The Shambles, and hoisting a pint in a haunted pub

By the time we got to York we had been on the road for almost a month and I had lost track of the number of castles, cathedrals, and historic monuments we had visited along the way. We were all feeling a bit jaded so when we left our B&B in the little town of Hexham, near Durham, and headed south for the Peak District we were determined not to get side-tracked in our quest for hills and wilderness, a place to hike and stretch our car-cramped legs. But how can you, in clear conscience, bypass the magnificent walled city of York without at least a token visit.

Alan, our U.K. friend who volunteered (possibly out of self preservation) to do most of the driving, parked near Monk's Bar and we made our way up a stone stairway to the top of the wall. Monk's Bar, not to be confused with one of the many watering holes in York, is not the place to go for a pint. In York, where linguistic remnants of it's Viking past still persist, a "bar" is a gate, a "gate" is a street, but a "pub" is still a pub – confusing, especially if you're thirsty.

The city walls, almost three kilometres of them, are remarkably well preserved. The portcullis on Monk's Bar actually still works, a tribute to the city council which has faithfully preserved much of York's medieval heritage. The first walls, no more than earthen ramparts, were built here by the Romans in the first century AD when they founded the fortress city of Eboracum. When their empire began to crumble in the fourth century AD Eboracum was abandoned and later taken over by Danish invaders who called the place Jorvik and, for almost a century, York became an independent Viking kingdom. The city was burned to the ground during the brutal early days of the AD1066 Norman Conquest, but it was also the Normans who rebuilt the city, replacing the wooden ramparts with the present stone walls, and building many of York's surviving medieval buildings.

Walking the walls of York is hardly wilderness trekking but it provided some welcome exercise and the views are fascinating. Below us a spider web of cobbled streets winds through a clutter of heritage buildings – houses, shops and pubs right out of the middle ages. And towering above it all the magnificently ornate Cathedral of St. Peter, better known as York Minster. This masterpiece of Gothic architecture, was begun by the Normans in AD1080 but little of that first church survives. Construction of the present building started in AD1220 and continued for the next 250 years. For students of architecture York Minster encompasses every stage of Gothic design blended into a single, meticulously crafted structure.

We climbed down from the wall and made our way through Deanary Gardens to the Minster. Despite the countless castles and cathedrals we had visited along the way stepping into the vast interior of York Minster was a breathtaking experience. The sheer size of the place is overpowering. More than 500 feet long and 250 feet wide, York Minster is the largest medieval cathedral in the whole of northern Europe. Its vaulted stone ceiling soars to a height of almost 100 feet above the floor and the entire inner space, flooded in light filtered through enormous stained-glass windows, has the luminous aura of an alpenglow. There are 128 windows in all. Some are masterpieces of abstract design with sinuous stone tracery. Others depict religious or political themes – the beginning and end of the world, a succession of English kings, not all of them flattering. There is even a panel, commemorating a Royal Wedding (no space left for Charles and Camilla).

We decided to climb the winding staircase leading to the roof of the 190-foot central tower. Two hundred and seventy-five steps later we were rewarded with magnificent views across the city and beyond the Norman walls to the green, rolling hills of the North Yorkshire countryside. Located at the confluence of the Rivers Foss and Ouse, York was once an important commercial centre – the capital of a thriving textile trade on the River Ouse. But in the 15th century the textile industry moved elsewhere and during much of the industrial age when manufacturing dominated other northern English cities York was a forgotten backwater that was spared the social and environmental upheaval resulting from the rise and collapse of the coal-driven industrial revolution. Like Durham, York capitalized on its historical legacy becoming a fashionable social and cultural destination during the 18th century and gradually morphing into a destination almost completely dependent on tourism. The Minster now attracts nearly as many visitors annually as London's Westminster Abbey and during the mid-summer high season York's narrow cobbled streets are crowded with tourists.

Even during our visit in May the place was busy. We left the Minster and for a while avoided the crowd by wandering the web of off-beat snickleways, poking into tiny alleys, and getting ourselves lost in a maze of streets too narrow for car traffic. The stroll was full of surprises – a one-table pub in the middle of nowhere, flowers dangling from the windows of buildings overhanging the street, a book vendor tucked into the corner of a tiny dead-end courtyard. But we eventually rejoined the crowd on The Shambles.

Reputed to be one of the best preserved medieval streets in Europe, The Shambles gets its name from the Saxon word "shamel", meaning slaughterhouse. Back in the middle ages it was the city's meat market. The beef was brought in on the hoof, slaughtered on the spot, and the carcasses hung up in the shade or displayed on benches lining the narrow cobbled walkway. Three hundred years ago the middle of the street was an open gutter awash with waste from the shops, household garbage thrown out of upper story windows, and manure from horses and oxen. Not surprisingly the area suffered several outbreaks of cholera but the appallingly unsanitary market continued to flourish into the early 20th century.

Today the Shambles bears only the outward facade of its medieval origins. The narrow cobbled street and half-timbered buildings competing for space along the curb and the second-storey overhangs protruding over the road are right out of the Middle Ages. Some of the original butchers’ benches have become window ledges for other merchandise and old meat-hooks have found a new use as hangers in upscale shops. Inside the creaky old buildings the craft shops and boutiques offer everything from fine English woolens and china to tacky souvenirs – the very best Dresden or a ceramic figurine of John Bull with the union-jack emblazoned on his belly – hand-crafted jewelry or a pot-metal replica of the Minster with YORK cast into its base. There are tea houses, book shops, and a plethora of pubs that have been pouring pints for centuries. The butchers, the stench, and the flies are gone but The Shambles is still a shambles.

It was late afternoon when we were finally resigned to the fact that York was as far as we were going to get on this day and we ducked into the Golden Fleece for dinner and a pint. Ironically the front door of the Golden Fleece, the oldest Coaching Inn in York, is directly opposite that of Marks and Spencer, the new kid on the block. We entered through a long creaky-planked hall leading to the bar, a quiet, dimly-lit refuge from the crowded street. When we went in we had no idea the place was haunted. But along with a suburb meal and a cool draft of Guinness we learned a bit of the Fleece's history.

The golden ram hanging over the door is a symbol of the wealth brought to York by the burgeoning woolen trade on the River Ouse. Back in the 14th century, the Golden Fleece was a regular gathering spot for visiting wool merchants. Their coach horses were stabled where the beer garden now stands and the wooden floors of the hallway and rooms had not yet settled and warped. Around 1700 the Inn was owned by a Lady Alice Peckett. The spirit of this late Lady has reportedly joined five other resident ghosts who wander the corridors and staircases of the Golden Fleece, rearranging furniture in the small hours. Sadly there was no room at the Inn and we never had a chance to witness these late night apparitions.

Our earlier walk along the city walls had satisfied the need to stretch our travel-weary legs and any lingering sense of déja vu was dispelled by the artistic majesty of the cathedral and the quaint medieval streets of the city. When we finally left York and set out in search of a B&B we would have liked much more time here and resolved to someday come back.