Yorkshire (Day 5, part 2): Desmond, The Lord Mayor's daughters and the churchyard that wasn't there, but was

Well, we were going to amble off church-strolling, but we shot a lot of pictures that morning and Sharon's battery was running low. We headed back to the hotel for a quick shot of 220V juice.

Along the way, in front of a bakery on Bridge Street, we encountered Desmond. Homeless guy, junkie or semi-pro pan handler, we couldn't tell, but he was affable and flattering in a vaguely fragrant sort of way. I had a little trouble understanding him, but the part I did get was him hitting me up for a smoke and some loose change - I was unaware of the prevailing tourist etiquette regarding street folk in York (or in England generally, not that we encountered very many), so I gave him my three-left pack and a two pound coin. Actually Sharon gave him that, since I didn't carry the coins. They continue to baffle me and thus are not safe on my person.

Sensing a potential mother-lode of unbounded tourist benevolence, he thanked me for the smokes and called his friend over and urged us to contribute similarly. I thought about offering to buy them both a pastry, the soft aroma of fresh baked goods attending our negotiations...but honestly, how stupid would that have been?

Sorry mate, and we wandered off, and thankfully he didn't follow.

Got back to the hotel. The Buzzard Sisters were there - our faithful garden statuaries. Hello ladies, etc...

On the way back to town, we stopped off at All Saints North Street.

All Saints North St - York

We'd passed this church any number of times, including that morning when we were discouraged away out of deference to some sort of function (a funeral maybe, or a meeting...maybe services), but finally we had our chance to go inside.

Even by the standards of York, the place is ancient; the first known reference to the church comes from 1089, although it is uncertain how much of that building - probably a plain rectangular affair, safely assuming Saxon origins - remains today. Some of the 14th century additions and improvements were made with Roman 'gritstone' found on the site, and the 120' steeple was added in the late 15th century.

The place lurks behind some tall trees, a little gloomy and mysterious, but inside it was light and hummed with the confidence of an active parish church. We both liked the place.

All Saints North St - York

All Saints North St - York

All Saints North St - York

All Saints North St - York

 All Saints Pavement was next, situated right on one of the city centre's busy main streets.

All Saints Pavement - York

The churchyard was a bit cramped, with barely-legible 18th century headstones pulled in tightly to the church itself and just across a paved, churchyard-bisecting alley, leading one to the easy presumption that there are probably some folk buried underneath the walkway.

All Saints Pavement churchyard - York

All Saints Pavement churchyard - York

We wouldn't expect the locals in York - or I suppose, almost anywhere in England - to be troubled by this. York has been occupied continuously since 71AD - there are dead guys in the ground everywhere, and everybody knows it. At the risk of sounding tritely macabre, it's one of the things we like about the place.

The extant church is mainly 14th and 15th century, though local tradition tells us that a church has stood here since the 7th century, originally founded in dedication to St Cuthbert.

All Saints was rebuilt in the 19th century to accommodate the growing city around it - the east wall features a resplendent stained glass window from Victorian days,

All Saints Pavement, with rebuilt east wall and 17th century pulpit - York

Font cover, All Saints Pavement - York

and the outline of the rebuilt east wall is clearly visible against the earlier building fabric. The pulpit was installed in 1634 - the little roof is called a 'tester', a feature designed to enhance the preacher's acoustic reach. One preacher who it is thought benefited by this device was John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, who preached here in the 18th century.

The church is known as the burial place for more than 3 dozen of York's Lord Mayors; we found a brass memorializing two daughters of one of them, Andrew Trew, who was a tailor and draper by trade (which, evidently, was a position of significant distinction in late Tudor York) and who served as Lord Mayor in 1585. His daughters, Marie aged 36 and Margerie aged 37, died in 1600...

'They ar not dead but sleppythe' - Trew memorial, c1600. All Saints Pavement - York

...and this guy, probably likewise a Lord Mayor but whose identity appears to be an un-captioned mystery. Snappy dresser. The brass is covered by a glass casement, making it a little tough to photograph.

Unidentified brass. All Saints Pavement - York

Being the rich-guy's church, All Saints Pavement has a lot written about it. But St Saviour doesn't.

St Saviour - York

Like St John's, St Saviour isn't really a church anymore.

The place is now called Dig, a hands-on archaeology exhibit primarily for kids, supported by the York Archaeological Trust. We knew that when we went in - there was a smiling girl behind a trim and modern desk, at the back of the nave where a font would have stood six hundred years ago. Admission price on a placard on the desk, with a couple of exhibit cases with sand and colored plastic shovels behind it. Dead guys in the floor - thankfully, no one digging at them.

St Saviour - York

The place was quiet and kidless.

I smiled and said hello, she seemed a little surprised to see me. I thought Sharon was behind me.

I wasn't interested in playing in the sand (although sometimes I am), so I inquired whether there was a churchyard around back. Kind of a stupid question, I could have easily gone and looked myself, but I felt I needed to say something to her. Big smile back, "no, I'm sorry," she said, cannily anticipating my disappointment that the only dead guys I was likely to photograph were inside the church, in the floor, irregularly covered over by exhibit boxes with sand and colored plastic shovels.

Then Sharon came up behind me, said I needed to come outside. I told her that the girl behind the desk said that there was no churchyard. "Oh yeah?" said Sharon, and sure enough, around the back of the church was a churchyard...

St Saviour churchyard - York

St Saviour churchyard - York

well, kind of a churchyard, as most of the stones had been removed from their original plots and lined up around the property wall, shrouded in flora.

We were used to this by now - a lot of church minders in England remove the older churchyard headstones and lean them up against the building itself, or around the stone wall should the property have one (and most do.) It makes it easier to cut the grass - honestly, that's a big deal - and especially at churches where the yard is used for social or community functions, it opens the space up. By this time, whenever we encountered the shuffled-headstone thing, we'd quote an eighties film to each other. Ya only moved the headstones. 

There was a time, when we were first planning a trip to York in early 2012, that we were quite intent on doing Dig. It's mentioned prominently in the tourist guide books, as is the Jorvik Centre, a Viking exhibit from which we were warned off by a nice gentleman from Leeds who we met at the top of the York Minster in 2012 ("waste of time, and it smells bad in there too!"). Likewise, our interest in Dig  had waned to nothing by the time we got there on the 2013 trip. It was a subtle irony; we're both interested in archaeology, but we ended up coming to St Saviour just to see the church.

And truth be told, we had developed such a fondness for ancient English churches that the re-purposed ones left us chilled and a little sad. St Saviour had the body of a church, but the soul of a keep-the-kids-occupied tourist attraction.

But at least St Saviour was still stands with some measure of dignity,

St Saviour - York

and its sort-of churchyard still whispers the names of its long-dead parishioners...

St Saviour churchyard - York

...at least until someone moves the headstones again, or the names dissolve into the weather-exposed stone. Or the Dig exhibit fails and the whole place gets plowed under.

And we still don't know why the girl at the desk didn't know they were there.