Postcards from York: A Slow York City Guide
Hello friends. Those of you that follow me on Instagram may have seen in my Stories the other week that I enjoyed a September city break to York with my mum and auntie. I haven't written about travel here before, at least, not in an overt way. I'll be honest, travel blogs are not often something I'll read, so in order for this post to get published here on Simple & Season, it had to be more than a list of what we did. For this York City Guide, I've tried to focus much more on the atmosphere and evoking a sense of place, so even if you have no plans to visit York (spoiler alert: you should start making those plans), I hope you'll still find it an enjoyable read. Plus there's some pretty pictures too 😉
The Atmosphere
I love a place where you can feel the weight of history, of shared human experience, in every step and brick. I also love a place with cake. This place, it turns out, is York.
York is a snug city. Clustered around its imposing Minster, huddled inside its ancient walls, it is kept small by historical architecture – on our boat trip it only took us around 10 minutes to be out into the relative countryside. As such it feels cosy, homely, sure of itself – there is no trying to compete or outdo here, there is no sprawl. It feels like a city that values its inhabitants more than it panders to tourists, and the self-reflective art and décor of the many cafes and shops demonstrates that the citizens of York repay the love tenfold.Architecturally, York is a mish mash. Victorian on Georgian on Medieval on Roman, the layers of time are all here and visible in the streets, walls and cobbles. It’s a place where you can imagine life through the ages; the past and its characters are omnipresent. The myriad plaques and signs that adorn the bridges and buildings tell the stories of events and people, from martyrdoms to massacres, kings to butcher’s wives. Thanks to York’s historical preservation, very few of the plaques feature the ubiquitous “on a spot near this place” – and as a result you feel connected with these people and happenings more deeply than you do elsewhere.
Walking around, I felt a pang of regret that I’d never considered York for my own university experience. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course, but it felt like a place I could have thrived, could have felt at home. For a while I considered how perhaps we could move here in the future (although I do this almost everywhere I visit). For perhaps the first time, however, I felt oddly like this city was the settlement version of me – that we had a lot in common, similar hobbies and interests, the same values. York suited me, and I suited York.
The Sights
York Minster
I am an ecclesiastical architecture geek – having studied it during my MA, I rarely miss a chance to visit a gothic gem. York Minster is built in the French Gothic style: soaring columns that shoot up, literally, to the heavens, making your neck crick as you gaze endlessly upward. The light Yorkshire stone makes the interior almost pure white, while in the crypt you can see the ghost of the Norman church that was here before, the bases of old columns standing like frozen sentries on guard for a millennium.
The Minster also has half of all the medieval stained glass left in England. Most of us are used to Victorian stained glass made to look medieval, but the real thing is much more interesting. Being made with tiny fragments, the image is distorted and almost impressionistic in style, far more pleasing to the artistic eye than the blatant, on-dimensional storytelling of later glass. Look out for the grisaille Five Sisters window in the North transept; my favourite window is the oldest in the building, and was created with grey glass in geometric patterns - it's also the only one dedicated to women.
Museum Gardens
Although the River Ouse runs through the heart of the city, it is not a river like the Thames or Seine that you can walk along in the city centre. Various buildings, including the guild hall, are built right up against it, so a boat trip is the only way to see York from the river – as well as pick up some excellent facts about the city.
After the trip you will be dropped off at Lendal Bridge, right by the gates of the Museum Gardens, and this public park is the perfect place to stretch your legs. Busy with semi-tame squirrels, mothers with buggies and students to-ing and fro-ing, the Gardens are beautifully planted and dotted with relics of the past. Once the site of an Abbey that rivalled the Minster for size, just one wall and an immense, Turner-esque archway remains, with the leaves of the beech trees poking through the empty windows. Further along a fern garden is planted around a Roman tower, and elsewhere you’ll find a Tudor building now part of the Museum.
The Shambles
You’ve no doubt seen the Shambles on Instagram; images of the topsy turvy medieval street with its cobbled path and overhanging wattle and daub buildings were the main thing that had put York on my list to visit. However, if you want a good photograph, you will need to visit when the light is bright and probably at 7am to avoid capturing the fluorescent coats of tourists ambling down the road.As with many iconic places, either the rent or the reputation will cause it to be filled not with quaint and beautiful shops, but by tat and tourist money wasters. There are a few good bakeries, but you’re better off heading to Stonegate and the other streets around the Minster for shopping.
Food
“You will eat well in York” should be the city’s slogan. Every third doorway, every ex-historical monument is some kind of delicious, independent eatery. If in most major cities you’re never more than 6 feet away from a rat, in York this is true of cafes.We ate, a lot. I awoke on our last morning certain that I would never eat again, but was happily tucking into an Eggs Benedict an hour later. We mapped our itinerary around the city by cafes, a dot-to-dot route of coffee and cake and toasties.
Crumbs Cupcakery
Visit on a sunny day to sit outside on College Street in the shadow of the Minster’s East end – or soak up its vintage-cute (in a bunting sort of way) style inside. Light fairy cake-style cupcakes (as opposed to the denser, American versions) in flavours from ’99 to Bakewell to Brownie served on vintage crockery, no doubt from the shop next door selling old plates in baskets.
Brew & Brownie
An interior that is all charcoal grey, filament lightbulbs and subway tiles; thick wooden tables with the option of old theatre seating; and a dominating wooden work bench piled with cakes displayed on hessian under glass cloches, from a gigantic carrot cake to vegan chocolate orange torte.We ate sourdough toasties packed with cheese that oozed in those lovely globules you get with brie. Not skimping with the cheese is, I always think, a very good sign about the heart in the kitchen. The food felt fresh, well-looked after, and tasted excellent. My companions, initially worried by the trendy bustle of the place, all agreed it was an excellent choice.
The Pig & Pastry
Definitely the most authentic place we visited, a little walk outside of the city centre in the gentrified Bushy Road area. The Pig & Pastry owners leave no stone unturned when it comes to filling their little café with wit and personality: from the 5* Trip Advisor bribes of chocolate on the counter, the cookbook exchange, the boiled eggs that are whisked out of the kitchen wearing woolly hats and Sharpie faces, to the Harry Potter audio book playing in the bathroom.Filled with locals popping in and out and shouting hellos through to the tiny open kitchen, you will likely have to wait for one of the farmhouse tables squeezed into the room. The cakes are in flavours you’re unlikely to eat anywhere else, the food full of flavour and cooked, I know, with a smile.
The Whippet Inn
Our final dinner was The Whippet Inn over on North Street. A dark interior with whippet witticisms, inkspot test wallpaper and candles dripping down gin bottles in every available alcove. An excellent, and reasonably priced, artisan gin selection (no Gordon’s or Bombay Sapphire in sight) and a cocktail menu printed in the front of ladybird books.The kitchen specialise in meat (although vegetarians will find thoughtful options), and the menu is full of exciting combinations and quirks. The food is delicious and well cooked; it is no wonder it was packed every weeknight.
Honourable mentions
More sights and eats to add to your York itinerary...
The Perky Peacock – in a tiny tower on Lendal Bridge is the Perky Peacock café. We were in a rush so didn’t get to appreciate the medieval interior, but the coffee to go was the best we had.Treasurer’s House – a National Trust house under the Minster, it is the oddly put together home of a local eccentric.
City Walls – it goes without saying that you must walk the city walls – the section between Monk Bar and Bootham Gate is the most scenic.York Art Gallery – a fairly small gallery, it is a great way to pass a rainy hour. Your entry fee will get you into the permanent galleries and the current exhibitions.
So, what do you think of this style of city guide? And when are you booking your trip?!
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