Abbeys

In the centre of York is a park known as the Museum Gardens. It has the ruins of an Abbey in it, St Mary's Abbey (1006-1539). Above, this section of the ruins makes a nice setting for one of the paintings in The Grand Tour. When I took this photo, a big sound system erected right next to the ruins was playing Gregorian chants (don't know if that's the right term; it was monks singing in Latin).

In the centre of Bury St Edmunds is a park known as the Abbey Gardens. It has the ruins of an Abbey in it: The Great Abbey of Bury St Edmunds (1020ish-1539). Like St Mary's in York, it was pillaged for building materials after Henry VIII's dissolution of the monastaries in 1539. But this abbey had a flint and rubble core, so when the stone cladding blocks were taken off (few remain), these weird and wonderful shapes were left. One of my Bury St Edmunds blog readers who used to play in the Abbey Gardens as a child called this part shown above "The Chicken and the Kettle."

Ruby is in Bury St Edmunds for the week, where she formerly lived and blogged. This post is part of a series to run until her return to York, comparing the two towns.

A Grotesque Old Woman

One of the things I'm enjoying about the The Grand Tour in York, is that sometimes there has been a cleverly fitting, or even ironically fitting choice of location for the paiting.

"The Grand Tour" consisits of reproductions of priceless, famous paintings, hanging all around the city, and was a joint project between York Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Here we have "A Grotesque Old Woman" by Massys (1465 - 1530), and we are told about the painting that "it was probably intended to satirise old women who try inappropriately to recreate their youth." The location is - slap bang between two York beauty salons on Grape Lane.

You gotta larf :-D

Philip IV visits the Shambles

I saw this painting of Philip IV of Spain by Diego Velazquez in London's National Portrait Gallery only a few weeks ago. This afternoon I did a double take to see it hanging on the wall of St Crux, The Shambles. It's not actually the real thing (surprise!) and is part of The Grand Tour in York - "a collection of paintings set free around the streets of York" organised by the National Gallery and York Art Gallery, sponsored by Hewlett Packard. Further information about the project is at The Grand Tour in York website.