Lauren Tabbron shares her favourite things to do in Manchester
Jess Astbury regales tales of festivities in warmer climates.
Where to go:
There is a bus from York that will take you through Pocklington, all the way to Beverly, through beautiful countryside and a few other stop-offs in between. Beverly is very like York in many ways, full of little boutiques and churches, and generally extremely pretty. Pocklington itself is very small and frankly there is not much to do in the town itself, but once there, there are things to do nearby.
What to do in Beverly:
Beverly has its own Minster, a sandstone negative of York Minster. There are some interesting things to see within, such as a modern stained glass window at one end, and some modern sculptures too. Juxtaposed against this, there are some ancient relics, including a Union Jack so old that it barely obscures the stained glass window behind it, so threadbare it resembles the skeleton of an old leaf. There is also a tapestry storyboard, telling the tale of St John of York. You may thoroughly disapprove of York St John, but it’s beautiful all the same.
At the other end of the town is another huge church, which is interesting if only for the fact that a discrete little carved statue of a rabbit above one of the doors at the far end of the church is allegedly the model for Lewis Carroll’s white rabbit.
What to do in Pocklington:
The attraction we went to Pocklington for is Burnby Hall. The Hall is under much-needed restoration, but the vast Victorian water garden outside is still open to visitors. The garden is built around a lake, teeming with coy carp which surface for any food that you can buy in the shop. The carp are grotesque, and sometimes flip out of the surface of the water, provoking shrieks from the unsuspecting onlooker, but there is something mesmerising about them, and most visitors to the garden seemed to spend quite some time there staring nervously into the waters.
In the summer, however, the main point of interest on the lake is the water lilies. They have the largest collection of water lilies in England, and as summer is the time to see them in flower, if the thought of the carp disgusts you, then between now and the end of term would be a great time to go there to catch the lilies in bloom. There are also the various delights of a secret garden, secluded lake-side benches, a dovecote, and beautiful rock gardens. Potentially quite a romantic picnic destination.
What to look out for?
This isn’t exactly part of the tourist trail, but in the East Riding of Yorkshire there is some mysterious custom for having cream-coloured phone boxes, rather than red. We’ve all seen the tourists piling into phone boxes to take holiday snaps, and for the first time ever you might feel what all the phone box fuss is about. It’s not the uproarious time you would have in Leeds, nor the splash you would have in Scarborough, but on a quiet sunny day when you have got nothing better to do, East Yorkshire’s calling, from a white phone box.
The bottom line:
Pocklington is a good day out if you’re bored. Both are great day trips if your mum is staying and she wants to experience Yorkshire.
You must log in to submit a comment.
