WORDS & PICTURES: Freya Bainbridge
Connect with Freya on Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | FreyaBainbridgeWrites
There’s a spot, down by the river, where I like to share a Danish, chocolate orange flavoured and big as your head. There is nothing sweeter than to lick the glaze from your fingers and watch the odd solitary rower glide silently across the water’s surface, glassy and swollen from the recent rain.
The river in question is the Ouse, which strikes through much of North Yorkshire, generally, and the ancient city of York, specifically. It’s not to be confused with another Ouse, found in Sussex and famous for being the river into which the writer Virginia Woolf waded with stones in her pockets. It’s apt that I should enjoy the pleasures of a Danish by this river, as this city, then called Eoforwic, was captured from the Anglo-Saxons in 866 by Danish Vikings. They renamed it Jorvik – pronounced as a ‘y’ – which down through the years eventually became York.
To this day, many of the streets still bear their Viking pasts. Even the most casual of observers will clock on fairly quickly to the fact that nearly every other name ends in gate, from the Danish Viking gata, meaning street: Goodramgate, Gillygate, Skeldergate, Monkgate, Walmgate, even Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, famous for being one of the shortest streets in England and whose etymology no-one quite seems to know.
Alongside its Viking past, there is a hint of Venice here, too. York, like the The Floating City, is all narrow streets and tall buildings brushing up against one another. It’s not unusual to take a seat upstairs in a café and do some Rear Windowing on Georgian buildings-turned-offices, people browsing clothing rails, or washing their hands in the sink of their Airbnb. Everyone is accidentally up in everyone else’s business.
Beyond our Local Guide to York | London, Unfiltered: A Morning Walk through the Streets of Shoreditch
FANCY A TIPPLE?
Rumour has it that York has a pub for every day of the year. Rumour also has it that a lot of these pubs are haunted. There’s the Golden Fleece, a 16th century building with rooms that allow you to sleep in 4-poster beds. Of all the haunted pubs in the city, this one claims to be the one most besieged by ghosts – 15, at the last count. Among its residents is a Canadian airman who fell to his death from one of the upper windows during WW2, and One Eyed Jack, often seen wearing a red 17th century coat and carrying a pistol.
There are also pubs with rather more corporeal connections to the past, such as Guy Fawkes Inn on High Petergate. It’s the birthplace of – you guessed it – Guy Fawkes himself, famous for being involved in the Gunpowder plot.
Whichever softly-lit corner you decide to nestle in for the evening, bear in mind that the average cost of a pint in York does not come cheap. If you like your drinks to be cost effective, the place to be is Dusk. Offering 2-4-1 on cocktails everyday of the week, I’ve spent many a night here knocking back Graham Nortons, Barack Obamas and Lucy Lius. The menu descriptions, whilst fun, err a little on the vague side, so don’t be afraid to ask the friendly bar staff for specifics. If you’re up for a walk, on the other side of the city is Dyls: a contemporary bar and café housed in the Motor House on Skeldergate Bridge where you can enjoy bespoke cocktails right on the river.
If you’re feeling a little worse for wear come morning, pop next door to the Drawing Board. The night sees it become a bar with one of the latest opening times in the city, but during the day it’s a quiet café. I heartily recommend their hot chocolate, and a slice of their banana cake to boot – so good that I make a point of eating it every time I’m in the city.
YORK’S TOP EATERIES
Down Fossgate, on the outer edges of the city limits and named for the river over which it sits, you’ll find the independent heart of York. It’s crammed with all the kind of places you love to stumble across upon and claim as your own secret, whether that’s ramshackle The Hairy Fig – all curved grid windows that steam up come winter, like something out of a Dickens novel – or its tiny neighbour Kiosk, where instead of dessert you can buy one of the artworks that adorn its walls.
For something more substantial, over the road is Il Paradiso del Cibo: a cosy place with a homely feel headed up by Sardinian Paolo Silesu and his all-Italian staff. Formalities associated with your typical restaurant are dropped here, and to take a seat is to be, for an hour or so, in an Italian trattoria. A word to the wise: they’ll refuse to serve you parmesan cheese if they don’t believe your meal requires it, no matter how much you bat your eyes.
Back in the centre, opposite the old Assembly Rooms (now converted – the heart bleeds – into an Ask Italian) is The Larder Club, a new deli and social enterprise, in partnership with HMP Askham Graham, that supports the rehabilitation of women offenders through work placements and employment opportunities.
Heading north | From Rugged Peaks to Cosy Pubs: 3 Days in Edinburgh, Scotland
ART AND HISTORY
There are lots of old things to see in York, it’s true. There are the city walls, very old, and York Minster, also very old. There’s the Treasurer’s House, and Lady Row’s whitewashed medieval houses, thought to be the oldest in the city and England’s earliest example of overhanging jetties. And there’s also – of course – the Shambles, whose very name sounds old. The queue outside Jorvik – a museum and education centre that sits above the remains of Viking-age York, discovered in 1976 – is perennial. Instead, I’d suggest walking by this line with a smug face as you head on your merry way to York Castle Museum, complete with its own replica Victorian neighbourhood.
If long slogs down the annals of history aren’t your thing, fear not. Time your visit for April and you can enjoy York Open Studios, a month-long event in which local artists invite the public into their working spaces. Over on Walmgate you’ll find the Art of Protest Gallery, which features contemporary work focussing on the environment, consumption, and identity.
Or, if you have something to vent, there’s always axe throwing at The Hilt.
A LITERARY PARADISE
Considering its small size, it’s quite extraordinary how many bookshops can be found in the city – some 15, or so. I worship at the altar of the charmingly higgledy-piggledy Minster Gate Bookshop, all creaking floorboards and tight hairpin bends on the staircase that reaches up, up, up to over five floors of bookish delights. There is a good rule of thumb to follow here: go up for second-hand and rare editions, and down to the basement for brand new books and some fairly new releases at astonishingly cheap prices. It should be noted, however, that ascending or descending the narrow staircase requires a decent amount of patience, goodwill and spontaneity – seize your chance when you get it, or you may be stuck waiting for quite a while.
Back over on Fossgate you’ll find Fossgate Books, a close second on my list. A huge selection of second-hand books awaits you, and possibly one of the best collections of used Folio Society editions in the country.
The Portal, specialising in LGBTQIA titles, is one of York’s newest editions and sits proudly under its rainbow sign, right next door to Valhalla, a Viking-themed bar where you can drink out of a horn.
Beyond our Local Guide to York | Peak District, UK: A Photo Journal
YORK, COME RAIN OR SHINE
If the forecast says rain – and let’s be honest, at some point it will – hole up at Gatehouse Coffee, hidden inside Walmgate Bar, one of the original gates to the city. They have a good stock of board games free to use, and I once spent a very pleasurable afternoon playing Scrabble to an entirely made-up set of rules.
Christmas carolling might not be at the top of your list these days, but if you’re visiting the city in December there is a pretty magical experience to be had at York Minster, where renditions of O Little Town of Bethlehem are slightly more spectacular than the average curbside performance. If you strike early you can grab tickets for the Choir of York Minster’s – one of the country’s best – version. Tickets retail for between £15 and £30, but sell out fast. If your budget is tight, earlier in the month the York St John University choir holds their own annual Christmas Carol Service, just as spectacular – and free. Scarves and a hot drink from the Christmas Market beforehand wouldn’t go amiss.
For those visiting in July: the York Proms, held in the Museum Gardens, is a well-loved musical event in the city, but tickets are pricey and go quickly. Instead, I suggest heading out early and staking your claim to one of the benches that run along the river, conveniently located just on the other side of the park’s fence. Bring provisions to last you as the sun sets over the water to the sound of Lakmé’s Flower Duet or, better yet, make friends with the boaters who have moored up for the summer and share a bottle of wine or two with them well into the evening. Cheers all around.
