A morning in York

Walmgate Bar

Last weekend, my husband and I attended a family wedding in York. (The second family wedding this year - lovely!) The day was fine and bright, the bride and groom and families all happy. Before the wedding, we spent a very pleasant morning in York, in the Fossgate area of the city.

St. Denys

We had coffee in The Hairy Fig, a little deli, tearoom and grocer's shop crammed to the rafters with good things. Fortified, we trawled the second-hand bookshops, plentiful amongst the music shops and cafes. I bought a small pile of reading, including a translation of the Domesday Book, which will be very useful research.

The 14th-century Evidence Chest,
Merchant Adventurers' Hall

Towards the city walls and Walmgate there are ancient churches, such as Saint Denys with its amazing Norman door, on the site of an old pagan shrine. There are medieval houses and the medieval guild hall of the Merchant Adventurers, with its great hall, undercroft and chapel - well worth a visit.

After lunch we moved onto the wedding. At the reception, all the guests had a gingerbread favour, which reminded me of the gingerbread babies that the country women in Mary Webb's 'Precious Bane' baked as good luck cakes for the forthcoming wedding of two of the novel's main characters.