Ruby and the Open Door in the Shambles

Open doors are irresistible. They are just asking you to go through them.

And so it was that I came upon an open door a few buildings down from 12 Shambles.

I went through it, and followed the staircase up, with pictures of film stars watching me all the way. At the top was a landing and then another staircase with more film stars. Up again. First there was a hairdresser's, then some offices. Up a few stairs, down a few stairs, along another corridor. And then I met a nice man who has a therapy practice at the top of the building and he let me have a look at the room where he works.

I entered through the doorway pictured above at number 15, but by the time I was in the therapy room on the top floor, I was above number 19. It could have been a room like this where Gails Man's great-great grandfather, William Riley lived in the 1880s, as the building above 19 is similar to the one above number 12. Although I suspect the decor would have been quite different.


What I love about this room is the fact that the windows are almost the same height as the wall itself. Imagine having a bed by them. The view through William's window could have been very much like the view through this one. Only with quite a lot of butcher-y things going on down in the street below. Here's the view as it is today:

12 Shambles

I received an email recently from Gail's Man at Nottingham Daily Photo, telling me about his own connection with York.

He has roots here, right in the very heart of the town. His great-grandfather, William Riley, a chimney sweep, lived at number 12 the Shambles in the 1880s. And his uncle, William Everett, was born just round the corner, at 30 Little Shambles in 1898.

Today, I went to investigate 12 the Shambles, pictured above. One of the street's characterful medieval buildings, it is now a sweet shop, and the manageress was happy for me to have a look round and take some photos - and interested in the story of the building's one time inhabitant!

Inside it looks every part the olde worlde shop - but it would of course, like most of the shops in the Shambles, have been a butcher's at the time William Riley lived here.

The beams are fantastic. I even had a peek behind the shelf units and you can see the same wooden beams across the walls. From oak trees that lived quite a long time ago!

You can see evidence that this was once a butcher's on the top photo as the heavy window sill is where meat would have been displayed, and also on this pic (right) behind the shop sign, meat hooks are still visible (some bent to accomodate the sign). In Victorian times, meat would have been hanging outside most of the shop fronts in the street.



No meat today - just lots of colourful sweeties. These pictured are all traditional Yorkshire boiled sweets. They had Yorkshire mixture too, which was always one of my favourites as a kid.

There are another couple of storeys above the shop, which I presume was where Gails Man's great-grandfather lived. These are all offices now, and I didn't manage to venture up in this particular building, although I did in an almost identical one a few doors down. But that's for tomorrow.