Fine Fern Friday

The new planting done over the last few years in the Museum Gardens is really starting to look effective. This shady corner is ideal for ferns.

Last of Autumn

Just a couple of weeks ago the Hospitium was surrounded by autumn colour. Not much is known about the original purpose of this building. It is close to the River Ouse so could have been a warehouse for St Mary's Abbey, or even a guest house. Nowadays it is popular wedding venue.

E is for Eboracum

Eboracum was the Roman name for York. This Roman tomb can be found in the Museum Gardens and the inscription notes:
To the spirits of the departed (and) to the good lady Aelia Severa, once the wife of Caecilius Rufus. She lived 27 years 9 months and 4 days. Caecilius Musicus his freedman placed (this monument). Translation courtesy of An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in City of York
Taking part in ABC Wednesday

Roman Remains

Normal service resumed after yesterday. This jumble of Roman stonework can be found in the Museum Gardens. The stone arches are much later but the coffins and small bricks and stones are between 1500-1900 years old.

50 Shades of Green

So many leaves, every shade of green, and a splash of red. A typical spring garden.

Spring Arrives!

What a difference a couple of days makes, Museum Gardens again but looking (and feeling) much warmer than the pic posted on Saturday.

Top Tip for Tourists

Even if you are coming to York in May, remember to bring your coats. These visitors to the Museum Gardens look a little on the chilly side!

New View

The removal of some wartime huts has enabled the walls of St Mary's Abbey, complete with the St Mary Tower, to form a backdrop to these Roman coffins. Whenever I walk past these sarcophagi I wonder who the smallest one was intended for.

Favourite Spot

All this cold grey weather makes me think of brighter days. Tucked away behind the flowers is my favourite bench in the Museum Gardens. An ideal place to sit and watch the world go by, unnoticed except by the pigeons who want a share of any food being eaten!

Autumn Gardens

A recent view across the Museum Gardens towards the Hospitium. On the ground are lots of lovely leaves to kick your way through!

Oldest object in the city?

In a place like York it can be difficult to know what is the oldest thing in the city. My suggestion is this stone. It can be found in the Museum Gardens and is just one in a line of stones marking the edge of the grass. I had to wait for a young family sitting eating their lunch on it to move before I could take this picture. What makes it stand out is those circles and hollows carved into the stone, a design known as cup-and-rings marks. A friend who knows about these things suggests that it may date from the Neolithic era 3.5 to 4 thousand BC. That makes it a 6000 year old picnic table!
Taking Part in ABC Wednesday

Red Tree

The leaves have just started to turn this week, and this Acer in the Museum Gardens was the brightest red in the city!
Taking part in Ruby Tuesday

End of the Mystery

Today is the last day of this season of the York Mystery Plays, they won't be performed again until 2016. Over 30,000 tickets were sold making it a great success for everyone involved. It also means notices like this one in the Museum Gardens will be removed, a shame as this makes me smile every time I walk past it.

Roman Rose Bed

What is the oldest thing in this picture taken in the Museum Gardens? The stone coffins are Roman, the flower bed wall is made from stone salvaged from St Mary's Abbey after it was dissolved by Henry VIII in the 1530s. The rose however, according to fossil evidence, is 35 million years old! Although quite what red roses are doing in a Yorkshire botanical garden I am not sure.................

Behind the Scenes at the Museum Gardens

These 'extras' were waiting for their cue to feature on stage in the Mystery Plays in the Museum Gardens. I am guessing they are in the big flood scene.

Once upon a time.............

In an inspired move the Museum Gardens have cleared a path through the middle of a clump of old trees and shrubs, and added a couple of upside down tree stumps as gate posts, a big pair of wooden gates and a little wooden fence. This creates a special place which you can go inside, there you will find seating in the form of stones from (real) broken Roman columns, and you can sit down and tell your kids a story.

That tree

Construction continues on the Mystery Play set. See the tree on the left amongst the scaffolding? Planted in 1989 by the Duchess of York it is now causing no end of problems for the builders as it is growing just where the seating needs to go. A little difficult to identify at the moment but I seem to recall it is a Cedar of Lebanon. Rumour has it the tree is schedule for the chop before too long, wonder if that would be the case if it had been planted by Princess Diana?

Simple Poppy

I was sat on my favourite bench in the Museum Gardens enjoying the arrival of warm summer weather when I noticed this sunlit poppy. There are many other colourful flowers competing for attention in the Gardens just now, but this little poppy was the star performer.

St Leonard's Hospital

This is the entrance passageway to St Leonard's Hospital built around 1137, there is little left of the rest of the building.  Mediaeval hospitals provided food, warmth, and a bed to the elderly, poor and infirm. They were as much concerned with spiritual as well as physical health  as  the Hospital was a religious building, and the brothers and sisters here distributed alms to paupers daily. It was disbanded at the dissolution of the monastries in 1540, and this passageway has since been used as a boatyard, stables and occasional air raid shelter.

Until very recently it contained roman coffins from the nearby museum and was often used by the homeless as a shelter to sleep in for the night. Something which should give us all pause for thought as it has been performing this service for nigh on 1000 years. This year it has been given a face lift and now hosts an introduction to the history of the Yorkshire Museum and the Museum Gardens.

Spring

A classic shot of St Mary's Abbey in the Museum Gardens surrounded by daffodils on a lovely spring morning.
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