Kings adventures: Beverley and Bempton Cliffs

Brian and Mairead had arranged to meet Brian's friend, Jennifer, who lives in Beverley and had organised for us the use of her husband's parking space which was very helpful. We arrived in Beverley in good time to have coffee and to do a tour of the Minster before they met Jennifer for lunch. On our way into Beverley we went through an area called Westwood which has open grazing for cattle and sheep. We were fascinated by the cattle grids on either side but could see that they were essential.

Beverley is a lovely market town with lots of cafes and eating places. The Minster is in Gothic style and is more like a cathedral than a church.

These two statues depict St. John of Beverley (who built the first church here) and King Athelstan, who is reputed to have re-endowed John's church after defeating the Danes.

The brass lectern was made in 1879

The tomb of St. John of Beverley who founded a monastery on this site. He had healing powers and his healing of a dumb boy led to his canonisation in 1037.

In the Minster the story of St. John of Beverley is told in a series of stitched panels - very nice! Could be called Beverley Minster Tapestry.

The figure on this cross has been hollowed out of the wood but when viewed through the camera you would swear that the figure was embossed. It was fascinating!

There was a temporary exhibition of sculptures By the Yorkshire Sculpture Group in the Minster but there were no leaflets with names or explanations of them.

Brian described this as a self-playing bagpipes.

And this (on the side of the same stand), he suggested was a man who couldn't stand the sound of bagpipes and was wearing ear muffs or ear phones (for his own sacred music!) to drown out the awful drone.

These made me think of dementors in Harry Potter.

All this figuring out the meaning of each sculpture had me exhausted so I took a little seat that was perfectly suited to my size!

We spent some more time perambulating around Beverley before having lunch - Jim and I were left to our own devices presumably because we might be an embarrassment to Brian and Mairead!

One of the cakes in a cake decorating shop.

A structure in Saturday Market Square.

Our plan was to meet Brian and Mairead in St. Mary's Church, another nice Church in Beverley. However, there was a wedding there when we arrived after lunch and the church was closed to visitors. Having admired the bride and bridesmaids, we made our way to the Coronation Gardens for a stroll and a suit in the sun. We finally met the other two with Jennifer, James and Alex (her two sons) and had a look in St. Mary's when the wedding was over. Alex had great fun running through the pews.

The Minstrels' Pillar - the most important of 34 musical carvings in St. Mary's.

The ceilings were very nice.

Throughout Beverley there are (high quality replica) paintings by Fred and Mary Elwell. Fred Elwell was born in Beverley in 1870. He and his wife Mary were accomplished artists drawing inspiration from the town of Beverley and its townspeople. On his death in 1958 Fred bequeathed a large selection of his and his wife's paintings to Beverley Art Gallery and the replicas have been placed around the town in places that inspired the paintings.

Beverley is not too far from the coast so we decided to go to Bempton Cliffs an RSPB nature reserve home to 250,000 seabirds. There you can see gannets, kittiwakes, fulmars, razorbills, herring gulls, shags and puffins. From the safety of the cliff-edge viewpoints you can experience close views(best with binoculars) sounds and smells of the seabirds. It was a good time of year to go as lots of the birds had young and were flying in and out with food for them.