Every night of the year a horn is blown at the four corners of the obelisk in Ripon’s Market Place to set the ‘watch’. This ceremony has taken place for the last 1,100 years, without fail.
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Early in the 8th century the then bishop of York, John, founded a monastery. When he died in 721 his body was buried in a chapel of the monastery’s Saxon church. In 1037 he was canonised and his monastery, and the town that had grown up around it, became a place of pilgrimage.
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Every first-time visitor to London, I suspect, has Westminster Abbey high on their must-see list. Fewer however make a point of visiting nearby Westminster Cathedral, the city’s central Roman Catholic place of worship. And that’s a shame, as the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood, to give it its full name, is striking in appearance and has an interesting history of its own.
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If you look at a map of England you will see that Hull, or Kingston upon Hull to give it its proper name, is rather out on a limb. Lying on the Humber Estuary its location so close to the sea has resulted in a history shaped by sea-going trade and shipping.
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Travelling teaches us that people around the world have more in common than we sometimes realise. People everywhere laugh, cry, worry, and hope for the same basic things. And when good things happen, we celebrate. There are small family celebrations: a new baby, a wedding, a birthday. And then there are the celebrations that bring people together on a much bigger scale. A national holiday, a religious festival, a sporting success …
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! London hasn’t seen any rain now for 37 days (although a light sprinkling is forecast for this morning before a return to heatwave conditions. The temperature has swung between the high 20s centigrade (reasonably comfortable) to the low and even mid 30s (not so comfortable!)
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In 1888 William Hesketh Lever, owner of the Sunlight Soap factory on England’s Wirral Peninsula, founded a village to house his workers. He based it on some innovative principles for his time (and perhaps they also seem quite radical still today?) His vision was to provide his workers with decent, sanitary housing in a considered architectural and picturesque form.
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One morning in Budapest we spent wandering the city’s Jewish Quarter. In the early 2000s this area underwent a revival, with the famous ruin bars springing up in courtyards of buildings slated for demolition and a mixed community moving into the area to open shops and restaurants, create art or simply to live.
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While we enjoyed exploring Buda, and loved the views of the Danube and Pest beyond, it was the latter that we spent the most time in. We stayed there, we ate and drank there, we visited museums and we wandered its streets.
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When I spotted the Light Art Museum on the map, a short walk from the apartment we were renting, it quickly rose to one of our must-see sights. The museum is 'one of the first exhibition spaces in the world to specialise specifically in the collection ... and display of works of this character.'
