York - Part III - The Museum Gardens

This was a beautiful place to walk around. I made it there shortly around three. The light was already fading. As well as these shots there was apparently a roman tower in the gardens. Of course as with my St Alban's trip I failed dismally to find it.

Still what did find and starting from the bottom: A wall and tower that was part of St Leonard's. St Leonard's was a hospital built at a date I've now forgotten, expanded by King Stephen, and which became derelict after the dissolution of the monateries. Where you walk now was actually the crypt with the chapel overhead. Then there's two shots of the ruins of St Mary's Abbey, the grassier pic also showing what's left of the Norman Church that was present. They're basically tracings of the foundations in amongst the grass. I took several more gothic shots of St Mary's ruins with autumn leaves, including the next photo, of the graveyard that is now inside the ruins. The cemetary is also derelict; I don't know when it dates from. There was no information and to take this shot I had to climb a little way up the ruined wall. Worth it to see inside though.

Finally there's a shot up the River Ouse from the bank where the Museum Gardens finished.

York really is a beautiful town. Every time I leave London I think that while London has lots of advantages it would be fantastic to live in another town for a while: for one thing you would have more attractive surroundings. For all that I like London it's not a very clean city.

York II - Clifford's Tower

Clifford's Tower is all that stands of the Norman stronghold to keep down the North. It was part of a motte and bailey style castle, built immediately after the invasion by William the Conqueror; destroyed soon after it was rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt again. During the Civil War its roof was repaired to carry cannon for the defence of the city (true loyalists I presume, not odious roundhead rebels). The roof collapsed later when it caught fire after a salute was fired...It was left in ruins until the nineteenth century when it was again cleaned up.

The first photo is of Clifford's Tower itself. (Forgot to give the derivation of the name, partly because I have actually forgotten it! Something to do with a Clifford being executed and his corpse strung on the walls). Then there's the view to what, going by the sun, is the SE, another view of the cathedral as seen from the top of Clifford's Tower, a view of the inside of the tower, and the Tower's chapel which, unless it had extended elsewhere, was tiny!

Always enjoy seeing Norman fortifications though. I can just imagine the men of iron who built them, ruling with a mailed fist...super stuff. Perhaps in another age I could have been an oppressive robber baron. I like to think I've got it in me anyway.

York - Part I - York Minster

I usually blog about the places I've been in one go and restrain myself from putting up too many photos - there's only so many pictures of places you haven't seen that you can tolerate before losing interest - but I found I'd taken an embarrassingly touristy forty four photos in York today!

So starting with the Cathedral, partly because it is perhaps the most famous part of York, and partly because I spent years of my childhood playing wargames where I was trying to use the cathedral to crown pretenders to the throne during the Wars of the Roses; in another era I made the city a base for Rupert of the Rhine (my hero!) to first smash a Fairfax army, then desperately try to fight off combined army of parliamentary traitors and boorish Covenanters, but that's not really cathedral specific. Anyway. Here're the photos. They're fairly self explanatory, the Cathedral taken from various points of view. The first is seen in zoom from Clifford's Tower (of which more later), in the second it's actually very much in the background, but this is how you see it walking up from the train station (the foreground is St Leonard's again of which more later), and the final shot is taken from the entrance.

Unfortunately the photos I took inside were pretty average so I left them out. I went to evensong there as well, though unfortunately arriving late; it was fantastic. The singing was beautiful, the area where it was held, out of the main tourist portion, was fantastic, walled off in stone with statues of kings from Edward I to Henry VI, and the East Window, referred to in the sermon, was a retelling of the Book of the Apocalypse which took three years to make and is the work of (I think he said) John Fulton. The sermon was interesting as well, about the Book of the Apocalypse, that much of the context is difficult to understand now, but that essentially it has a message of hope, that God will triumph. Also interesting is that the sign of the cross was being thrown around constantly, before the sermon, over the collection, over the congregation: they must be quite high church at York Cathedral. Go them!!

However I didn't take any more photos then as I thought it rather bad manners to do that during or after a service.

Still, fantastic to have been there. I could see all my usurpers crowned in state at the high altar with their knights in attendance...

Trellick Tower

A landmark piece of brutalist architecture! With which I fell completely in love. Designed by Erno Goldfinger, begun in '66, finished in '72, and to my mind a model for what all council housing should be like. Incredibly impressive, towering over the landscape. The seperate tower you can see is the lift shaft. Unfortunately though I made it to the lobby by following in a resident through the exterior locked door I then didn't manage to get past security and up the elevator tower. A real shame!

The photos are all of the building taken from different angles; the first is from the canal which runs nearby and up past the West Way (as in the innumerable Clash references, 'West Way to the World' etc).

That was my Sunday. Brilliant day.

Bath

This time my photos are actually in chronological order. I outwitted the machine by uploading backwards. Take that!

Of course the heading of this post refers to the town of Bath and my trip there, not to my habits of personal hygiene. (They're impeccable).

So the first building shown is the Bath pump house, where one takes the waters: also, incidentally, used at the hospital to treat rheumatism and gout! The Romans used the water too. It's got a long history.

Then there's the abbey, right next to the pump house. Quite impressive but apparently because it's not a cathedral Bath can't really qualify as a city. Obscure but apparently true.

The houses are some of those we doorknocked. Very nice area. One had two bells, for trades and vsitors.

When we'd finished we walked off to lunch at some people's house. Across the Avon (as in Stratford-Upon) pictured in the fourth photo, and past some parks near the Avon (fifth photo).

Bath was a really beautiful town. I loved the architecture, austere yet elegant. I would certainly love to live there and see what the lifestyle is like.

Only an hour and a half from London on the train too so relatively easy access.

Birmingham (and absinthe chocolate...)

So Sunday went to Birmingham, England's second largest city with around 970,000 population. And the largest collection of Burne-Jones artwork in the world! As one of my two favourite artists - the other is Gustave Moreau - I thought I had to check it out.

Then too I found out it was the home of Cadburyworld! Which is to do with my first photo though it was towards the end of the day. Those buildings are part of the huge factory complex at Bournville where the first Cadbury factory was established. They now have two more at Chirk and just outside Bristol. Interesting to hear the history of the company. The Cadburys were Quakers who originally sold tea, coffee, and cocoa as moral alternatives to alcohol. (They wouldn't have approved of appearing in a post together with absinthe! How we can desecrate even the most moral of goods.) Also they were very big on the late Victorian worker's welfare push, building the village of Bournville for their workers, together with sports fields, swimming pools, establishing a pensions scheme...I think Ruskin would have been proud! Also great was the free chocolate including a cup of warm liquid chocolate at the end.

Since the visit I've resolved to make chocolate part of my everday life.

Going backwards chronologically there's a photo of New Street, one of the main shopping malls in Birmingham which leads from the train station to the Art gallery. I'm actually walking away from the art towards the train in the shot.

Then there's the symphony hall. LOVE this building! Fantastic example of brutalism, all space age and concrete. We need more structures like this in the world. It might not then be a happier place but would certainly be more like a '50s comic book or Molesworth's conception of the future. Unfortunately I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

Then directly opposite the symphony hall (my back was turned to it in taking the previous photo) is the Council Building which is now the art gallery. It was unbelievably brilliant to see more real life Burne-Jones and Pre-Raphaelite works. All the paintings I've looked at in books for years now! Spent about two hours there before I had to rush off to Cadburyworld for my prebooked tour.

And then last but most certainly not least is my absinthe chocolate. I picked this up on Saturday at the Arab Coffee Shop I've described in a previous post. It's awesome. I thought it might just be liquorice-ey but when I tried i today it really tasted like an absinthe chaser to dark chocolate (it's 75%). Will definitely be eating more of this!

Sunday - photo journal

(Unfortunately it's in reverse order - anti-clockwise)

Chocolate Soup!

After my missing (gerund again! yes!) the chocolate festival in Brighton I've been wanting chocolate soup the entire week. I've searched recipes - the net has heaps - and decided to try one without cream first. I don't really like cream very much.

Turned out really well, and for once I'm also not ashamed of my photography! The bowl is on the windowsill in the kitchen.

It tastd like eating melted chocolate, as you do when you've melted some cooking chocolate and are running your finger around the bowl afterwards, but the consistency was smoother, more like a creamy punpkin soup. Really delicious! And very rich; but I wanted another bowl immediately anyway...

Here's the slightly adapted recipe I used (apart from my changes it's 1/6th of the original):

2/3 cup skim milk

75g light condensed milk

1 dessert spoon dark rum (much more than the original which also called for kahlua instead)

A line of dark bittersweet chocolate chopped up

Pinch of salt

Dash of cinammon

Whisk everything together, bring to a simmer, then turn down to low and, whisking frequently, cook for another 20mins. Then whisk through 1/3tsp vanilla extract and 1/4tsp ground coffee.

I can't say how much I adored it! But will try another recipe this week just to be adventurous.

In Brighton on a Sunday

Again, the upload has gone a little funny. I guess I need to work out how to do it properly. Doesn't matter. Anyway I went down to Brighton to attend a celebration of national chocolate week which ran from 13-19 October. Unfortunately by the time I got there I was told everything had been eaten. The best they could offer me was doughnut sticks with a chocolate dipping sauce and vodka soaked cherries. Which sounds delicious right now but then I had my heart set on truffles so didn't have it. Oh well. Still was a fun day.

Going on to the photos - the first is the view from the Brighton Pier's right hand side looking towards what they call the beachfront. As can be seen it's a rock garden!

Then the photos jump to the Royal Pavilion, built by George IV who had a fetish for all things Indian. I LOVE the architecture! Though the first thing I thought of when I saw it was how much G K Chesterton would have been enraged :)

After the RP there's Brigton Pier seen before I walked out onto it, the shore to the other side of the previous photo, and then the super remains of the old pier - I think it's the one that George IV himself used to frequent. Ruined now. It's opposite some Regency style buildings which looked like they would hae been frequented by George and his cronies. I wanted to swim out there but despite the sun in the pics it was freezing...

Finally there's Brighton Pier seen from the halfway point which on the day looked more like the sea city in Attack of the Clones than it does in the photo, the one where Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan fights Jango Fett. Oh well. Finally there's a shot back along the pier, roughly the opposite of the previous shot of the pier from the shore.

Great day though longer than expected because it turned out direct trains weren't running and half the trip was done on a bus. Even that was good in a way as I saw more of the countryside!

And now in London the weather has turned filthy, raining my entire walk home and at 5pm it was nearly dark...

Canterbury

There was so much to see in Canterbury - I think I took far too many pictures! Though it was nearly none at all. My camera had two batteries I'd bought on Tuesday and another two fresh for backup. All were flat. Fortunately in Canterbury the sights are inside the town so I could buy new ones.

The photos seem to have been uploaded quite randomly. But here's the list.

1. A view of the ruins of the keep of the Norman castle. In the nineteenth century this was briefly used by the gas company.

2. A mound which was used as a tower on the city walls. It is a Roman burial mound and was also the site of the original bailey for the first castle built there in 1066, a motte and bailey style construction.

3. Walking along the walls of the city. The mound can be seen again in the background.

4. The Northern walls with the moat protecting it.

5. The gate for the Northern walls. Quite thick as you can see.

6. The Cathedral gate. Very impressive. And on either side were various shops.

7. The Cathedral as seen through the Cathedral gate. I didn't get inside as the Canterbury Festival was on and I didn't have a ticket. Bit annoying. Still at least I saw it from there. Very impressive!

8 & 9. The ruined Abbey of St Augustine. I can't remember when or why it fell into disrepair. Clearly my history hasn't benefited from seeing the original sites...

10. An interior view of the Norman keep as I was climbing the staircase in the North-Eastern corner.

All in all it was a fantatic trip. And the weather was brilliant too which helped!