Monday 5 August 2013

A morning in York

Walmgate Bar
Last weekend, my husband and I attended a family wedding in York. (The second family wedding this year - lovely!) The day was fine and bright, the bride and groom and families all happy. Before the wedding, we spent a very pleasant morning in York, in the Fossgate area of the city.

St. Denys
We had coffee in The Hairy Fig, a little deli, tearoom and grocer's shop crammed to the rafters with good things. Fortified, we trawled the second-hand bookshops, plentiful amongst the music shops and cafes. I bought a small pile of reading, including a translation of the Domesday Book, which will be very useful research.






The 14th-century Evidence Chest,
Merchant Adventurers' Hall
Towards the city walls and Walmgate there are ancient churches, such as Saint Denys with its amazing Norman door, on the site of an old pagan shrine. There are medieval houses and the medieval guild hall of the Merchant Adventurers, with its great hall, undercroft and chapel - well worth a visit.

After lunch we moved onto the wedding. At the reception, all the guests had a gingerbread favour, which reminded me of the gingerbread babies that the country women in Mary Webb's 'Precious Bane' baked as good luck cakes for the forthcoming wedding of two of the novel's main characters.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Love! Love! Love!

You are so lucky to live in the UK and attend weddings in such great locations!

Rosemary Gemmell said...

I love York, Lindsay - and it's great for a historical novelist like you!

Lindsay Townsend said...

Thanks, Susana!
Thanks, Rosemary! (Yes, it is!)