UK Travel - Part 4

Liverpool Black History Walking Tour (part 1)

From St. John’s Gardens to Liverpool Town Hall

Between the end of the seventeenth century and middle of the nineteenth, sail ships from Liverpool forcibly transported more than 1.35 million shackled Africans to slavery in the Americas, practically three times’ the population of today’s city: ghastly arithmetic relayed to tourgoers by Laurence Westgaph, Historian in Residence for National Museums Liverpool. The wealth accrued by those engaged directly (trading in human flesh) and indirectly (trading in slave-produced goods) remains visible – unconsciously commemorated, even – in the urban environment, not least in respect of contemporary street names, over 150 of which were so named because a slave trader/merchant owned the respective land.

With the toppling of slave owner Edward Colston’s statue (Bristol, UK) specifically, and the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd (Minneapolis, US) more generally, many Liverpudlians as well as those from further afield sought to (re)familiarise themselves with the region’s slavery links to critically assess the merits of HM Government’s “retain and explain” policy on street names and problematic statuary. Yet the demand for places on Laurence’s free walking tours far outstripped supply, supply that was abruptly cut off with the adoption of COVID-19 rule-of-six measures. (Laurence leads eight tours, each of which can be booked via Eventbrite, while his Facebook group – ‘Liverpool and Slavery’ – keeps followers updated on how tour donations are helping to fund Liverpool’s Enslaved Memorial Project.)

Holding the belief that the need for social distance shouldn’t preclude curious souls from getting up close with unsanitised history, this local historian devised a self-guided “dark tourism” trail (linking sites from a number of tours) for locals/visitors to gain a better understanding of how Liverpool capitalised on the murderous exploitation of enslaved Africans and thereby help redress the imbalance of what many of my generation (b.1983) and older were taught at school: more the role of gatekeeper (abolition) and less the poacher (enslaver). (“Dark tourism”, according to Philip Stone, author of 111 Dark Places in England That You Shouldn’t Miss (2021), is ‘the act of travelling to sites of death, disaster, or the seemingly macabre’.)

The connection between charity and brutality is something to ponder over while standing/sitting in St. John’s Gardens, a manicured public space across the road from the entrances to the Central Library and World Museum (the construction of which was partly financed through the slave-accrued wealth of merchant-benefactor William Brown) from where you can admire the west façade of the visually arresting St. George’s Hall in the distance, but where statues of two men associated with slavery loom large in the foreground: Arthur Bower Forwood, a blockade-runner for the Confederacy during the American Civil War, and William Gladstone (Images 2, 3 & 4), the iconic status of whom is increasingly contested as the former prime minister is deemed no longer immune to revision.

What renders these memorials to individuals who got rich off the whipped backs of Africans especially galling is the fact they’re built on top of their bodies since – being the former site of St. John’s Church. It’s the location where many of the town’s enslaved domestics were interred between the middle of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; most were reinterred elsewhere before landscaping commenced at the start of the twentieth, yet some nonetheless consider the resting place of the outcast dead to be a “dark” site – the exponents of which undoubtedly increased after listening to Laurence’s storytelling. ‘Many of these forgotten individuals have lain in unmarked graves for over 200 years’, he points out on a walking tour, the donated proceeds of which will fund the above-referenced memorial to those who lived, died and were buried in the city. ‘Many were not only interred without a marker but even without their names’, Laurence poignantly adds, before providing an example of an entry in the burial register from 23 September 1778: “A Black boy belonging to Mr. [James] Penny”, a notorious slave trader after whom it was erroneously believed Penny Lane was named. (Research conducted amid Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 found no ‘historical evidence’ between slaver and street, however, which is a Beatles’ landmark given it inspired the band’s namesake hit record.)

Address: St. John’s Lane, St. George’s Place, William Brown Street, Liverpool, L1 1JJ

William Gladstone statue, Liverpool — Statue of William Gladstone (1809-1898)

William Gladstone plaque — A reinterpretation board erected at the statue’s base – since removed – by Slate Project, an organisation endeavouring to ‘use the city[’s built environment] as a tool for acknowledging and learning from the past’.

Having made your way back to the entrance of the World Museum, continue (west) in the direction previously walking/wheeling, following the pavement around to the right before crossing the traffic lights on Byrom Street. Ahead of you is Dale Street, albeit slightly off to the left, just beyond Fontenoy Street on your right and a car park adjacent to the entrance of the Mersey (Queensway) Tunnel on your left. Continue advancing (west) along this busy throughfare – one of the seven original streets comprising “Liuerpul” situated within today’s commercial district – for approximately 650 metres until you reach the Town Hall, located at the top of Water Street, a total of 800 metres from William Brown Street. Grade I-listed, this neoclassical gem is one of the finest surviving Georgian buildings in Britain notwithstanding its modification, extension and reconstruction (Image 5). The south and east fronts survive, the latter of which is decorated with friezes of an African in feathered headdress and an elephant. Hiding in plain sight, albeit above the windows, these exotic emblems of mercantile trade identify the source of a proportion of Liverpool’s wealth through civic glorification (Image 6), illustrating its shameful role as a port from where floating jails departed during what Laurence calls an ‘unacknowledged Holocaust’ or “Maafa”, Kiswahili for “great tragedy”. (The Holocaust is without comparison, meaning serious writers ought to tread carefully when contemplating an analogy, though pedants are reminded of the gargantuan, trans-oceanic demographic assault – involving the displacement and premature death of twelve-and-a-half million enslaved persons – that the Transatlantic Slave Trade embodied.)

William Gladstone statue modified — Gladstone reinterpreted by British Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong using a pan-African flag (July ’21) for *Statues Redressed*, a television documentary that aimed to ‘challenge, celebrate and debate the role of monuments in modern society’, according to an information board at the foot of Thomas Brock’s 1904 statue. Collaborator on the redressing of Queen Victoria, Laurence posits: ‘If we don’t tear them down, fantastic art installations like this […] use the statue to tell a different narrative’. Radical cultural historian Alan Rice, Co-Director of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, labels such artwork ‘guerrilla memorialisation’.

Address: Liverpool Town Hall, High Street, Liverpool, L2 3SW.

Financed by the town’s slave-trading elites, such as the Blundell, Cunliffe, Earle and Heywood families, it was built in 1754 by a firm owned by Joseph Brooks, uncle to namesake Joseph Brooks Jnr. and co-owner of a ship the Brooks (or Brookes), which was immortalised in the 1787/8 cross-sectional sketch of (c.480) slaves tightly packed below decks in the pestilential hold; Brooks Alley, named after the landowning Brooks family, is one of the twenty streets identified by Liverpool City Council in 2020 as needing a reinterpretation notice. In 1781, the same year of its construction, a massacre occurred aboard the Zong, another infamous slaver co-owned by a Liverpudlian. William Gregson (after which Gregson Street is named, but which doesn’t feature in the aforementioned top 20) headed a syndicate of merchants, one investor being his son John, who would – following in his father’s footsteps – be elected Mayor of Liverpool in 1784, only months after the court case(s, the second being the insurer’s appeal against the initial judgement in favour of the Gregsons) provided the starkest illumination that captives became insurable cargo akin to livestock.

Although the tragic details are well known (aided in part by J.M.W Turner’s 1840 canvas, The Slave Ship, what art historian Simon Schama labels the ‘greatest British painting of the nineteenth century’) they merit repetition, not only because the Zong case is a microcosm of the inhumanity of the trade in humans, but because these Black lives mattered: 133 African men, women and children were jettisoned due to a putative water shortage (arising from navigational incompetence) into the shark-infested waters of the Caribbean Sea by the captain who – as a loyal servant of the voyage’s shareholders – sought to transfer potential “losses” (ill captives were less profitable at slave auctions) from the owners to the underwriter. The loss of 132 souls (100 additional enslaved Africans perished during the Middle Passage, according to the Slave Trade Database, leaving only 208 out of 440 to disembark) became a cause célèbre for abolitionists, while the two-page court report (Gregson vs. Gilbert) inspired a contemporary poet, namely M. NourbeSe Philip and her book-length poem (Zong!, 2008) which, through group-readings, helps ensure that their story remains alive 240 years on.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the mercantile community dominated the town’s governance, and concomitantly influenced its burgeoning development as an urban centre, since each of its 20 Mayors between 1787 and 1807 were involved in the slave trade, either as a ship owner or an investor, as were all the borough’s MPs until William Roscoe in 1806. This leads Laurence to claim that the Town Hall is the ‘single greatest architectural monument to Liverpool’s involvement’. It’s arguably this building that actor George Frederick Cooke alluded to as being one comprised of bricks ‘cemented [together] by the blood of a negro’ when hissed on stage at Williamson Square’s old Theatre Royal in 1806, a fact not lost on protestors in 1999 who took umbrage with the Town Hall being the venue from where a formal apology was declared after a debate into the port’s prominent role in the trafficking of Africans.

Liverpool Town Hall — Town Hall – formerly Liverpool Exchange – is the office of the Mayor of Liverpool. The incumbent is Joanne Anderson, the first Black woman to be directly elected Mayor in the UK.

Liverpool Town Hall detail — Two examples of “exotica” (propagating stereotypes of the peoples and places imperial Britons encountered and visited) on the entablature between capitals of pilasters.

Sixty-seven Mayors were involved (directly as investors) in 1,886 slave voyages between 1703-1807 according to local historian David Hearn, author of The Slave Streets of Liverpool (2020) and the forthcoming Liverpool’s Legacy of Slavery, the latter of which features a damning figure (arrived at simplistically, granted, but not without a relative degree of confidence through mathematical equation): 450,000. This is the number of Africans that Mayors – referred to as ‘kidnapers (sic) who infested the highest municipal offices’ by Trinidadian scholar-statesman Eric Williams in his magnum opus Capitalism and Slavery (1944), recently republished by Penguin Press – collectively were responsible for uprooting and transporting into a life of forced servitude and premature death (approximately 12% died even more prematurely during the Middle Passage across four centuries) through cutting sugar cane and picking cotton on plantations in the Americas. The enslaved had, to quote philosopher Thomas Hobbes, a ‘nasty, brutish, and [all too frequently] short’ existence.

This is the first of a three-part article.

You can read part two at: https://travelthruhistory.com/liverpool-black-history-walking-tour-part-2-of-3/

About the author:
A frequent ‘Letter of the Month’ winner in UK travel newspapers/magazines, Lee P. Ruddin’s entry in Senior Travel Expert’s 2018 (Heritage) Writing Competition was shortlisted as Highly Commended by judges; his entry in I Must Be Off’s 2020 contest was longlisted. His articles feature in Robert Fear’s Travel Stories and Highlights: 2019 Edition, on the websites of Hotel Metropole Hanoi and Bath’s Royal Crescent Hotel, as well as at TravelMag. In addition to tips appearing on theguardian.com, he has reviewed travel guides for LoveReading and NetGalley and, to date, has travelled in and via 45 countries on four continents. Born in Birkenhead on the Wirral in North-West England, he currently resides in Birmingham, where he works in the security industry.

All photos by Lee P. Ruddin

Sailing the Isles of Scilly

By Bill Arnott

It was the coast that drew me. If you’ve watched BBC’s Coast you understand. Golden dunes, windswept marram and gemstone sea in tourmaline and sapphire. I’d come for a weeklong sailing excursion, one of eight people crewing a fifty-four-foot pilot cutter, a forty-year-old replica of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old boat. We started in Falmouth, sailing between Pendennis and St Mawes Castles, built by Henry VIII to keep Spanish at bay, literally. From here the Fal River meanders northeast toward London, its gaping maw the Carrick Roads – as critical a thoroughfare in Henry’s day as the M1 is today. Thus the castles, situated at Falmouth and St Mawes headlands, a heavily cannoned pincer where English Channel melds with Celtic Sea and North Atlantic.

Falmouth was a fitting start to my waterborne adventure, home to Cornwall’s National Maritime Museum – a blend of modern and ancient history with an indoor, hands-on sailboat pool. After a quick pint at the Chain Locker Pub, we set sail into sunset. Under engine power I took the helm, easing us through the harbor – a myriad of working tankers and pleasure craft, while our skipper boiled ham, potatoes and cabbage in the galley below.

We skirted the Lizard Peninsula (England’s most southerly point; the smell of sheep heavy in offshore breeze) past Land’s End into darkness, trundling our way into a force five gale. In our wake, bioluminescent phytoplankton glittered in our wake, mirroring a Milky Way sky. Our destination – the Isles of Scilly, a scattering of uninhabited rocks and five lightly populated islands – St Mary’s, St Martin’s, St Agnes, Tresco and Bryer. This archipelago used to be mainland. Honored dead were brought here – England’s most westerly point, closest to setting sun. Bronze Age burial chambers are scattered around the islands – the greatest concentration of accessible sites being on St Mary’s, along with the remains of an Iron Age village.

Sailing through the night we took turns at the wheel – no instruments to speak of, simply intuition, stars, and avoiding distant pinpricks of red – ocean-bound tankers, while a malfunctioning compass did nothing but spin. As waves grew, we offered up most of the skipper’s culinary efforts back to the sea, secondhand servings spewed into phytoplankton. Brewing and serving three AM tea became a contact sport. But as night wound down so too did the gale, and eerily calm morning greeted us as we sailed toward the Isles, a peach-hued sun rising from the sea into crepuscular sky.

The week was spent with a pleasant mix of sailing between islands, time on our own, hiking, beachcombing, sightseeing, and a mix of meals together aboard the boat and on land at welcoming pubs featuring regional real ales – local craft beers. At St Agnes I climbed huge copper coloured rocks abutting the shoreline before chowder and a Tribute at the Turks Head Pub. On St Martin’s we scattered, each of us finding our own secluded white sand beach. Rowers were hard at practice. The annual Isles of Scilly gig races are a huge international event. Roads are closed to allow the long, trailered boats to navigate winding throughways to the race site.

Across a narrow band of water is Tresco, home of Tresco Abbey Garden – a stunning green space boasting flora from across the globe (twenty-thousand plants from eighty countries). Tropical trees and plants thrive, as the Isles sit in the North Atlantic Gulf Stream with an almost Caribbean climate much of the year. Brilliant red and orange proteas, pink camellias, and lush palms cluster around the remains of a tenth century Benedictine Abbey – the Priory of St Nicolas, patron saint of sailors. Within the gardens sits the Valhalla Museum, an extension of the National Maritime Museum – a combination interior and open-air display of thirty sunken ships’ figureheads recovered from local waters over the centuries.

From the gardens I trekked north, from New Grimsby to Old Grimsby, climbing to the site of King Charles’ Castle, crenelated remains atop a pap of land with panoramic water views in South Pacific shades of teal. Through an arrow slit I spotted our cutter, Annabel J, anchored in the lee of a cove. (We’d tendered to shore in a small zodiac-style rhib.) The steep patch of rocky land was adorned in a ragged quilt of wild grass while the chortle of pheasants emanated from somewhere unseen. Far below, the cylindrical remains of Cromwell’s Castle fronts the water – these two crumbling structures collaborative historical pinpoints. Like Henry’s castle fortifications at Falmouth and St Mawes, the high-low battlements allowed a dual assault, lobbing cannonade from elevated ground while seaside guns skimmed cannonballs across the surface to pierce enemy ships at the waterline.

Back aboard the cutter we sailed amongst the Western Rocks, the last vestige of English soil in these parts, and gazed out to Bishop’s Rock Lighthouse – a fifty-meter-high tower of granite constructed in the 1850s – a show of strength, engineering skill, and safe passage to North Atlantic trade routes. Grey seals lolled on wave-swept rocks and barked as we passed, their herring breath wafting across the water. I dropped a handheld trolling line for mackerel, pulling up nothing more than a clump of small mussels wrapped in sea asparagus. The tiny mussels I tossed back, the greens I munched contentedly, imagining myself keeping scurvy at bay. A huge sunfish rolled at the surface, somehow prehistoric. And these are basking shark waters – monstrous plankton eaters akin to Greenland sharks – the size of full-grown orcas. But it was later on the mainland when I finally saw one, snaking its way through slate breakers off Cape Cornwall, gorging itself on the same plankters that lit our way from Land’s End.

It would be our last full day on the Isles but as we regrouped to rhib back to the cutter, our skipper’s expression was strained. “We have to leave. Right now,” he said. “A force eight’s bearing down. Need to make it to Helford ahead of the storm.” The long narrow mouth of the Helford River, northeast of the Lizard, would be our safest shelter en route back to Falmouth. And so we sailed. Ten hard hours of racing ahead of the storm while wind and waves grew. Sun shone fiercely through cumulous. It was beautiful. And frightening, as angry twelve-footers smashed over the front half of our ship. We donned survival suits and tethered ourselves to lifelines, slip-sliding over wave-washed deck to adjust sheets and secure lines. The cutter laboured up swells and surfed into troughs with heightening tailwind. “Je-sus!” a shipmate hissed, as waves heaved past, high above our heads, an arm’s length away. And as we tacked into the relative shelter of Helford, sky turned monochrome with waves like basalt. What was lovely before turned truly ugly. We struggled to lash the boat to a partially submerged buoy, the only available moorage. All hands worked to tie every available rope while I got the miserable task of sliding into the slender, cramped chain locker to jimmy the windlass and release the anchor chain, which had managed to knot itself as we were tossed about in the swells.

Finally secured, we bounced our way to shore in the rhib, where we stumbled into an unassuming sailing club for long showers, scraping away salt and sunscreen, before sitting communally for fish and chips, ale, whisky, and the laughter of exhaustion and relief.

If you go

Fly to Heathrow or Gatwick, express train or bus to Paddington or Reading, and train Great Western Lines toward Penzance. Transfers from Truro are required to Falmouth. You can find Annabel J info at annabel-j.co.uk. Alternately, you can train to Penzance and ferry to the Isles of Scilly aboard the Scillonian, which is notoriously rough – a shallow draft required to navigate these waters, making the vessel as balanced as a punching clown. Small plane flights go from Land’s End to Scilly, while helicopter access may be available depending on current carriers (which come and go). If not on a boat, Scilly accommodations should be booked in advance. Many places only offer bookings in one-week, Friday to Friday increments. St Mary’s is the most populace island (two-thousand inhabitants) with the most amenities and the small airport. Allow for entry fees to museums and Tresco Abbey Gardens.

About the author:
Author, poet, songwriter Bill Arnott is the bestselling author of Gone Viking: A Travel Saga and Dromomania: A Wonderful Magical Journey. Bill’s articles and columns are published in Canada, the US, UK, Europe and Asia. When not trekking the globe with a small pack, weatherproof journal and horribly outdated camera phone, Bill can be found on Canada’s west coast, making friends and generally misbehaving. amazon.com/author/billarnott_aps

Photos by Bill Arnott

The Pirate Heritage of Tredegar House, Newport Wales

by W. Ruth Kozak

It was the mention of the famous pirate Captain Henry Morgan that first sparked my interest when my cousin Nicola suggested we visit a country manor in Wales. Although Capt. Morgan, for whom the famous rum was named, was the son of one of the nine illustrious sons of the original owner of this 17th century Charles II era country house, it somehow made the visit more intriguing.

Tredegar House, near Newport Wales, was the home of the Morgan family for over 500 years and later the home of the Lords Tredegar, one of the most powerful and influential families in the area. The mansion is surrounded by a landscaped garden of 90 acres and is one of the most outstanding houses of the Restoration period in Britain. The earliest part of the building dates back to the late 15th century but it’s been restored over the ages. It was originally built of stone and later rebuilt with red brick.

The name Tredegar came from Tredegar Fawr, the name of the mansion of the old Morgans who were descended from Cadifor the Great, the son of Collwyn who owned the land where the mansion stands. It was occupied by the Morgan family from about 1402. The earliest documented owner was Llewelyn ap Morgan. The Morgans were one of the most powerful and influential families in the area. In 1448 John Morgan was created a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre and was rewarded for his support of King Henry VII. Around 1490 he commissioned the building of a new house at Tredegar, though a wing of the original stone manor house still exists. The newer palatial house was visited by Charles I and his retinue during the 1600’s.

We walked through the gardens and passed through the high ornate Edney Gates to get into the building. The gilded gates were built between 1714 and 1718 for John Morgan and are an example of early 18ty century decorative wrought ironwork. Just past the gates is the Stable Block which housed the many horses owned by the family.

Once inside the palatial mansion, the docent showed us the way to proceed through the various rooms, all furnished in the style of the period with oil paintings on the walls. In one of the rooms there was a large oil painting of Godfrey Morgan who fought in the Charge of the Light Brigade. He is pictured with his famous steed, Sir Briggs. Morgan, age 22 and Captain in the 17th Lancers, and his horse survived the battle. They lived at Tredgar house until the horse’s death at the age of 28. Sir Briggs was buried with full military honours in the Cedar Garden of Tredgar House. There were luxurious bedrooms with decorative furnishings, everything laid out as if the rooms were still occupied by the ladies and gentlemen of the family. In the dining room there was even food displayed on the tables to illustrate the sumptuous feasts that were served there.

Every room we visited had display of the history of this illustrious family, throughout the generations. The Morgans were a renown family. Besides the infamous Caribbean privateer, Henry (Sir Harri) Morgan who began as an admiral of the Royal Navy, there are many tales of ill-fated marriages, riotous parties, war heroism and even the dark arts. The docent hosts at the house related some of these tales to us as we walked through the various room.

The last of the Morgans of Tredegar came in 1962 with the death of John Morgan, 6th Baron Tredegar, who died childless at the age of 54. After his death the house was stripped of its contents. For 23 years it was a school, until in 1974 when it was restored and refurbished and eventually passed to the National Trust.

We really enjoyed our afternoon tour through Tredegar House. The history of the Morgan family is a fascinating one. Not only did we get a glimpse of how the wealthy family lived, but we also were able to visit the servant’s quarters, kitchens and areas of the house, reminiscent of the popular TV series Downton Abbey.

If You Go:
http://www.nationaltrust.org/uk/tredgarhouse

Wales Tours:
A Snapshot of Wales

Photo credit:

Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK / CC BY

About the author:

W. Ruth Kozak is the former editor and publisher of Travel Thru History, an ardent traveler with family roots in Wales. She’s always been fascinated by pirates so this visit to Capt. Henry Morgan’s family home was a special adventure. Ruth is president of the BC Association of Travel Writers and the author of a historical fiction novel SHADOW OF THE LION, about the fall of Alexander the Great’s dynasty. www.inalexandersfootsteps.com

A York Christmas Festival Adventure

by Theresa Troutman

Inside the Roman built walls of this city steeped in history, the heart of the York beats strong and proud. Not only does it feature medieval, Georgian, and Victorian architecture, it maintains its charm while being modern and refreshing. A perfect city for any history buff or adventurer alike, York during the holiday season is a special place to experience.

For the history lover, nothing beats the excitement of walking along the top of the 2,000-year-old walls that circle the city. Those adventurous enough to take the 3.4-kilometer hike will be rewarded with spectacular views of the treasures within its walls. Towering above the everything in the city is the York Minister, whose claim to fame is the largest medieval Gothic cathedral in northern Europe.

Step back in time with a visit to York Castle Museum. Over 10,000 authentic items ranging from everyday items, military regale, and costumes are on display. A reconstructed Victorian street beckons to be explored. Walking along the cobblestone street you will experience the shops and pubs decorated for the season.

One of my favorite spots is Treasurer’s House. This historic townhouse includes thirteen rooms beautifully preserved with furniture and paintings, some up to 300 years old. Decked out with holly, evergreen, and decorated Christmas trees, Treasurer’s House is a delight. Don’t miss the quiet outside garden, an oasis in from the busy city Christmas Markets.

York is an easy city to walk, affording some great exercise while taking in all the sites. As you traverse the city you will find four different Christmas markets to peruse, each with its own special stalls to shop and eat to your heart’s content.

To celebrate small business and their unique wares, check out Judges Square. A beer garden in the center of the market is the perfect place to rest your tired feet and enjoy a pint after ticking off your Christmas list.

The Christmas festival at Coppergate shopping center host Santa’s grotto, craft stalls, and the marvelous smells from the food beckoning your taste buds. Trust me, you’ll want to try one of everything. You can even buy a live Christmas tree in the grotto.

St. Nicholas Fair, on Parliament Street, is brimming with shoppers soaking up the yuletide cheer. The beautiful lights and rows of stalls featuring clothes, candles, and ornaments put a smile on your face and get you in the holiday spirit. Don’t forget to grab a mulled cider to keep you warm and ward off the chill of the evening.

If you love handmade one of kind items. Check out the artisans at Made in Yorkshire Yuletide Village. You can find unique items for that special someone on your gift list ranging from jewelry, photography, art, food, and textiles.

If you venture outside the city walls and make your way fifteen miles East to the Howardian Hills, you are rewarded with a special treat. Christmas at Castle Howard is not to be missed. This year’s theme is the 12 days of Christmas. They also have a Christmas market on site and a farm shop where you can purchase local cheese, jam, gin and order your Christmas turkey.

The Castle has been in the Howard family for over 300 years. Many consider the estate one of the finest in England. With its Great Hall and magnificent dome, I have to agree. As you wander through the castle’s bedrooms, library, long gallery and chapel you are transported by the fanciful and joyous holiday display. The must-see during the tour is the 25-foot Christmas tree adjourned with 3,000 ornaments in the Great Hall.

If You Go:

The York Christmas Festival runs until December 24, 2018. Operating hours are 10 AM to 5 PM. Thursdays to Saturdays hours are 10 AM to 10 PM.

Castle Howard’s The 12 Days of Christmas runs until December 31, 2018. Operating hours are 10 AM to 5 PM. Admission is Ł19.50 or free if you purchase York Pass.

www.visityork.org

www.yorkpass.com

York Walking Tour including York Minster

About the Author:

Theresa Troutman is an author and travel writer who lives in Pennsylvania. She loves adventures that take you off the beaten path, whether it’s a behind the scenes look at being a zookeeper or hopping on a random train and letting the day unfold. She’s a thrifty traveler who loves to share tips and insights into travel. You can read her blog at thesavvytraveler.us.

All photographs by Theresa Troutman

A London Food Tour Seasoned With History

by Shirley Moskow

I’m early for the 10 am food tour of London’s East End so I wait on a wooden bench for our guide to arrive at Old Spitalfields Market. Meanwhile, I’m watching vendors set up their stalls. A baker arranges baskets of breads and rolls. Next to him, a fellow constructs pyramids of fresh oranges. Nearby, a woman wearing a babushka is folding silk scarves into neat columns.

One or two at a time, other travelers begin to arrive. Our guide, Pryia Bhamrah, says that with 14, we are a larger group than most of her Eating Europe (formerly Eating London) Tours.

My companions are couples and singles. They come from New Zealand, Egypt, Scotland, and the U.S., including brothers from Utah and a couple who recently relocated to Massachusetts from Texas. We range in age from early twenties to eighties. What our gregarious group has in common is a curiosity about food and history.

Pryia begins by telling us that Spitalfields is on the site of an ancient Roman burying ground, discovered about 1638. King Charles set aside a rectangular plot on Spital Fields for a meat and produce market to feed the growing London population. There’s been a market here for more than 350 years.

The East End is near the docks. Poor immigrants from many nations sought refuge from political and religious prejudice in England and settled here when they got off the boats that brought them. Pryia, whose family came from India, grew up here. “As recently as ten years ago, it was regarded as a disreputable area,” she says. “It was best to stay away.”

About a decade ago, artists looking for cheap living and working spaces discovered the East End. They rehabbed and painted. They repaired leaky roofs and replaced broken windows. Developers, then millennials followed. No longer gritty, today the neighborhood is trendy. Murals and modern sculptures are at home alongside the cobblestone streets. And small Mom and Pop restaurants serve the authentic cuisine of many nations.

The vintage red brick buildings are protected historic structures, and Spitalfields covered market is considered one of the finest Victorian market halls in all of London. It’s the go-to place for gourmet foods, fresh vegetables, souvenirs, and crafts. Every other Thursday, there’s a specialty market with antiques and vintage clothing.

I’ve never been here before, but I’m not surprised to experience déjà vu. The multi-cultural East End is the setting for Jennifer Worth’s 1950s memoir Call the Midwife. I’d watched the popular public television program, which was filmed here.

It’s only a block to our tour’s first stop, St. John Bread. Pryia says that the owner/chef Fergus Henderson was a friend of television gastronome and NY restaurateur Anthony Bourdain. “They shared a devotion for natural food, bread made with organic flour, and a commitment not to waste food.”

Henderson uses every part of the animal, she says, “a nose to tail eating experience.” That doesn’t sound appetizing to me, but she assures us that he’ll keep the menu simple for our group. The interior is simple too, white walls and natural wood picnic tables. His recipes are printed and arranged like post cards on a shelf for us to take.

I’m served “the legendary bacon sandwich.” It’s delicious, Canadian style bacon on fresh bread with two sauces, a slightly spicy tomato and herb condiment, and mustard. I understand why it’s always on the menu. I’m tempted to eat a second helping, but I remind myself that this is only the first stop. Seven more dining experiences await.

Next, it’s another short walk to Brushfield Street, which borders Spitalfields. The English Restaurant, a 17th century building is “listed,” which means that it’s an historic landmark so the architecture is protected. It can’t be changed. Like much of the area, it was dilapidated when a woman named Kay fell in love with it.

Ignoring the advice from her friends, she restored it. Now it’s a charming pub with tiny windows and vintage prints decorating the walls. The gleaming dark wood bar sports ornate brass taps for dispensing local beers and ale. My bread-and-butter pudding arrives with a petite pitcher of clotted cream. Charles Dickens would feel right at home here.

Then it’s into Old Spitalfield Market, where two brothers operate a cheese shop at 10a Lamb Street. There are more than 700 named British cheeses. Master cheese mongers Leo and Alex Androuet are fond of Englsh cheese, but they have a special affection for fine French cheeses.

They are descended from French Hugenots who found refuge in London from religious persecution. Wheels and loaves of many types of cheese are stacked on open shelves and behind glass refrigerator doors. I can’t resist their invitation to sample some.

Afterwards, the tour takes me through neighborhoods of Victorian and medieval buildings. I stop to watch a film crew shooting a period movie. We’re within walking distance of the Tower of London, and we pass the massive quarters where King Charles’s cavalry was billeted.

By now it’s lunch time. The tour stops for a traditional treat at an award-winning shop so popular that the line of customers stretches out the door. Soon I’m on the sidewalk with others, enjoying fish and chips lightly sprinkled with vinegar and wrapped in a newspaper cone. The atmosphere is festive. We wash down lunch with English beer and cider at a neighborhood pub.

But I’m not done yet. There’s more walking, talking, and eating, before the tour ends at an old factory and a choice of luscious desserts.

If You Go:

London Food and Culture Tour

London has fantastic public transportation. Three stations are less than ten minutes from the Old Spitalfields Market, 16 Horner Square, London E1 6DW. For directions, a map, and market hours go to the Old Spitalfields Market website.

Wear comfortable walking shoes. It’s four hours or a little more over cobblestone streets to visit the eight restaurants plus historic sites.

Bring an appetite. Restaurant portions are generous. The 10 a.m. tour was my breakfast and lunch.

There may be more than one tour on a particular day, but space is limited, and reservations are required. For information about availability go to Eating London Food Tours.

The cost of the tour varies according to the dollar/pound exchange rate. Figure approximately $90 +/- for adults; $75 +/- for ages 13-17; and $55 +/- for the first child 4-12 years, less for additional children.

Eating Europe also offers other London neighborhood food tours as well as food tours in Rome, Florence, Amsterdam, Prague, and Paris.

Full English: London Food Experience with a Local

About the author:

Shirley B. Moskow is a Boston, MA-based, freelance writer who specializes in the arts and crafts, design, history, and travel. Her articles appear in metropolitan newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and abroad. She has written two books and contributed to anthologies. When she not traveling or at her computer, she may be found on the tennis courts.

Photos by Robert Moskow