York: So. Much. History.

We had a fantastic time in York—Eboracum to the Romans, Eoforwic to the Saxons (and readers of The Last Kingdom), Jorvik to the Vikings—just the plethora of names tells you how rich its history is. And since history is very much this family's jam, we knew we were in for a treat.

After checking in to our really fabulous Airbnb (possibly the best of all of our generally fantastic lodgings, although wait for Wales!)...

...first up was a jaunt along the medieval city walls. Like a playground for our young-uns, just knowing how much history those stones had seen made it a magical walk.

stairs up to the ramparts

It was a great way to work up an appetite, and we took care of that with a good dinner at the Hole in the Wall pub, which is, as its name suggests, right next to the wall and Bootham Bar (thanks to Rick Steves for letting us know in advance that, in York, "bars" are gates and "gates" are streets; he says to blame the Vikings).

Bootham Bar

The next day we started off with our third boat ride of the trip—a cruise on the Ouse. This harmoniously-named stream is the larger river that runs through York; the other one—the Foss—is the one in the picture at the top of the post. Their confluence is partly how the city became such an important center of trade and, later, industry.

Here's the lovely bridge where we boarded our sight-seeing craft:

Most of the trip was through the urban areas, with fine views of handsome riverfront development...

...more attractive bridges...

...and interesting architecture:

But upstream just a bit, at the beginning of the cruise, you could almost feel you were out in the countryside. The city has done a nice job of making Ouse-side parks in this area:

Since we hadn't gotten a particularly early start, by the end of the cruise it was time for lunch. So we duplicated our routine of the day before by having a picnic in some ruins. No Morris dancers this time, but plenty of history and photogenic structures.

These are the grounds of St. Mary's Abbey, left in ruins by Henry VIII's power play in the late 16th century. It's much older, though, dating from Norman times, and must have been pretty impressive (and wealthy—hence a target of Henry's desire for church riches) before its Dissolution.

Nicely re-fueled, and since it's right there on the grounds, we headed next to the Yorkshire Museum, which turned out to be a gold mine—almost literally—of York history information. The layout is a little odd, making it somewhat difficult to be sure you've seen everything and aren't doubling up. But it's got lots of really great stuff: Roman, Saxon, Viking. I particularly enjoyed learning about the various "hoards" that have been found in the area and are displayed in the museum's basement. Here's the Bedale Hoard, thought to be the most northerly Viking hoard yet discovered in England, probably buried in the early 900's! And the stuff is beautiful, too!

Rick only gave this museum a single triangle (his must-sees get three), but we thought we'd rate it higher than that. Another tourist tip: the girls didn't think much of the ghost tour they took after dinner; grandparents were glad we skipped it and stayed home with the little one  .

Readers familiar with York might be wondering how I could leave out the primo attraction...

York Minster from the city walls

Don't worry! We made two visits and I'll tell you about them next time.

Serendipity on the way to York

Our drive from Norwich to York was the longest of our trip (although by Texas standards it was just a hop, skip, and jump) so we needed a place to take a break, have lunch, and stretch our legs.

Travel-agent-extraordinaire Hal found the perfect place—Newark-on-Trent. The town has grocery stores for picnic supplies, as well as castle ruins to explore. A fun place for the kiddos to goof off...

note the Ravenclaw robes—personalized!

...and photographers to snap, snap, snap...

Although it was the history of the place that first attracted our history-buff family—this is where King John died in 1216 (supposedly from eating too many peaches? you'll remember him as one of the various villains in the Robin Hood stories). And the fact that the castle is in ruins isn't due to neglect, but rather to bombardments during England's Civil War. Learn more about the place's interesting history here.

And history came to life for us! Just by chance, as we were enjoying our crumpets and cheese, a group of Morris dancers set up shop under the park's gazebo. What a treat!

After the performance, we learned that they are the Kemp's Men of Norwich and Newark just happened to be a stop on their Whit Tour (it was a bank holiday weekend in the UK, although Whit Monday seems to happen later, according to Google; I've always been confused by the bank holiday concept).

What a treat! Henry took a long video; ask him to see it sometime. After entertaining us, the troupe moved on to a nearby pub for another performance and, presumably, some well-deserved refreshments.

And we were on our way up to Yorkshire, looking forward to spending three nights in this town absolutely dripping with English history. Stay tuned!

Norwich: family tourism

descendants in the ancestral courtyard

The reason Norwich was on our radar for this trip is that some of Henry's ancestors (think 13 generations back for Henry, 15 for the grandkids!) were big shots in this area. 

And what's super cool, from a tourist standpoint, is that

several of the buildings associated with this family are still standing! Thanks to the valiant efforts of conservationists in the area back in the 1920's and '30's. Their work is the reason that Elm Hill (see the bottom of my last post) has kept its original charm (as "one of the best streets in the country"). And the ancestors lived on this very street! On the right is the sign that proves it!

In the photo above you can see Pettus descendants at the shop which was part of the house their forebears lived in. It now also houses a little cafe and of course we had to come there for lunch during our visit. 

Here is one of these descendants herself, pouring a cuppa herbal tea from a very cute teapot in the cafe's garden:

The Pettus house was originally much larger, as you might expect for a leading figure of the community. It possibly extended all the way to this well (no longer functional):

Henry knew just where to take us on this family history excursion, because he'd been here before, in 2008. He wrote a detailed saga of his ramblings in Norwich itself (see it here) but although he never returned to describe his ventures further afield, he remembered enough from the earlier trip to enable us to—eventually—find a local church where scads of Pettus' were buried. 

The first church we found, on our trip into the surrounding countryside, was the wrong one. But it was still scenic and worth visiting, as are pretty much all the old churches in England. It was All Saints Saluce, said to date from the 14th century. And of course it was decorated in knapped flint!

It also had a nice war memorial that follows the common theme: originally set up to honor the dead of the War to End All Wars, they eventually had to add a codicil for the one that followed:

so touching to see that these folks are still remembered

Rambling around for a while, though, led us to the church we wanted. Although the road to it was closed and we had to walk a bit. Amazingly, though, it was open!

All Saints Rackheath (Rackheath Magna)

More knapped flint, of course, but so much more! (If you click on the images hopefully they'll get big enough for you to read the text on the memorials.)

Henry in front of the font and some memorials to ancestors

a particularly fancy memorial plaque

one of many in-floor tombstones

Some of the people buried here were probably Pettus' who stayed in the old country, going by the dates. (Henry's first ancestor came to Virginia in the 1630's!) But some were certainly forebears of the American Pettus', since they died before the adventurous one struck out for the New World.

checking up on the ancestors

A helpful sign in the church gave a lot of its history and details about the architecture. The eye-popping item is definitely that the "fabric" of the building dates from the early 1300's! The sign described various additions and restorations that have been made over the years, but gee whiz! That's old!

We still had one more site to visit connected with Henry's forebears: their estate, known as Rackheath, like the church and the town. It's now what seems to be an event center, and has certainly been refurbished considerably, but it remains a handsome place to call "home":

We were allowed to walk around the lovely grounds, a fine finale to our very interesting dip into family history.

So, back to our "home" for the last night in Norwich and a tasty Indian takeout dinner, after a stop at a fun playground. Then to bed to rest up for the next leg of our UK adventure!

Norwich: general tourism

 Welcome back, Bridges to London readers! Time to rejoin the carriageway, as it were. We leave the big city behind today and embark upon the last half of our British vacation. Various wonders await!

First stop—after retrieving our 9-passenger carriage and winding our way out of London (not a simple affair)—is Norwich, in East Anglia. Here's our chauffeur-extraordinaire Hal, who masterfully handled motorways, narrow one-laners, and excessively congested parking lots. It was so nice to just sit in the back and leave the driving to him! (and navigating to Henry)

Norwich has a charming old core that has some special significance for our family, but more about that aspect of it next time. It's also got plenty of regular old English tourist attractions, too, in particular, its impressive cathedral:

Because of the convenient location of our very nice Airbnb, we had plenty of time to walk to the church and see more of the old town before dinner. And the church rather invites visitors to spend a good bit of time there—there's lots to see.

Lovely stained glass, for instance:

run-of-the-mill [!] stained glass

Erpingham Window, with some medieval glass,
to commemorate Sir Thomas Erpingham, who was at Agincourt!

an all-too-familiar WWI memorial window

There's more to see in the main part of the cathedral, like this very handsome organ:

And some interesting tombs, like this one with the thoughtful inscription to go with its creepy appearance:

In case you can't read it in the picture, it says:

All you that do this place pass bye

Remember death for you must dye.

As you are now even so was I

And as I am you shall be.

There are also lovely cloisters outside:

But of course it's not the only impressive church in town. Any English town that's been around as long as Norwich is bound to be overflowing with them. For example, St. Michael-at-Plea:

You can see another nice one in the background here—St. Peter Mancroft. Although the main attraction for me was the beautiful knapped flint dressing on the wall in the foreground.

I fell in love with this decorative idea when I was in England in 2008. And fortunately you see it everywhere. Here's a particularly interesting spin on the technique. I wish I'd made a good mental note of which church sported this unusual arrangement:

This building (which I thought was a church but after much internet digging, I think is just part of the Guildhall, whose taller tower you can see behind it) goes crazy with the stuff:

The area around the cathedral has some nice grassy areas, perfect for kiddos to stretch their legs on, with statuary that some folks might think they identify with...

the bronze gentleman is Wellington

And bordering the old city is this handsome arch; unfortunately I neglected to note its age, but it looks like it's been there a while:

One of the coolest parts of the old town is this street, which a helpful sign notes is "probably one of the best [old streets] in the country." I think we agree!

Elm Hill

This charming byway provides a nice segue for my next post, which is about family history—a lot of which is on display on this very street!

Wordless Wednesday: best pub name ever?

 

Photo IDs

 Here are the locations of the photos I posted last time. (As far as the overall answer to the "quiz," it is of course the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Although we didn't cross the Irish Sea on this trip, we did see it!)

1. Beans advert: on the side of a building between the walls around the old city of York and our fabulous Airbnb in that city.

2. Bird protection caution: in a church in Norfolk where some of Henry's relatives are buried, found after an exhaustive search of the area.

3. Toilet humor: probably at the Vineyard Cafe in the Helmsley Walled Garden in Yorkshire, an AI-suggested stop on our tour of the moors.

4. Poppy manufacture: taken out of the bus window somewhere on our trip to or from Hampton Court Palace; the poppies referred to are those you see everywhere in the UK in the fall, as Remembrance Day approaches...this is where they make them!

5. Watch your step and your head: probably Conwy Castle, in North Wales. (We visited two castles that day, so it could be Beaumaris Castle; it had similar signs.)

6. Cheeky, and somewhat threatening, caution about alcohol purchase: in the cafe at Fulham Palace, near our main London Airbnb.

7. "Smart" paint sign: somewhere in London, taken out of a bus window as we made several journeys the day it was taken.

You can read more about all of these locations! Head to my Bridges to London blog to get a blow-by-blow of our 10 days in London. Then I'll post back here for the rest of our trip.

Super-trip 2025

I've got a wonderful trip to tell you about, chock full of great adventures and, I hope, fabulous pictures to illustrate them. But I thought I'd start you off with a [not very difficult] little quiz: we were traveling in a country that is so polite, and so witty, that even their advertising and cautionary signs are worth photographing. As you might remember from a previous visit of mine (spoiler alert: following this link will tell you where we were!).

I'll tell you where each of the following pix was taken in my next post here, but to read about the first part of our adventures, I need to spoil you again by referring you to another blog, one which hasn't seen a new post from me in ages. Curious? follow the link, after you enjoy these great, and sometimes mysterious, signs: