Stories over the weekend

Beningthorpe House (NT) (Viewed from the ferry point)

1) The Good News - I am coming to the Bank Holiday Weekend get together in York with the Buttons.  Good News, I can spend Friday night with my friend in Nun Monkton.  Where do we meet on Saturday? That's luck, 1/2 a mile away at Beningbrough Hall.  The bad news is that it's the other side of the River Ouse, so that's 14 miles away by road.  And the good news is that this summer, a Saturday ferry service now operates from Nun Monkton.  11:03- Meet Peter off the first ferry.

We stayed with Ellie and Tom and their
beautiful Children

Ratatouille Button

2) Tom and Ellie have restored the two rooms at the top of their house to a beautiful standard, and we have the rooms to ourselves.  Luxury.  Shame about the lack of a Maserati out the front would you not say Sam?  There seems to be a spare one in a courtyard near to Roger and Helen's.

Helen and Andrew Bailey look down onto Coney Street, York.

Peter on the roof of St Martins Le Gand

View of the Admiral pointing to the sun with a Jacob's Ladder
with our guide 'Andrew' explaining it's story.

The silver lining following the WWII incendiary bomb was a
radical re-siting of the  West Window, so we can get up close.

3) Story of one church in York.  From some evidence of a mysterious church building in the 11th century, St Martin Le Grand grew with the patronage of the Minster.  One very fine medieval window was taken down as war broke out in 1939.  The incendiary bomb hit the church in 1942, and burned so fiercely that only one transept could be saved.  I very much enjoyed the use of the modern wall with the old church.  Also the relocation of the window to help fill in the north wall.  Peter explained Jacob bin Ishaq al-Kindi's role as inventor of the Jacobs Ladder.

The west window, featuring St Martin and his life

Rev Robert Seber, the vicar saying 

St Martin persuading the devil to
read the Mass (Thanks Peter)

When 2/3's of the church disappeared the the
flames melted the limestone columns.

The altered altar

The famous clock.

4) And it was great to hear that St Martin's clock has a tune composed by Andrew Carter, the Australian Starr's good friend.  It apparently mimics the drunken wandering of clubbers that occur around the Church at night.  And here he is with the Starrs in 2013 when they visited to listen to the chimes up our very own tower.

Andrew Carter - Famous York composer

Sunday Lunch in the Red Tower