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.

Previous Entry First Entry

Walking Tour of York Second Stop, Fairfax House As explained here, as part of my teaching this year, I gave my students a walking tour of York. This is the second stop on the tour. Caveat Lector - I do not vouch for the complete accuracy of all of these bits and bobs. Do not quote me. Some of this is myth and legend. Fairfax house was built in 1762 by Viscount Fairfax so he'd have someplace to sleep during the winter season in York. He called upon John Carr, a distinguished York architect to renovate and redesign the building, and York craftsmen to furnish it. It passed through a number of hands after the Viscount's death, but remained a private residence for a hundred years or so. As with so many grand residences, it saw military use in WWI, and then, after the war, became a theatre. Eventually, it fell out of use and began to fall into disrepair. The York Civic Trust acquired it in 1982 and turned it into the museum it is today. It's a lovely Georgian townhouse, and I know very little about Georgian townhouses, but I wanted to show that York also has history which is not medieval. From here, we passed through the Coppergate Centre on our way to our next stop. The Coppergate Centre is a shopping mall, and is home to the Jorvik Viking Centre. Underneath all that is the medieval street, Coppergate. Prior to building the new center, extensive archaeological work was done on the site, and a number of publications were generated by the York Archaeological Trust. This was a good place to spend a few moments talking about the problems of modern cities on historic sites, and some of the difficulties associated with doing urban history. For example, I am aware of no extant medieval urban kitchens. If the buildings exist, they've been remodeled. Often, though, they were wholly or partially demolished for street-widening or other building projects. A lot of stuff is still there, of course, just buried - like a King in a car-park. And, just like a King in a car-park, we can't get to it without a great deal of money, disruption, and the expenditure of political capital. The corollary to the above, is that every time there is a building project, there is the possibility that emergency archaeology will have to be done. When I arrived in York, renovations were taking place at King's Square, and were temporarily delayed because they'd found a medieval church. Developers are required both to plan for the eventuality of such discoveries and shoulder a share of the economic burden. At the end of the day, though, the city is a living organism and life must go on. All that stuff is hidden away again, underneath the lovely new flagstones. Luddite'sLog, 4 November 2014 © 2014 Jeff Berry

Next Entry Last Entry