Thursday 26th July

We said good bye to York this morning but not before a visit to York Minster. It is a magnificent building and I really enjoyed my visit albeit a rather brief one. My ticket is valid for 12 months so I hope that we will be able to return to York with the car before the 12 months are up as I would like to go to Ripon, Harrogate and Robin Hood’s Bay where quite a few of my Father’s ancestors came from.

Our trip down to Naburn was uneventful and quite quick. We passed Bishopthorpe Palace which is the official residence of the Archbishop of York. When Archbishop Walter de Grey bought the village of Thorpe St. Andrew in 1226, (this was later to become Bishopthorpe), he demolished the old manor house of St Andrews's to build the new Bishopthorpe palace. He reused some of the old stone from the manor house in the undercroft of the new building. The second stage of development at the Bishopthorpe Palace took place between 1480 and 1500 when Archbishop Rotherham added the North Wing to the palace. The third stage of development took place between 1761 and 1769. Archbishop Drummond appointed the famous architect firm of John Carr who designed the gothic stable block and gatehouse. This was followed in 1766-9 by the building of the front of the Bishopthorpe Palace. This provided a new Entrance Hall and Drawing Room which today includes several portraits of previous Archbishops. Bishopthorpe Palace reached its maximum extent by 1900. Since then, successive Archbishops have made more effective use of the space in the building by designating separate areas for personal apartments, public rooms and offices for the Archbishop's staff. An Archbishop of York has been resident at Bishopthorpe Palace from 1241 to present date, excepting only the ten years during the protectorate from 1650 to 1660 and during interregnum periods however the present archbishop, John Sentamu, did not initially move into the palace as it was just beginning a major renovation and restoration at the time.

We had lunch at Naburn and went into the lock at 13.15 along with two other narrowboats and two cruisers – it was quite packed! We were the second boat out but the cruisers soon overtook and disappeared into the distance! We hoped they were watching the river carefully as there were lots of tree trunks and branches floating around and, if hit at speed by a plastic boat, they could do some real damage!

We went into the lock at Selby along with another narrowboat leaving the third one outside waiting, however there wasn’t much current on the river so I guess they were OK! We pulled over in Selby Basin and moored up for the night.