I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world.	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms . He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on the PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones.

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Lendal Tower As one approaches York Minster from the south by car, one is presented with two options. The first is to take a slightly westerly route and cross the Ouse Bridge. This part of the river has been crossed by a bridge for many hundreds of years; the York city council used to meet in a camera super pontem Vse as early as the fourteenth century, and a bridge existed on that site for some hundreds of years before that. If you choose to take the more easterly option, you cross Lendal Bridge. For the past few months, this bridge had been restricted to cabs, buses, and emergency vehicles during most of the day. This made walking in and about the area very pleasant. Alas, that restriction has now been lifted, as of earlier this week; I, personally, feel this was a step backwards, but, then again, I don't commute by car across the center of York. (Nor should anyone else! But I digress.) Lendal Bridge, however, would not have been an option for you prior to 1860. Aside from the fact that you would not have had a car, there would have been no bridge, only a ferry. Lendal Tower would have dominated that crossing point, as it had done since around 1300. At that time, a chain could be pulled up between it and the tower across the river to block boats, for defense or tolls. It was repurposed, as so many things are, as time went by. It served as a pumping station of sorts from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, then was converted to offices. In 2004, it came on the market for development, was sold again in 2007 and given a thorough renovation. Quite recently, that renovation was completed. When I arrived here late last year, it was on the market for a modest £1.3 million. That is no longer the case. Now it's a holiday cottage. With three bedrooms, you can easily split the rent in creative ways, and for five or six people, the price per head is not exorbitant. Which is why we booked it for the fall when one branch of my family is coming to visit. Expect a report next October ... Luddite'sLog, 18 April 2014 © 2014 Jeff Berry

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