haunted town and tall tower

My third day of this trip was in York, and it solidified the theme of my UK trip “I am scared but I am going to do it anyway.” Now I am not going to mislead you and tell you that I did dare devilish activities on this trip, but more like daring for me – which is a step in the right direction.  

The reason that this is where the theme solidified is because in York there is the York Minster – a beautiful cathedral with a tower that you can climb. An important thing to note is that I am really not a fan of heights, and I hate small spaces. What has both of those? A tower. What did I pay to climb up? A tower.  

If you are thinking that wow that was pretty stupid of me, so was I about 3 steps into the 275 step tower when I realized that the bottom was the widest part and as you go up it just gets more and more narrow with only a few ‘windows’ (gaps in the stone wall with no glass) that you could see out of. When you go up you go with whoever else is in that time slot, so knowing that I was not going to be the fastest up the stairs I decided to put myself in the middle. I would definitely not put myself in middle again as it got claustrophobic really quickly because all I could see was peoples backs.  

When you are about two thirds the way up the tower, you reach an outside portion where you can see a little bit of the view but most impressively the architecture that went into building this cathedral. For me this was a nice break as well as I started to feel like the climb was worth it.   

It takes about ten minutes to climb up the tower (it totally felt like longer to me, but I think that is because I did not like being so closed in) and then you reach the top. At this point I knew that it was worth the climb for me. There were these amazing views and because it was in November the fall colors where awesome.  

If you are in good health this is something that I would recommend doing while you are there because seeing both the view and the architectural details of the cathedral is worth the climb, even if it’s a little too closed in for my comfort.  

Once I was done with the climb, I went and explored the Cathedral more. There was a choir practicing that was amazing to listen to, and (like all Cathedrals) really pretty stained glass to look at. This was a nice break to just enjoy the history and beauty of the Cathedral. 

I then headed out to see ‘downtown’ York I was there on a weekend and Christmas market was going on.  It was really busy but I enjoyed it and visited a little tea shop before meeting back up with my tour group.  

An add-on that I choose to do for this tour was a ghost walk. York is reportedly one of the most haunted towns in the world, and there were many stories to go along with it. We walked ‘butcher street’ where they would hang the traitors after they were dead and there were ghosts that would haunt there, but there was one story that stuck with me the most.  

Our guide brought us to an alley way where the windows of one floor of one building were painted over. He explained that there was a family who had a daughter who they believed to be possessed. She would scare off customers to the shop they had below their house and so the family decided to lock her in her room which faced the ally. They told people that they had sent her to the country, but when people would walk by their house the daughter would scream such a blood curdling scream and then look out the window and whoever looked in saw a demon so horrific that that were not able to function normally after that.  

After many threats and complaints, and being scared themselves the family did the unthinkable and killed their daughter through starvation, only for the screams and demonic faces to continue. They left York and the next residence that moved in their got the same complaints of the girl screaming and the demonic faces. This continued until all they could think to do was to paint over the window.  

The screams are still said to continue, but you can only see a shadow of the girl, not the face that scared the people walking through the ally.  

Like I said there were many more stories, but and I think I might tell more near Halloween, but if you happen to go to York, I would suggest taking a night ghost tour. It was a really cool way to see the town and to hear about the history.  

I only spent a day in York, and I think that was enough. I enjoyed it but did not feel that I missed out on anything by not staying another day.  

If you missed it make sure to check out the beginning of this trip in London and Liverpool. If you want to hear more about this trip make sure to subscribe! Have you been to York? If so let me know in the comments below what you thought of it!