On arrival I was immediately impressed. I live near the resort town of Cleethorpes but although it is a popular holiday resort it has to be said that it is just a muddy estuary where the sea is barely visible for long periods of the day but this was real North Sea coast with a raging sea, barnacled groynes, pounding surf, churning water and a pebble beach clattering away as it was constantly rearranged by the tidal surge.
OK, not technically a Cathedral but still, in my opinion, grand enough to be included.
Minster is an honorific title given to particular churches in England most usually those that have been associated with monastic life sometime in the past.
Church hierarchy is a complicated matter because a Minster falls somewhere between Church and Cathedral but can confusingly stray either way. Beverley Mister is a Church but thirty miles away York Minster is a Cathedral. Beverley has a Bishop but he is based in York. In London, Westminster is a Cathedral and an Abbey and a Minster and down the road there is a Roman Catholic Cathedral of the same name.
This, by the way, is York Minster (Cathedral) obscured a bit behind the statue of Roman Emperor Constantine…
Posted in Cathedrals, Europe, History, Literature, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Beverley East Yorkshire, Grimsby, Holderness, Humber Bridge, Skipsea, Yorkshire Ridings, Yorkshire White Rose
The origins of the East Yorkshire town of Beverley can be traced back to the time of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria in the seventh century when it was called known as Inderawuda (meaning “in the wood of the men of Deira”), later, in the tenth century the name of the town was changed to Bevreli or Beverlac, meaning beaver-clearing or beaver-lake a reference to the colonies of beavers in the River Hull at the time.
I always find it interesting how far the name of an English town or city has travelled world-wide. In the United States the U.S. Board on Geographic names have for some reason dropped the third ‘e’ but there is a Beverly in Chicago, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, South Dakota, Washington and West Virginia. Beverly Hills in California is named after Beverly, Massachusetts so can indirectly be included in the list.
In Canada, as in USA the drop the third ‘e’ in Beverly, Toronto but in Australia they retain the correct spelling in Beverley, Adelaide and also in a small town in Western Australia.
Today the town retains some unusual street names…
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
The minster is famous for its carvings of medieval musical instruments. There are over 70 such carvings, illustrating instruments that are familiar to modern viewers, but also a variety of unusual medieval instruments. Among the carvings are depictions of bagpipes, flutes, pipes, organs, tambourines, shawms, cymbals, trumpets, lutes, and more.
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
On the final morning at Skipsea Sands Holiday Park we woke to overcast skies and rain, it seemed that we had the best of the weather, this is the problem with an English Summer, it can be all over in just a week. The golden corn field was now a dirty brown. No breakfast on the balcony this morning so we packed our bags and left.
We arrived in Beverley in the late morning and by the time we had interpreted the complicated car park payment process at a pay and display machine the sky was blue, the sun was shining and a day that started needing a raincoat now only required shirt-sleeves.
The name of the town came into use sometime in the tenth century and I always find it interesting how far the name of an English town or city has travelled world-wide. In the United States the U.S. Board on Geographic names have for some reason dropped the third ‘e’ but there is a Beverly in Chicago, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, South Dakota, Washington and West Virginia. Beverly Hills in California is named after the English town so can indirectly be included in the list.
In Canada, as in USA the drop the third ‘e’ in Beverly, Toronto but in Australia they retain the correct spelling in Beverley, Adelaide and in a small town in Western Australia.
The place was busy and we followed a stream of pedestrians who seemed to know where they were going and arrived quite quickly at the Market Place. Ordinarily I would not find this an especially thrilling experience, even now after nearly sixty years I can recall being dragged around Leicester Market by my mother on a weekly basis, but Beverley Market, I have to say, was quite wonderful, busy, vibrant and full of life and I was so overcome by the moment I was talked into a rash purchase of a rusty garden ornament for £25 – my entire pocket money for the week.
I knew it was going to take me a while to get over that moment of shopping weakness so I steered us all away from the market and towards the ‘Georgian Quarter’ which I hoped would give me the time that I needed to recover my composure.
The ‘Georgian Quarter’ is not a huge area, the main road ‘North Bar Within’ is barely two hundred yards long but it has been well preserved and is flanked with elegant town houses with handsome front doors with gleaming brass furniture.
It is rare that one small town boasts two wonderful historic churches, but that is the case for the East Yorkshire town of Beverley. The most famous of the two is without doubt the Minster, a wonderful monastic church but at the other end of town, just inside the last surviving five hundred year old town gate, stands the glorious medieval church of St Mary.
Sir Tatton Sykes, a prolific nineteenth century church restorer, once famously remarked that the west front of St Mary’s was ‘unequalled in England and almost without rival on the continent of Europe’. Now, Sir Tatton may be forgiven for seeing the church with the rose-tinted spectacles of a local enthusiast but the truth is that St Mary’s is a beautiful church, and must surely warrant inclusion in any list of the great parish churches of England.
We had come to see the Minster of course but finding ourselves outside the church it seemed rude not to pay a visit and we were soon very glad that we did. It is an eye-catching structure from outside and the doorway is framed with stone carvings of gargoyles with wild, scary faces and bulging eyes but once past the ugly bug invitation committee we passed into an elaborate and sumptuous interior which is in contrast to the normal austerity of Anglican churches.
Inside the church is a treasure chest of stained glass windows, two magnificent ceiling paintings, one of the constellation of stars and another of Anglo-Saxon Kings of England and a trail of stone carvings that requires a printed map to try and find them all. Most famous of all is perhaps the carving of the March Hare, a rabbit dressed as a Pilgrim and said to have inspired Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland although I can find no real evidence to support that particular claim.
After lunch in smart little town centre café we made our way now along busy streets with buskers and street entertainers until we reached the Minster. A magnificent Gothic structure which towers over the whole of the town.
Minster is an honorific title given to particular churches in England most usually those that have been associated with monastic life sometime in the past. Church hierarchy is a complicated matter because a Minster falls between Church and Cathedral but can confusingly stray either way. Beverley Mister is a Church but thirty miles away York Minster is a Cathedral. Beverley has a Bishop but he is based in York. In London, Westminster is a Cathedral and an Abbey and a Minster and down the road there is a Roman Catholic Cathedral of the same name.
It is an impressive building for sure and inside there are soaring columns, high vaulted windows, chapels and tombs but decoration is sparse and compared to St Mary’s Church it seemed strangely austere and functional. We stayed for a while until we were spotted taking photographs without a permit (£3) from which we were excused when I pointed out that my granddaughter had spent an inflated £15 in the gift shop and then we left.
By now it was late afternoon so we returned to the market to collect our garden ornament purchases and then we left Beverley and made our way back to the Humber Bridge and back to Grimsby. It had been an excellent few days in East Yorkshire.
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
It may not be the tallest or the widest or even the longest but in terms of floor space Beverley Minster is the biggest Parish Church in England.
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favourite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments’ on Norm’s site, anytime between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American Eastern Time).
I live in the north of Lincolnshire. I like Lincolnshire but I like Yorkshire even more. Lucky for me then that it is only a thirty mile drive to cross the Humber Bridge and arrive in the East Riding.
School holidays mean visiting grandchildren so to save the house and garden from being trashed I booked a few days away in a holiday home (caravan) in a part of Yorkshire that I have so far never felt inclined to visit. Tucked away in the south east of the county is a stretch of coastline between the city of Hull and the town of Bridlington and this was our destination. A holiday park at Skipsea Sands.
The UK was enjoying bizarre weather and an unexpected heat-wave as hot air swept up from North Africa and we set off with high expectations of a gloriously sunny week with the promise of record breaking temperatures and as we approached our first destination we were not disappointed.
I first visited Hornsea in February 2017 and I liked it so much that I vowed to return. This is what I said about it then…
“On arrival I was immediately impressed. I live near the resort town of Cleethorpes but although it is a popular holiday resort it has to be said that it is just a muddy estuary where the sea is barely visible for long periods of the day but this was real North Sea coast with a raging sea, barnacled groynes, pounding surf, churning water and a pebble beach clattering away as it was constantly rearranged by the tidal surge.”
It was different today of course as the midday temperature soared through the thirties, the sea was calm and warm and the beach was as busy as Benidorm in July.
We started the visit with fish and chips because there is nowhere like Yorkshire for fish and chips, cooked properly in beef dripping and crisp crunchy batter, a real treat. I lived for a few months in Richmond in North Yorkshire and would quite happily eat fish and chips every day.
Next we went to the beach. I wasn’t so keen on this as the children. I have just bought a new car and I didn’t want it filled with sand that is difficult to vacuum up but I had to give in of course and accept the consequences.
The beach was busy and a few yards away were a family of louts who were ignoring the summer beaches dog-ban rule with a scruffy animal that was causing mayhem. I just hate dogs.
After half an hour or so they packed up and left but didn’t bother to take their litter with them, several beer cans and empty crisp packets and just wandered off with their obnoxious beast. Kim was outraged and went across to where they were sitting and picked up all of the mess that they had left behind. I was impressed by that.
And so with sandy feet and muddy clothes we left the beach but then ran into the moron beach littering family. Kim couldn’t help herself and walked across to them and handed them the bag of cans and bottles. I knew that this wasn’t a good idea. The youth (obviously unemployable and living on benefits) was a tattoed yob (paid for by people like us who pay taxes) who clearly couldn’t be reasoned with or could see no wrong in his actions and responded with a tirade of abuse which shocked the passers-by. I pulled Kim away but he followed and continued with his foul mouthed response until we were out safely of ear-shot.
Anti-Social behaviour and littering is a real problem in the UK as people seem to think that it is acceptable to dispose of rubbish in any public place and I find that so distressing.
After we had walked the length of the seafront we returned to the car park and continued our journey to out holiday home (caravan) destination at Skipsea Sands. Caravan allocation is a bit of a lottery, sometimes you get a good one and sometimes you don’t. This time we struck lucky with a van on the edge of the park overlooking a field of golden corn and the blue sea beyond. It was quite perfect.
I have visited these caravan parks before and I am certain that the company keeps a database of clients and how they leave the accommodation when they leave. I try to leave it in really good order and I am convinced that this results in an upgrade for the next visit.
As the girls moved in and chose their bedrooms Kim and I sat on the balcony and watched the monochrome kaleidoscope of grass as the breeze choreographed shifting patterns in the field of golden wheat. We opened a bottle of wine and congratulated ourselves on our good fortune.
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
Posted in Age of Innocence, Arts and Crafts, Childhood, Europe, Growing up in the 1950s, History, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, United Kingdom, World Heritage
Tagged Beverley East Yorkshire, Caravan Holiday, Hornsea, Hull, Humber Bridge, Skipsea Sands, Yorkshire postcards, Yorkshire Ridings
After a second night demolishing the Premier Inn in Beverley and the children had caught up on their e-mails we had to clear out and make plans for going back home to Grimsby.
Fearing for the house and not wanting to get back too soon I thought that we might take a detour through UK Capital of Culture – The City of Hull and specifically an area of the city that has been reinvented for the occasion as the Old Town and more specifically, the Museum Quarter.
Odd, isn’t it? I have no trouble with Madrid or Prague, Rome or Lisbon having an Old Town or Museum quarter but I find it difficult to get my head around this in nearby Hull.
It was rather a surprise to most people when Hull became UK Capital of Culture because it has to be said that it great swathes of it are a bit of a dump and the journey in along the A1079, the Beverley Road, did nothing to alter this opinion, it is a dreadful approach to the city, through run down streets of decrepit shop, chipboard and steel shutters, cheap mini-markets, tattoo parlours, dodgy finance places and betting shops, not the sort of place that anyone would like to spend too much time without a bodyguard that’s for sure.
Anyway, we made it to the Old Town and after a bit of difficulty found a parking spot and made our way to the Museum, which by contrast is all rather nice.
I have to say that my expectations were low but once inside I quickly had to reassess my uninformed predictions. Entrance is free and within five minutes I was open mouthed with respect for this Municipal Museum.
Three Museums actually.
We started in the Street Life Museum which recreates city life in the early twentieth century with buses and trains which amused the children and old fashioned shops that I remembered well enough but left my grandchildren unimpressed.
Upstairs we moved back two hundred years and there were carriages and recreations which I liked but scared some of the children. There was a street scene which included a wheelwright workshop and that interested me because my great-great grandfather , Thomas Insley of Shackerstone in Leicestershire was a wheelwright and carriage maker just about one hundred years ago before his business went bust with the advent of the motor car.
At the very top of the building was a view over the River Hull and the previous site of the industrious city docks, all gone now of course but once this was one of the busiest fishing ports in England, a status only disputed by nearby Grimsby. Rather sad now, no fishing, no ships just crumbling piers and rotting lichen covered timbers which will soon give in to the inevitable and fall into the muddy water and simply disappear.
I spoke briefly to a visitor from the south of England who seemed genuinely surprised by the history of the city. I told him the story that Hull was allegedly the most bombed city in World-War-Two, this was because that despite a blackout no German Bomber crew could hardly miss the River Humber and also because having reached the English coast many crews lost their nerve to carry on, declared an imaginary aircraft fault and simply discharged their bombs on the first available target and just went home.
After the Street Life Museum we moved on to the History Museum but by this time the children were beginning to run out of patience so we rather dashed through the history of the area from the Iron Age to the Medieval and after an hour or so as I became increasingly conscious of their lack of attention we moved on.
We missed out the William Wilberforce Museum and the history of the abolition of slavery and I thought I might do that another day by myself.
So we left the Old Town of Hull and made our way back south for the return journey to Lincolnshire on the opposite side of the Humber and crossed the estuary over the suspension bridge.
At a little over two thousand, two hundred metres the Humber Suspension Bridge is the seventh largest of its type in the World. This statistic used to be even more impressive because when it was first opened in 1981 it was the longest single-span suspension bridge in the World for the next sixteen years and the distance by road between Hull and Grimsby was reduced by nearly fifty miles as a consequence of the construction.
For the record, the longest single span suspension bridge is currently the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge in Japan.
Eventually we left the visitor area and made for the toll booths and crossed the river and then made our way back to Grimsby past the port of Immingham to the north which handles the largest quantity of goods by weight in the UK and by day is an untidy, grimy sort of place dominated by ugly petro-chemical works and soulless grey industrial buildings but by night is transformed into a glittering Manhattan skyline of tall buildings and bright lights and occasional dancing plumes of flames burning off excess gases which actually makes it all look rather attractive.
Over the last two days we had done our best to demolish the Premier Inn Hotel in Beverley and the Museums in Hull now it was the turn of my house to take the strain!
The minster is famous for its carvings of medieval musical instruments. There are over 70 such carvings, illustrating instruments that are familiar to modern viewers, but also a variety of unusual medieval instruments. Among the carvings are depictions of bagpipes, flutes, pipes, organs, tambourines, shawms, cymbals, trumpets, lutes, and more.
This was my favourite…
The ‘Georgian Quarter’ is not a huge area, the main road ‘North Bar Within’ is barely two hundred yards long but it has been well preserved and is flanked with elegant town houses with handsome front doors with gleaming brass furniture.
It is rare that one small town boasts two wonderful historic churches, but that is the case for the East Yorkshire town of Beverley. The most famous of the two is without doubt Beverley Minster, a wonderful monastic church but at the other end of town, just inside the last surviving medieval town gate, stands the glorious medieval church of St Mary.
Sir Tatton Sykes, prolific nineteenth century church restorer, once famously remarked that the west front of St Mary’s was ‘unequalled in England and almost without rival on the continent of Europe’. Now, Sir Tatton may be forgiven for seeing the church with the rose-tinted spectacles of local enthusiasm but the truth is that St Mary’s is a beautiful church, and must surely warrant inclusion in any list of the great parish churches of England.
We had come to see the Minster of course but finding ourselves outside the church it seemed rude not to pay a visit and we were soon very glad that we did. It is an eye-catching structure from outside and the doorway is framed with stone carvings of gargoyles with scary faces and bulging eyes but once past the ugly bug invitation committee we passed into an elaborate and sumptuous interior which is in contrast to the normal austerity of Anglican churches.
Inside the church is a treasure chest of stained glass windows, two magnificent ceiling paintings, one of the constellation of stars and another of Anglo-Saxon Kings of England and a trail of stone carvings that requires a printed map to try and find them all. Most famous of all is perhaps the carving of the March Hare, a rabbit dressed as a Pilgrim and said to have inspired Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland although I can find no real evidence to support that particular claim.
We spent half an hour or so in the Church which too be fair was long enough for Kim and Pauline because they now had plans to visit the shops. I may have mentioned before that I am not a big fan of shopping and today I was ably supported by my friend Richard. The trouble with English towns is that they all have the same shops, there is practically no individuality in the town centres. Every shop that I can expect to find in my home town could also be found here. These are not shops that interest me a great deal in Grimsby so it was completely unlikely that they would do so here in Beverley.
Even worse than this however is the fact that town centre shops are in decline and just as in every other English town there is an over-supply of banks, building societies and pay day loan money lenders. The trouble with financial service providers is that they simply cannot make their window displays interesting and except for a different logo all they can display is a list of lending and savings rates most of which are much the same anyway.
To be fair there were some local shops here in Beverley and two iconic WH Smiths bookshops (Grimsby WH Smiths closed down in 2015) but nothing that was so interesting that it would get me through the door. I was more interested in the road surface. Beverley market place has traditional cobbles and in 2013 there was a lot of controversy when the local council wanted to tear them up and replace them with modern block paving in the interests they said of health and safety. Luckily the residents of the town were having none of it, there were howls of protests and eventually the council was obliged to back down.
After lunch in smart little town centre café we made our way now along busy streets with buskers and street entertainers until we reached the Minster. A magnificent Gothic structure which towers over the whole of the town. Inside there was some music, an organ recital and we were told that we could only go in by paying £5 to listen to it. That was enough for Kim and Pauline to abandon the plan straight away and return to the shops but Richard and I were assured that it would finish in five minutes and then we could go in for nothing. Like true skinflints we decided to wait!
Minster is an honorific title given to particular churches in England most usually those that have been associated with monastic life sometime in the past. Church hierarchy is a complicated matter because a Minster falls between Church and Cathedral but can confusingly stray either way. Beverley Mister is a Church but thirty miles away York Minster is a Cathedral. Beverley has a Bishop but he is based in York. In London, Westminster is a Cathedral and an Abbey and a Minster and down the road there is a Roman Catholic Cathedral of the same name.
It is an impressive building for sure and inside there are soaring columns, high vaulted windows, chapels and tombs but decoration is sparse and compared to St Mary’s Church it seemed strangely austere and functional. We stayed for a while until we were spotted taking photographs without a permit (£3) from which we were excused when Richard pointed out that he had spent an exaggerated £15 in the gift shop and then we left.
By now it was late afternoon so we returned to the market to collect our garden ornament purchases and then we left Beverley and made our way back to the Humber Bridge.
Have Bag, Will Travel 