After another fairly restless night, I gave up around 7:00 and got up. I got showered and dressed. Graham was awake when I came out of the bathroom. He got ready, too. Then we headed down for breakfast. We both had coffee and juice. Graham had yoghurt, berry compote and a croissant. I had a waffle and some muesli. We both had a cooked breakfast.
After breakfast we went upstairs to get what we needed for the day. Then we headed over to the park and ride. This was a little further from the hotel than the other bus stop, but with this being a Saturday, Graham figured that this would be the less busy option. There is a bus stop around the back of the station, and this cut out the whole grand circle tour of the town. I had bought the train tickets on the bus, and we did not have long to wait for our train. The train was very busy, but we managed to get some seats. Fifteen minutes later, we were in Beverley.
The town has grown a lot around the outskirts, but the centre is still the place I have always known and loved. We headed towards the minster first. Before we headed to the church itself, I wanted to check out Beverley Friary. Sometimes they are open for visits on Saturdays as they have some really stunning murals. However, when we were there, it was not one of their open days. The gardens were however open. I was delighted that this is still operated as a youth hostel. Some of the smaller and older youth hostels were closed down in recent years. Not only is Beverley Friary youth hostel still very much open, but it looks like some money was spent on this. A couple of new buildings have sprung up within the grounds.
We then headed over to the minster. I think this is the first time ever that I have seen this with no scaffolding either outside or inside the church. Beverley minster is a stunning church. It is light and airy with loads of delicate architectural features. When I visited the last time in 2014, I suddenly realised that this is exactly how I have always imagined the cathedral in my all-time favourite book, the Pillars of the Earth, to look like. One of the chapels at Beverley minster has furniture by Robert “ Mousey” Thompson and supposedly there are 11 carved mice in this chapel. I found three and was pretty happy about this.
One thing that I did miss is the misericords. Misericords, or mercy seats, are hinged wooden seats placed in the choir stalls of medieval churches which, when tipped up, present a ledge for the user to rest on when attending long services. Beneath the ledge were carved figures. Beverley Minster has 68 misericord seats, the largest number of any church in the country. A lot of the wood carvings are somewhat tongue in cheek and provide some social commentary. For instance, one of the most prominent seats is the familiar figure of the fox, holding a rosary (an indication that he is a Dominican friar) preaching to a bunch of silly geese (the congregation of the church). Another scene shows the geese hanging the fox. Because the carvings are hidden when the seats are in the downward position, the carvers could get away with rather a lot. Normally the seats are in an upright position so that people can admire the carvings without touching the seats. However, this was not the case this time round, which is a real shame. We initially took a slow walk around the church to take in all its beauty and then spent some time sitting in the choir and also the nave to really absorb our surroundings. After an hour or though, we decided to move on.
There was something of interest nearby that I would have loved to see. The minster has a secret garden. The secret garden is a woodland oasis created from an old orchard, animal yard and associated buildings near Beverley Minster. It is operated by volunteers and produces flowers for the minster. It was once part of the extensive Vicarage grounds. It is called a secret garden for a good reason. It is not visible from the road. The access is through a path that winds between some houses. From everything that I have found, the access is meant to be signposted, but we did not see a thing and we walked past where I think it is at least twice. I found out afterwards that the last time that the secret garden was open for the year was two weeks earlier.
There is a little garden area with some benches, trees, and flowers right across from the minster and we sat down for a while and watched the world go by. I wanted to check out the second main church of Beverley, St. Mary’s. St. Mary’s was only open until 15:00 that day. Graham was quite happy to sit. I headed across town by myself.
We used to live just around the corner from St. Mary’s. This is a very unique church. The ceiling of St Mary’s is home to over 600 Tudor and medieval carvings. These carvings are set at the intersections in the ceiling’s architecture, and are known as roof bosses, from the Old French word boce, meaning ‘bump’ or ‘swelling’. The bosses are around a foot square in size, and each is unique. There are flowers and fauna, mythical beasts and figures, funny motifs, and moralistic warnings, as well as characters from history and the Bible.
Like the minster, St. Mary’s has an impressive collection of misericords. They don’t have as many with only 23 of them, but they are actually slightly older than their counterparts at the minster. Unlike at the minster, they were still displayed in an upright position so that visitors could admire them.
My favourite element of St. Mary’s is a carving of a different nature. On one side of a stone archway on the far lefthand side of the church, there is a carving of a rabbit stood upright and holding what looks to be a messenger’s bag. It is widely believed that this carving proved to be the inspiration for author Lewis Carroll’s White Rabbit character in Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll spent time in Beverley as a child and it is very likely that he would have been aware of this carving. Whether this rabbit really was the inspiration for the White Rabbit, nobody will ever know. They do however look very alike, and it is a nice story.
Speaking of stories, it was something more recent that is linked to a different set of stories that brought me to St. Mary’s that day. As long as Beverley has been on my radar, St. Mary’s has been crumbling. There was always some restoration project or another ongoing and this time was no difference. There used to be stone carvings on the outside of St. Mary’s, but they have eroded many years ago and nobody knows what they looked like. As part of a recent restoration project those stone carvings on the northside of the church have been replaced with 6 large carvings and 8 smaller carvings of characters from the Chronicles of Narnia. Unfortunately, they are high up and access to the northside is tricky. However, reference models for the carvings are displayed inside the church. What is a lot easier to see is the southside of the church. Again, crumbling stone carvings have been replaced as part of an ongoing restoration project. The theme of those carvings is inspirational women. There are a total of 9 carvings on that side including Hull-born solo aviator Amy Johnson, pioneering 18th century writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft who lived in Beverley as a child, scientist Marie Curie and Britain’s first female astronaut Helen Sharman. They have all been made by the same team behind the Narnia figures. This is all very well done, and I think this is a great addition to St. Mary’s.
While I was at that end of the town, I decided to check out where we used to live. I even met the person who now lives in the house and had a chat with him. I then made my way slowly back across town.
I would have loved to take a photo of the market cross, but as it was Saturday, it was market day. The market cross was obscured by stalls. I checked out the shops. Unfortunately, some of my favourite shops like a shop specialising in artist bears and a combined gift and jewellery shop were no longer there. I did discover a new shop that caught my eye, which was an artisan soap shop. Unfortunately, this was absolutely packed to the point that you could not get near the soaps. This is a shame as they looked very interesting.
I headed back towards the minster and met Graham coming the other way. My knee told me that it had enough for now. As much as I love Beverley, it is not exactly a joy with a sore knee as it is full of cobblestones and uneven pavements. I just wanted to sit down. Graham had discovered another garden during the afternoon, and he took me there. This is a beautiful space tucked away round the back of the parish centre. We were the only people there. It was such a beautiful and peaceful space.
Once the knee had settled down again, we headed across town. Near where we lived and directly opposite St. Mary’s is a fantastic Chinese restaurant called Lee Garden. When we lived in Beverley, we sometimes got take away from there. The food was always fantastic. When we planned the trip, one of the first things I checked was if this restaurant was still there. Not only is it definitely still there, but the menu has not changed a bit. We decided to head there for an early dinner.
The restaurant was due to open at 17:00 and we got to the right end of town around 30 minutes earlier. I dropped what I thought were some pretty heavy hints that a pre-dinner drink would be nice, but Graham was completely oblivious to this. When we got to the marketplace and there was an empty bench, I went on strike. We sat down for about 20 minutes and then we headed over to the restaurant. We still had a short while until it opened, but I did not mind this.
We were the first people in the restaurant, but not for long. A family of three arrived shortly after us. By the time we had finished our dinner, it was pretty busy. They are also still doing a lot take away trade. It was nice to see them do so well. We shared the Mixed Hor d’Oeuvres , which consisted of spring rolls, prawn toast, barbecued ribs, seaweed and crispy won ton with sweet and sour dip. For his main course, Graham had the Special Curry Delight with boiled rice. I had the ‘Pagoda’Chicken ( lightly battered chicken breast seasoned in garlic and wine sauce ) with egg fried rice. Graham had a Chinese beer, and I had a Coke. The food was every bit as good as we remembered.
Once we had finished our dinner, we headed back to the station. We just missed a train, but fortunately they are quite frequent. When we got back to Hull, we took an Uber back to the hotel. I have not had an alcoholic drink all weekend and we decided to stop by the hotel bar for a nightcap. I had a nice blood orange craft gin with tonic and Graham had a local craft beer. Once we had finished out drinks, we headed back to the room.
I decided to try and sleep in the armchair, but that did not work out. I had set an alarm again in time for taking my medication and this was a good job. Graham slept through this again. Once I had taken my tablets, I settled down and tried to get as much sleep as possible.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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