Day 11 – Walled city of York

Overcast, threatening and cool is the way to describe today, this is the first bad weather day of my trip and going by the weather forecast the further I head north the more rain I will be seeing. anyway the morning is tipped to be the best of the day so off into the walled city I go. My hotel is only a 5 min walk from the tower street entrance and so it is not long that I am inside the old city walls and making my way to the other end of the city to see the Cathedral. I make my way though windy small streets full of shops and tourists, I pass many churches in my travels, I am surprised that so many are needed with such a large cathedral. After a 25 min stroll I find myself at the main entrance of this imposing gothic cathedral, it is in very good condition for a building from the 13th century, there is restoration being conducted at the moment and after accosting a stone mason I learn that all of the stone comes from the Doncaster area and would most likely have been floated up the Ouse river initially. I also find out that it cost 10,000 pounds a day to run the Cathedral.

Some stats about the Cathedral, Length 158m, Breadth Transepts 76m, Breadth Nave 42m, Height Central Tower 60m, Height Western Towers 53m. Built in 3 stages between 1220- 1472.

One of the things that you can do is pay 5 pounds and tackle the climb to the top of the main tower, seeing as I am here I thought, in the immortal words of Jeremy Clarkson, how hard can it be? I was feeling pretty confident after climbing the Ely Cathedral tower at 100m high and this one is only 60m, well the difference is quite marked the Ely tower climb is done over 3 stages and at leisurely conducted pace, here it is a total of 275 steps, 100 steps to the top of the north transept, a walk across the roof to the tower entrance and then about 175 steps straight up, the first thing you see when you squeeze through the door way, or as i like to call it a small hole in the wall, is a bench seat, it was put to good use. The views over the town were very impressive with the rain holding off for my visit, although windy you walk around the top of the tower in a fully enclosed cage. Now only 275 steps to go to get down.

Once down I needed a coffee and a piece of cake so it was off to starbucks for a drink, luckily there is one insight of the main entrance and 3 in total in the town. After finishing my drink I head outside to find the rain falling, luckily I have my green umbrella with me so it is off to spend the rest of my day strolling the winding streets in the gentle falling rain, window shopping.