A few miles east of Helmsley is Kirkby Moorside, where the proud Duke of Buckingham died, though not “in the worst inn’s worst room;” and near it is Kirkdale, with its antiquated church, and the famous cave in which the discovery of the bones of wild animals some thirty years ago established a new epoch for geologists. From Kirkby you can look across to the hilly moors behind Whitby; and if you incline to explore farther, Castle Howard will repay a visit, and you may go and look into the gorge through which the Derwent flows, at Malton, keeping in mind what geologists tell us, that if the gorge should happen to be closed by any convulsion, the Vale of Pickering would again become a sea.
Of Helmsley Castle the remains are but fragmentary; a portion of the lofty keep stands on an eminence, around which you may still trace the hollows once filled by the triple moat. The gateway is comparatively sound, the barbican is sadly dilapidated; and within other parts of the old walls which have been repaired, Lord Feversham’s tenants assemble once a year to pay their rents. The ruin is so pleasantly embowered by trees and ivy, so agreeable for a lounge on a July day, that I regretted being summoned away too soon by “t’ boos” driver’s horn. There was no time for a look at Feversham House, about half a mile distant, nor for a few miles’ walk to Byland Abbey—another Cistercian edifice—founded in 1143 by Roger de Mowbray. I could only glance at the skirts of the park, where preparations were making for a flower-show, and at the shield on the front of the lodge, bearing the motto, Deo, Regi, Patriæ.
The Rye here is a smaller stream than at Rievaulx, owing to the loss of water by the ‘swallows’ in Duncombe Park; half a mile lower down it reappears in full current. But the driver is impatient; we shall be too late for the train at Gilling, and the steep Howardian Hills are to be crossed on the way. Fine views open over the woods; then we leave the trees for a while; a vast prospect appears of the Vale of York, and at Oswaldkirk—a picturesque village—the road falling rapidly brings us once more into a wooded region, and in due time we come to Gilling, on the branch railway to Malton.
There was not time, or I would have run up the hill behind the station to look at the noble avenue of beeches that forms a worthy approach to Fairfax Hall—the home of a family venerated by all who love liberty. I felt an emotion of regret when the station-clerk told me that the present Fairfax is an aged man and childless; for ere long the name will disappear, and the estate become a possession of the Cholmleys.
The train arrives; five miles on it stops at Coxwold, where Sterne passed seven years of his life; then two leagues more, and we have to wait ninety minutes for a train down from the north, at Pilmoor junction—a singularly unattractive spot. Luckily I had a book in my knapsack, and so beguiled the time till the bell rang that summoned us to York.
In my wanderings I have sometimes had the curiosity to try a Temperance Hotel, and always repented it, because experience showed that temperance meant poor diet, stingy appliances, and slovenly accommodations. So it was not without misgivings that I resolved to make one more experiment, and see what temperance meant in the metropolis of Yorkshire. The Hotel, which did not displease me, looks into Micklegate, not far from the Bar on which the heads of dukes and nobles were impaled, as mentioned in the Lay of Towton Field.
Considering how many quartos have been filled with the history and description of York, into how many little books the big books have been condensed, every traveller is supposed to know as much as he desires concerning the ancient city, ere he visits it. For one who has but a day to spare, the best way of proceeding is of course to get on the top of the minster tower, and stay there until his memory is refreshed by the sight of what he sees below. At a height of two hundred feet above the pavement you can overlook the great cluster of clean red roofs, and single out the twenty-five churches that yet remain of the fifty once visible from this same elevation. Clifford’s Tower, a portion of the old castle, stands now within the precincts of the gaol; the line of the city walls can be seen, and the situation of the four Bars; there, by the river, is the Guildhall where King Charles was purchased from the Scots; there the small river Foss, that rises in the Howardian Hills, and once filled the Roman ditches, joins the Ouse. Outside the walls, Severus Hill marks the spot where the emperor, who died here in 210, was burnt on his funeral pile with all the honours due to a wearer of the purple; another hill shows where Scrope was beheaded. To the south lies Bishopthorpe, the birthplace of Guy Fawkes, and residence of the bishops. Eastward is Stamford Brig, where the hard Norwegian king, flushed with victory, lost the battle and his life—where the spoil in gold ornaments was so great, “that twelve young men could hardly carry it upon their shoulders”—whence the victor Harold marched to lose in turn life and crown at Hastings. On the west lies Marston Moor, and farther to the south-west the field of Towton. And then, from wandering afar over the broad vale, your eye returns to the minster itself, and looks down on all its properties, and comfortable residences, snug gardens, and plots of greenest turf, all covering ground on which the Romans built their camp, and where they erected a temple for the worship of heathen deities.
As regards the interior, whatever may have been your emotions of admiration or wonder in other cathedrals, they become fuller and deeper in this of York. After two long visits, I still wished for more time to pace again the lofty aisles, to hear the organ’s rolling notes, while marvelling at the glory of architecture.
In Roger North’s time, as he relates, the interior of the cathedral was the favourite resort of fashionable strollers: in an earlier time, when archery was practised keenly as rifle-shooting in our day, and the prophecy as to the pre-eminence of York was not yet forgotten, a ballad was written in praise of the city: thus
“The Maior of Yorke, with his companie,
Were all in the fieldes, I warrant ye,
To see good rule kept orderly,
As if it had been at London.