igoiseeishoot: England-Scotland Day 2 (Part 3) –York Shopping Streets and The Shambles

4 April 2010

The best way to explore York’s City Centre was on foot. From the York Minster, it was a short walk to the pedestrian-only shopping streets. This was a lively place with plenty to see, do, buy and eat.

Get a caricature done? Not for us.

Buying postcards for a friend who collects them.

Easter goodies on sale.

King-size chocolate Easter eggs!

“The Shambles” is located in the middle of the pedestrian-only shopping area near the York Minster. It is known as the best preserved medieval street in the world. Many of the buildings date back to around 1350-1475. The Shambles was a street of butchers’ shops and houses, many complete with a slaughterhouse at the back of the premises, ensuring a ready supply of fresh meat. The meat was hung up outside the shops and laid out for sale on what are now the shop window-bottoms.

Lacking modern-day sanitation facilities, there was a constant problem of how to dispose of the waste produced by the slaughter of animals in the city. The pavements were raised either side of the cobbled street to form a channel where the butchers would wash away their offal and blood twice a week.

Narrow cobble street leading to the Shambles. Note the levels of the cobbles street and sidewalks.

The Shambles.

In some sections of the Shambles, it was so narrow that it was possible to touch both sides of the street with your arms outstretched. The architecture which now appears so quaint had a very practical purpose. The overhanging timber-framed fronts of the buildings were deliberately close-set so that it is difficult for sun to shine on the meat in the butcher shop below.

So close! Almost cannot see the sun from the street.

Look and feel of a medieval town.

Shrine to St. Margaret Clitherow (with green plaque) who met a rather gruesome martyrdom in 1586 for being a Catholic in a newly Protestant England.