Chester

Welcome to Chester, England, located just this side of the border with Wales and a 2.5-3 hour train ride from York. And if you get advance pricing with a student/under 25 pass, only 8 pounds each way.

Chester is known as England's "Walled City" because it has the most intact city walls remaining. Chester was founded by the Romans as a fort called Deva Victrix. Fun fact: while York eventually became more important as essentially the headquarters of the Roman legions in the North, the fortress at Deva Victrix was actually bigger than the one at York.

 This is what remains of the foundations and a tower from the Roman fortress. You can click on the picture to see an enlarged version if you want to read the plaque.

The citizens of Chester have put their Roman past to use in the picture below from the Roman Column Garden.

After the Romans left Britain after 490, the Anglo-Saxons fortified the town against the Danes and it remained a stronghold through to the Norman Conquest in 1066, when it was one of the last cities to fall to William the Conqueror. The walls were instrumental for both cases.

What I found interesting about Chester's walls (which you don't see at York) is that one can access the buildings adjacent to them FROM the walls. Most of these are shops, and while some are 2 stories and can be accessed from street level in the front and wall level in the back, some can ONLY be accessed from the walls (mostly smaller shops- books, antiques, that kind of thing.) I found that really useful when Britain, being Britain, decided to absolutely pour down rain about 10 minutes into my circuit of the walls.

Here you can see some shop entrances- New Look, HSBC, and Clarks. You can also see the steps leading up to Eastgate, one of the original Roman entrances to the fortress (sort of analogous to the "bars" in York, only much less grand.) This one was rebuilt in the 18th century and that clock on top was commissioned in honour of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (60 years as queen) in 1897.

I went off to Chester because a) I could get there cheaply over the break and b) we talked about it in my archaeology class because it has a unique structural feature, the rows.

 This is my own version of perhaps Chester's most photographed site on the corner of what's called the Cross (an intersection of shopping streets with rows more or less preserved). So what are the rows? Well, they consist of three main floors (and might have attic space above that as well.) The first level is generally half a story below street level, so you go down a few steps to enter the shop. Above the ground floor, a covered walkway is reached by a short flight of stairs and a second row of shops is located a few feet back from the edge. A third floor is built at the same point as the ground floor, effectively covering the walkway. This top floor would have been used in the medieval period as domestic or storage space for the shop owners. This gives you a better idea of what the covered walkway and second floor of shops looks like.

(Yanked from Wikipedia because I didn't think to take one; copyright John S Turner)

As I mentioned, the rows are unique and it is unclear where exactly the idea came from. While large portions have been rebuilt over the years, some sections and the original plan dates back to the medieval period. One theory that has gained ground with archaeologists is that the second storey was constructed first on top of rubble from Roman construction that lined the streets below. The buildings were set back from the edge in order to allow for a footpath along the edge with the road below. Later, undercrofts were dug under the existing buildings, thereby creating the "street-level." Then as construction techniques improved, the top storey was added, thereby creating the enclosed walkways. An alternate theory holds that the citizens constructed stone undercrofts under timber buildings after a disastrous fire in the 13th century destroyed most of the buildings within the stone walls of the city. Personally I don't think this explains why the first floor is below street level, or the need for recessed second floor shops with a covered walkway. That plus the amount of Roman "stuff" found all over Chester makes the first theory more supportable in my opinion, but who knows.

Chester is mainly known as a shopping mecca, both for its central pedestrian area with rows and regular shops as well as for an outlet mall just outside the city. But I refrained from buying too much (and to be fair, I needed the new sunglasses. Although not this week- rain rain rain.) You may have noticed the prevalence of black and white architecture in my photos- this is also one of Chester's selling points. Some of it is legit medieval, but a good deal is Victorian. They say if you wait long enough, everything comes back into style, right? Apparently that goes for 500 year old architecture too!

The photo I opened this entry with, of the Westminster Hotel? Not original (obviously). These, however, I'm pretty sure are.

Oh, and how about this? Guessing game time. What type of building do you think is pictured below? The text reads "The fear of the Lord is a Fountain of Life."

If you guessed "Dentist's Office" you'd be correct. Bet you didn't though ;)

As far as NON black and white architecture goes, the town hall and the cathedral are major.

Now that's a pretty spiffy town hall.

I know the cathedral looks kind of dark and grim, but that's mostly due to the fact that I took this from the wall in the pouring rain. You can go in and check it out, for an entrance fee. I figured I've seen my fair share of cathedrals and could save the entrance fee for something else. Like the chai tea latte I bought at Starbucks to get out of the rain!

Finally, I wish I could show you the Roman amphitheater. But it is currently all fenced off for conservation work. (In fact, I walked right past it twice without realizing it was there before I followed a map to look for it. Whoops!) So this is the best I can do.

Final thoughts on Chester: cool for an afternoon shopping trip, but maybe not worth a special trip. The majority of the shops are chains you can find in any decent sized city/town in the UK, so really the architecture is the big draw. But it is one more place I can check off my list and the closest to Wales I've gotten. Chester is actually serviced by the Arriva train line that operates out of Wales, so it was kind of cool to see the stations on the scrolling light thing in the train listed in both Welsh and English. The destination of the train was Llandudno. Don't ask me to pronounce it. Apparently it is a nice sea-side resort in Wales.

But the most exciting recent happening is this:

Ah, American food. A source of joy I will never take for granted again. Snack crackers, how I adore thee. In a land where potato crisps are your only option for savory snacks, you are a beacon of hope for this expat. Ditto to you Cinnamon Toast Crunch. You shine with a glimmer of sugar amidst a whole slew of boring plain cereal. And marshmallows- your squishy deliciousness unknown in these parts will be greatly enjoyed with your friends the graham crackers and some native English chocolate as s'mores at our next bbq. Apple sauce- you are not chunks of apple in a sauce meant to garnish meat. Rather you are smooth and delicious in your own right, and how I have missed you. Reeses- you know chocolate and peanut butter is the most delicious combination ever (with the occasional exception of Nutella and peanut butter). Aunt Jemimia- I'm not sure I've even had you in years. We're a Bisquick family. But I will take you over their strange idea of what pancakes are here. Pancakes should be a delicious breakfast food (or breakfast-for-dinner food) topped with maple syrup, not used as, well, basically a thick crepe. And finally, Blue Box. I don't even normally like you that much. I tend to favor other brands more, although Easy Mac is darn tasty and so easy! But in a land where "cheese sauce" of questionable cheesiness passes for cheese, I will enjoy you immensely. At least until you are gone. Then I will remember you fondly and probably order more.

Guidelines for Visiting/Living in the UK (a work in progress)

1) It is colder than you think it is. Take an extra layer. (Trust me, I didn't and I might never be warm again.)
2) It is probably going to rain. Take an umbrella. If the weather forecast calls for rain, anticipate rain- but be aware that there's maybe 50/50 odds that it doesn't start until after dark, regardless of what the forecast says. If the weather forecast calls for no rain, it will still probably rain at some point. So just save yourself some trouble and lug the umbrella everywhere.
3) Learn to love sandwiches; they're practically their own food group here. Just don't expect many combinations you are used to. BLTs and ham and cheese are about the only one's you'll be familiar with. But chicken and bacon is delicious! :)
4) Don't expect to find much non-cheddar or brie cheeses. Even mozzarella hasn't really caught on here (exhibit a: "cheese sauce" instead of melted mozzarella on top of lasagna)
5) Trains are the way to travel. Unless of course it is close enough to take a bus. And be on the lookout for cheap overnight bus fares if you have to go cross country.
6) The airport will likely be a pain to get to and from if you're going by public transit.
7) Learn 24-hour time (i.e. 21:30 instead of 9:30)
8) For the females in the audience: everyone will probably call you some variation of luv, pet, dearie, etc. They don't mean anything by it. (And I think I'm going to miss it when I leave!)
9) "Cheers" is a wonderfully useful word that can serve a variety of purposes including: the way we think of it as while clinking drink glasses together, to thank someone for something (particularly for salespeople/food servers), to bid someone goodbye, acknowledging something someone has said, etc.
10) Expect cramped quarters. This is particularly true for B&Bs and hotels, but holds true just in general.
11) You can in fact get decent coffee here, but the tea is totally better. ;)
12) You don't want Hersheys, you want Cadbury.
13) Embrace the fruity flavored waters. They're yummy. Ditto fruity flavored sparkling water, but it HAS to be cold or else ick.
14) "Breakfast" encompasses a whole bunch of things you didn't realize, including stewed tomatoes and beans.
15) You have to slice your own pizza. Exception: American pizza chains.
16) Shepherd's pie. Do it.
17) Perhaps the most important rule here, and one that I continue to struggle with. Do not attempt to convert UK prices to the value in US dollars and evaluate whether it is a good deal or not. It won't be. If the # of pounds is comparable to the # of dollars you would spend on such an item, unfortunately that's probably as good as you're going to get.

quick note- EDIT

I got irked that my layout wouldn't accommodate any pictures sized larger than "medium" so for the next few days I'll be playing around with templates. Please forgive the mess.

EDIT 3/29/10: Ok, I think I'm basically happy with this as is but please let me know if anything gets wonky or strange. 

Illuminating Hadrian's Wall

After far too long spent like this (and yes, I do smack my head into the stupid rafters EVERY TIME I stand up, but there's really no where else to move my desk):

I took a much needed break to go check out the Illuminating Hadrian's Wall event March 13th, 2010. The event was in part in recognition of the 1600th anniversary of the end of Roman rule in Britain and served as the opening event for British Tourism Week. Can you imagine? 1600th. We just don't usually think in that kind of time-scale in the States. Anyway, the event features 84 miles of Hadrian's Wall lit up by beacons at certain intervals spreading from one end of the country to the other.

If you aren't familiar with the Wall, it was built by Emperor Hadrian (partly as a look at me being an effective and ruthless emperor campaign) around the year 122 to create a defensible line between the boundary of Roman-controlled Britain and the Picts to the north. While parts are now less impressive, when it was built, the wall stretched from coast to coast, although admittedly at one of the narrowest points of the island, and featured milecastles at approximately every Roman mile along the wall (they could be off a bit if the local terrain demanded it). The wall when constructed was around 15 meters high (that's ~45 feet, so not small), although much of the stone was later pilfered for other construction projects after the Romans left. So that's what it is, now let me tell you about our adventures getting there.

We start our tale today with four grad students seeking to escape paper-writing and see something that's never been done, a once-in-a-lifetime-experience (or so the event organizers claim). One of them (ok, guilty as charged) finds a link to a walking tour out of Haltwhistle to a suitable location for viewing the Wall. So our intrepid adventurers set off with backpacks and hiking boots to the little town of Haltwhistle (which sadly was not named for the train station, but apparently Hal-twysel, meaning something about the meeting of two rivers.) So we headed for the York train station and thought we'd be clever by taking the newly reopened shortcut and promptly got caught up in this:

Some kind of regatta that none of us were expecting was taking over both banks of the Ouse, so we ended up dodging rowers and boats and spectators and more boats being carried down to the river. Then we were off by train to Newcastle, which by the by has excellent cheese and bacon pasties. Then we took a little dinky train to Haltwhistle and despite our concerns that it would conk out before we even left the station, it chugged along and got there just fine. We met up with the walking group people and set off on a 40 minute hike through the woods.

Now I'm totally city girl. I'll deal with the 'burbs, but really, city girl. And I'll admit that it was super nice to get out of the city and "commune with nature" for a bit. But for views like what I'm about to show you, it might just be worth it to give it all up and become a sheep rancher out in the boonies.

We passed streams and cliffs (which reminded me oddly of Pennsylvania and West Virginia)

and rolling hills and old stone walls (quite possibly made with stone from Hadrian's Wall)

and an old lime kiln (gotta keep those fields fertilized). Ok, now here comes a bunch of pretty pictures.

See the snow way off in the distance?

And there's Hadrian's Wall. No really. Can't you see it? Maybe this will help.

So we were slightly disappointed with how completely not close to the wall we were, but on the other hand, we had a great vista of a loooong stretch of the wall lit up. It continues...

in this direction way behind the sheep. Speaking of sheep,

this lamb got separated from its mother with a fence between them and couldn't figure out that it needed to walk like ten feet down and there was an opening in the fence. Instead, it played Marco Polo with its mom for like an hour, which got really old really fast. We were watching the sheep drama unfold and cheering as it slowly made its way towards the gap, only to end up trying to climb through the fence like a foot from the opening before Momma Sheep finally figured it out and got baby around the fence and into the field, sparking cheers from the Americans/Canadians and chuckles at the Ameradians from the Brits.

There's more wall, complete with farm house right next to it. How cool would it be to have Hadrian's Wall right in your backyard?

I think this picture comes the closest to getting across the sheer majesty of what we got to see as the sun set. Pictures don't quite capture it as well as the human eye, but take my word for it that it was breathtaking with the hills and the old stone walls and the red and gold in the sky. I would not mind at all seeing that everyday.

Once dusk settled in, the wall began to light up.

The beacons started on both ends and worked their way in; here you can see three lights as they work their way westward, while below are two beacons coming from the west.

Here's more from the east.

And that was that. We made our way back in the dark down a super steep hill (not the way we came up- I wouldn't have wanted to climb up that thing) and caught the train home. There was a distinct lack of food available at Newcastle since we got there around 9:30 so we had hot chocolate at the bar and ended up eating dinner when we got back to york around midnight. All and all, we were all a little disappointed that we couldn't get more up close and personal with the wall, but we'll just have to make another trip to hike along part of it.

THE VIKINGS ARE COMING!

The Jorvik Viking Festival: A week-long celebration of everyone's favorite helmeted rape-and-pillage invaders. I find it somewhat ironic that what started out as a hostile invasion complete with raping, pillaging and lots and lots of destruction is now a major tourist draw. All that aside, if you're going to have a Viking festival in the UK, York's the place to do it. York was one of the areas that the Vikings settled into and there were a series of Viking kings of York for much of the 10th century. While these Scandinavian settlers (not just from Denmark- there were "Vikings" from all of the Scandinavian countries) seem to have adopted elements of native-British life, Christianity for example, they left behind a legacy of Scandinavian culture too.

York is filled with place names derived from Old Norse. A good example is any street ending in "-gate", Old Norse for "street": Spurriergate, Hungate, Micklegate, High Petergate, Low Petergate, etc. Same for the four "bars" or gates into the old city walls. Norse personal names also became common for descendents of both the Vikings and the English and this pattern persisted until the coming of the Normans brought "Christian" personal names (Thomas, John, Hugh, William, etc) into vogue. The Vikings also deserve credit for bringing currency to Yorkshire. Anglo-Saxons relied primarily on barter/trade, while the Vikings used gold bullion as a form of currency and later took the idea of minting coins from southern England and began minting their own coinage (which btw was both fancier and more elaborate than that produced in Wessex to the south.) So perhaps it is fitting that we celebrate the Vikings with loads of crafts people selling "Viking" wares. And don't worry, modern Vikings accept all major credit cards!

The annual Viking festival in February was perhaps especially celebratory this year because it marked the grand reopening of the Jorvik Viking Centre after a 4 month period of renovation. I haven't been to see what's changed, but it is supposed to be even better and more realistic than before, incorporating additional information from additional/newer archaeological reports from the Coppergate excavations. When you weren't standing in a reaaaaally long line to get into Jorvik, you could also enjoy a number of activities throughout the city. In Parliament Street, a tent hosted various demonstrations/shows geared towards the younger crowd, while in several locations merchants like the one pictured above sold Viking crafts, replica weapons and metal work, carved things, pins, fabrics... the list goes on. There were also walking tours and lectures and even a planetarium show about how the Vikings navigated by the stars.

York Minster joined the fun and hosted a Viking Music night, featuring this AMAZING harp player/singer, an all-female a capella group singing Scandinavian songs, a concert choir singing a mass (I'm not entirely sure how that fit in with the Viking theme, and I don't have the program to check which mass it was to see if there's a connection. Oh well.), and a reading of Egil's Saga, a later epic poem written (supposedly) about events taking place in York under Erik Bloodaxe, twice king of York and twice deposed. All of this was of course incorporated into the pageantry of the festival by having King Erik himself along with his royal entourage in the seats of honour.I feel like the Festival is probably more exciting if you're like 8-12, since most events are geared to a younger crowd. Maybe I'm just growing cynical in my old age, but I find craft projects and digging up pretend Viking artifacts slightly less exciting than some other events like...

 The festival culminated in the Viking troops marching off for battle from the Museum Gardens, through the city of York and down to a lake outside of town for a ceremonial boat burning.

There they are, all lined up to go. There's actually three loooong lines of warriors- it was actually really impressive to see.

And there go the oft-forgot women & children, lugging all the supplies of course. The men have more important pillaging to do.

These two fine warriors were kind enough to stop for pictures with some kiddies.

Later that night to close the festival, they set a Viking boat on fire and set it adrift on the lake. I hear it was kinda neat and also involved standing around REALLY COLD for hours before they did so, but I wasn't there. I particularly enjoyed walking home and seeing all these dressed up Vikings going in and out of all the B&B's along my street and standing in line to checkout at the grocery store surrounded by Vikings. It was an interesting week :)

Durham

Ah, the city of Durham. My paleography class went to Durham on a field trip to check out Durham cathedral archives now based out of the Durham University Library, where we got to play with some fourteenth and fifteenth century documents. Above is the view walking from the train station into town. The big building is the cathedral and to its left is Durham University, housed in Durham Castle. That's right, if you go to Durham U you can have your dorm room in a castle. How cool would that be? Anyhoo, as you can tell, they are both up on a hill way above town (because in the British Isles, 75% of things worth seeing involve a hike up a hill, although Durham isn't nearly as bad as some- here's looking at you, Maeve's Cairn in Ireland)

Lalala, walking through Durham, only slightly confused by the directions my professor provided (we were meeting at the library). I took an early train so I could check out the cathedral.

And now I'm walking across the bridge admiring the castle. This was in late February, hence the snow on the ground, but it had been pretty warm recently. And silly me, the snow was mostly melted in York, so I worm my purple converses. Poor footwear decision for Durham, where it was all kinds of snowy and icey. Now, to get up to the hill where the cathedral and castle are, you have two options. 1) You can take a long and meandering route through town or 2) you can cut down a flight of steps past an Italian restaurant down to the river and then walk along a steep path up the hill. I didn't know about option #1, so up the hill I went. And nearly died.

Ok, ok, so I'm exaggerating. But not by much. If the snow and ice weren't making the path virtually a solid sheet of slipperiness and if I was wearing shoes with any kind of traction, it probably wouldn't have been as bad. But as it was, I basically slid up the hill by pulling on the railing. And while I didn't _actually_ slide backwards down the hill, it certainly felt like I could!

But once you make it up....

Ta da! Durham Cathedral: final resting place for St Cuthbert (who I became tight with over my term paper in the fall) and the Venerable Bede (who you may remember from my adventures to Bede's World). Now, the cathedral is awesome and awe-inspiring and any other adjectives you'd like to use with "awe," but I can't prove it. They don't let you take pictures inside. Jerks. So that's really all I can show you. I had lunch at the cathedral refectory on the recommendation of the professor (along with most of the class!). We were told it was inexpensive. That was a lie. It cost me over 6 pounds for a baked potato with cheese and a small hot chocolate. Even with crazy UK food prices, that shouldn't have been more than 4.50. (Blogger hates the pound sign. I'm not sure why.) Anyway, the cathedral was really cool and I recommend a visit. Architecturally and artistically, I think the York Minster is more impressive, but York doesn't have Cuthbert and Bede.

And then there's the castle:

Entrance to the castle is strictly by guided tours (which aren't exactly cheap either.) I didn't get a chance to go on one, but I hear it is pretty cool to go check out. So that was Durham. In my next post, the Vikings attack :)

Rievaulx Abbey

So in case you didn't know, I'm mildly obsessed with monasteries. The ruined medieval kind, not the modern kind, although I'm sure they're cool too. Rievaulx is a particularly impressive ruin. The abbey was founded in the 12th century by a group of wanna be Cistercians from St Mary's Abbey in York (which was Benedictine). The Benedictines were once pretty much the end all and be all of monastic orders, but in the eleventh/twelfth  centuries, an number of new orders arose either as a reformist sect or to fulfill specific niches in pastoral care. For example, the Franciscans and Dominicans started up as mendicant (i.e. owned no property and relied on the charity of others) preaching orders who were based in towns and served the religious needs of townsfolk. The Cistercians on the other hand withdrew off into the countryside to live in more austere conditions; they felt that the Benedictines had gone soft and were living too comfortable of a lifestyle, which went against the original view of monasticism. The group at Rievaulx was eventually accepted into the official Cistercian order and built a great big monastery with new additions and expansions added on over the years.

Originally, the abbey would have been built with no elaboration/decoration and with very minimal concessions to comfort. But over the years, the Cistercian monasteries throughout England relaxed their policies and more decorative features were introduced, along with renovations to increase the comfort of the brothers; deprivations of warm clothing and fires in every room worked in warm Mediterranean climates, but up in Yorkshire? No thank you!

Here's one end of the abbey church, and you can see just how big the thing was.

The relaxation of the policies against decoration can be seen in some fancy carving within the church, although I don't expect you can see much of it in this photo.

And here's the church from one end looking down towards the altar area.

Big big church. Not rivaling the cathedrals or York Minster perhaps, but as far as monastic churches go? Big.

Here you can get a closer look at the carving I mentioned earlier:

And here is a reassembled section of the cloister walk. The cloister garth was a square/rectangular open courtyard that likely had some gardens. Surrounding the garth was the cloister walk and the major buildings of the monastery- dorms, refectory, chapter house, etc- would be on the four sides of this compound. A covered walkway would lead around the garth. Originally this would have been open stonework like in the photo, but most monasteries converted these with windows to keep out the chill winds. I'm not sure if Rievaulx did or not; if they did, it didn't survive the Dissolution of the monasteries, at which point all of the glass and some stone from the abbey were carted back to York for reuse.

Behold! A medieval cafeteria!(Or in Brit-speak, a refectory)

Pretty cool huh? Rievaulx is notable for just how much of the monastery is still standing. A large contributing factor to its survival was the fact that in the 17th? 18th? century, a rich guy landscaped the ruins as a folly for his manor house, thus largely preventing further destruction of the abbey. Plus, the fact that it is pretty remote helped too. Because the Cistercians were seeking to withdraw from the world, they sought out sites away from towns and people, and their monasteries tended to survive the destruction following the Dissolution better than their counterparts in more populated areas. There's a whole slew of other photos in my facebook album if you're interested.