Day 7 - Fri 2nd Sept 2016 - Windsor to York
We checked out of the Beaumont Hotel and fitted Phillip and Pauline's and their luggage into our rental diesel Peugeot 2008 SUV. The drive up to York was a direct 350km in 3.5hrs with the English miles passing quickly on the M1.
Once in Yorkshire, we left the car at Phillip & Pauline's hotel and had a pleasant walk through the old part of town to Yorkminister Cathedral. The big beamed, slightly tilting old shops and houses are known as "The Shambles" and dates back to William the Conquerer.
We met at Yorkminster Cathedral at 12:30 and the tour split into three groups as we had more local Scroopes join. We found a number of Scroope Coat of Arms in the stained glass, and the tomb of Archbishop Scroope who was beheaded in 1405 for treason against King Charlies IV. In retrospect , leading an army of 8000 soldiers against the king's army, probably would some consequences in any era.
The librarian had prepared for the Scroope's visit , and had some precious old books, coats of arms and a silver bowl we could not touch. We were surprised we could touch the book which was hundreds of years old, due to it paper being of high quality. We were very impressed by these artificats and saw them as one of the highlights of the Yorkshire visit.
The tomb of Archbishop Scrope was located at the Alter, but was hidden due to current restoration work. We took some photos of the casket around the plywood false wall. We had seen it in 1983, when a priest with a large set of key let us in and escorted us to the alter, after we explained Karen's connection and our long trip from the colony (flying over 4 oceans, 10,000km train travel, and a very long English Channel ferry) .
We walked around the old wall and through the Micklegate Bar gateways to find the park on Nunnery Lane to where Archbishop Scrope was beheaded.
We skipped the social catchup after the Cathedral. Instead we drove up to our booked accommodation at Kirby Fleetham, which took us longer the expected. We missed the turn off the M1, as the GPS did not know about the roadworks. This would also cause us to get lost again on Saturday night.
By 19:30 we had booked into the Black Horse Inn in the tiny village of Kirby Fleetham, and were seated for dinner. It was a charming old Pub/Inn and we enjoyed our stay there a lot.