Summer Holiday day four and five

July 26 - Pickering Again and July 27 - York

The next day we did some shopping and rested, walking around Pickering in the afternoon, but not doing anything special. Pickering has a number of bric-a-brac shops and two antique stores, plus a small arcade known as a flea market. It was just another mix of bric-a-brac and a few new items like a small indoor market, without fleas. Interestingly, it is advertised in Canada and I took this picture just outside Toronto a few years ago.

Pickering is also a district of Toronto, Canada

  Maybe they are not the same place, but I had you fooled for a moment.

In a Pickering shop window, but not for sale

Pickering has two major attractions, a castle and a parish church. The castle is mostly in ruins, having been partially destroyed by Oliver Cromwell, but there is enough to get a good idea of its Norman splendour and gives good views of the area. The church has some amazing medieval pictures painted on the walls and is worth a long look inside. More of these later.

Our next outing was to York.

July 27 York

Wednesday we went to York.  We decided it would be simpler to use the Park and Ride service rather than take two cars into the centre of town.  Because TSIL needed a buggy, one car drove to the Shopmobility car park and we met up as soon as we could.  The first thing we discovered was the Jorvic Viking Exhibition. The Jorvic experience was one of the major attractions in York. But in 2015 it had been damaged when York experienced some major flooding and the museum had to be closed whilst the exhibits were transported to safe storage. Work was still taking place to re-open it fully, but in the mean time they had moved into the knave of the St Mary's church with a reduced display.

Inside we found people dressed in Viking clothes who were able to tell us about their particular part of the display. In a way, this was more interesting than the full thing, since it was not too crowded and you had a personalised explanation of what you are looking at and can strike up a conversation with someone who knows a lot about the period.

A picturesque building in central York

After a coffee break, we walked off to find John Palmer's grave, better known in life as Dick Turpin.  A name we had all heard since he was probably the most notorious highwayman of all time.  The gravestone claims he was buried in St George's churchyard, but there is a lot of controversy as to whether or not that is correct.  It has also been suggested that his body was taken from his original grave, wherever it was, and buried in another graveyard in secret.

From there we passed some of the old city walls and went on to York Castle.

We ate lunch in the castle museum cafe and then walked up to the top of the The Great Tower.

The steps look quite daunting, but are not too bad

From the top you can see across York and get a view of York  Minster - almost.

After that we split up and The Better Half (TBH) and I went to have a look at Fairfax House, whilst the rest of the family went shopping.   Fairfax House is a Georgian town house which has been turned into a museum.  Its history is interesting. Built in the 1740s, in 1795 it was bought by Charles Gregory Fairfax, 9th Viscount Fairfax of Emle and so became known as Fairfax House.

Fairfax House

It was owned by a number of families since but the last family, falling on hard times, it was sold and became a dance hall and a cinema.  It was restored in the 80s and returned to its former condition with period furniture recovered from other collections and houses.  Much of the furniture was donated by the Terry family when Noel Terry the founder of Terry's Chocolate died.   The cinema entrance still exists and is now used as the main entrance for visitors.
Meeting up with the rest of the family we caught the Park and Ride bus and then drove back to Pickering.