A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
To thoroughly master the story of the city of York is to know
practically the whole of English history. Its importance from the
earliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events that
have taken place in the North of England; and right up to the time of
the Civil War the great happenings of the country always affected York,
and brought the northern capital into the vortex of affairs. And yet,
despite the prominent part the city has played in ecclesiastical,
military, and civil affairs through so many centuries of strife, it has
contrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by any
town in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunate
fact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has never
become a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses being
unable to rob the city of its romance and charm.
There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that
furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we
are confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented
wall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we
enter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages
within. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down to
the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar
with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.
Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times during
the last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the bars
and where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbing the
walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamy colour of
the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York’s atmosphere,
for should the smoke of the city ever increase to the extent of even the
smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamour of every view would
gradually disappear.
Of the Roman town called Eburacum there still remain parts of the wall
and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided tower, showing that the
walled area of York in Roman times was scarcely a fifth of the medieval
city.
The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have each
a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of York,
we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow streets
full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we know from
prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we reach a wide
arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find a flight of stone
steps leading to the top of the wall. We climb them, and find spread out
before us our first notable view of the city. The battlemented stone
parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on the bank of the river,
and on the further side rises another, while above the old houses,
closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appear the stately towers
of the Minster.
On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs
to the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when
open country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within were
to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so admirably designed
as to be beautiful without the additional charm of age. Then, suddenly,
we find no need to imagine any longer, having reached the splendid
twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its bold turrets are
pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlements are three stone
figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city. In gazing at this
imposing gateway, which confronted all who approached York from the
south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of the portcullis as it is
raised and lowered to allow the entry of some Plantagenet sovereign and
his armed retinue, and, remembering that above this gate were fixed the
dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York, after his defeat at Wakefield;
the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and a long list of others of noble
birth, we realize that in those times of pageantry, when the most
perfect artistry appeared in costume, in architecture, and in ornament
of every description, there was a bloodthirstiness that makes us shiver.
The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river and
come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no
antiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by the
eighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor’s
house. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is the
artificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is called
Clifford’s Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored
the ruined walls in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords can
still be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole dates from
the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horrible tragedy,
when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Those merchants
who escaped from their houses with their families and were not killed in
the streets fled to the castle, but finding that they were unable to
defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyed themselves. A
few exceptions consented to become Christians, but were afterwards
killed by the infuriated townspeople.
On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just
outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a
picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of
fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its
battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.
The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design to
Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;
inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethan
timber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned,
was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. It
was soon after the Royalist defeat at Marston Moor that York
capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellent
terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minster
suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and the
only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of Marygate Tower, near St.
Mary’s Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed. Numbers
were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier who
rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all the
records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax had
paid a salary for some years, the loss was reduced to a minimum.
Walmgate leads straight to the bridge over the Foss, and just beyond we
come to fine old Merchants’ Hall, established in 1373 by John de
Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the
fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful survivals
of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On
[Illustration: STONEGATE, YORK
Is typical of the old streets of the city, with their overhanging upper
storeys and quaint windows. The south transept of the minster shows at
the end of the street.]
the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the
interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was
illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to
York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker.
The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to
All Saints’ Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where
butchers’ shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of
the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops has
a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the
passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and
either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces
between the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles, too,
there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting and oriel
windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite so rich in
antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number of the
shops in Stonegate sell ‘antiques,’ and, as the pleasure of buying an
old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge
that the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets of
York, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses are
in no danger. In walking through these streets we are very little
disturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seems to
surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower of the
Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so many
charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is hard
to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as Lisieux or
Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise has only one
gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in
Kingsley’s words, ‘Why go gallivanting with the nations round’ until you
have at least seen what England can show at York and Chester? Skirting
the west end of the Minster, and having a close view of its two towers
built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so beautiful as those
at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the most romantic of all
the medieval survivals of York. There is an open space faced by Bootham
Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind are the weathered red
roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them rises the stately mass of
the Minster. The barbican was removed in 1831, and the interior has
been
[Illustration: BOOTHAM BAR, YORK
Is one of the most perfect survivals of the medieval city. The minster
towers show in the background. Travellers going northwards through the
forest of Galtres left the city by this gate, and armed guides could be
obtained to protect them from wolves while they passed through the
forest.]
much restored, without, however, destroying its fascination. We can
still see the portcullis and look out of the narrow windows through
which the watchmen have gazed in early times at approaching travellers.
It was at this gateway that armed guides could be obtained to protect
those who were journeying northwards through the Forest of Galtres,
where wolves were to be feared in the Middle Ages.
Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by
trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house
where, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary’s Abbey lived in
stately fashion.
When Henry VIII. paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage
of Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The
citizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted
three years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of
Norfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbot’s house, and
resulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. The
beautiful fragments of St. Mary’s Abbey are close to the river, and the
site is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum building
itself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up
when the new railway-station was being built. One inscription is
particularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars in
their palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing to enter
the prætorium at Jerusalem when Christ was made prisoner, because it was
the Feast of the Passover.
We can see the restored front of the Guildhall overlooking the river
from Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but to
reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and turn
into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is therefore in
the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each side support
the roof and form two aisles. The windows are all filled with excellent
modern stained glass representing several incidents in the history of
the city, from the election of Constantine to be Roman Emperor, which
took place at York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner to the Prince
Consort, held in the hall in 1850.
The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the
Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and
aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much
greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some
of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the
windows.
St. Margaret’s Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the
signs of the zodiac; St. Mary’s Castlegate is an Early English or
Transitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;
St. Mary’s Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, partially
Roman, and adapted to its present purpose in Saxon times, and the list
could be prolonged for many pages if there were space.
We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept
door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have
reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the
lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty
things, and making it seem almost undesirable to inquire into the dates
and periods of construction of one of the most glorious buildings ever
raised to the glory of God.
Edwin’s wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian
Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced by
a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in the
crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in 1069,
the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city in
ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely to
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still later.
THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT