Beverley; Saturday, 28 June, 2025

I had a bit of a lie in and a quick breakfast before heading out of the hotel and over to the Minster, partly to have a general look around, and partly because I was booked on a tour of the roof space. There was a wedding booked for the afternoon, so they had the west doors of the church open, which made the space a lot lighter and also cooler than it would otherwise have been on a pretty muggy morning.

The tour up into the roof space was excellent, with a lot of background information to why the church is as large as it is and how it’s been repaired and developed over the year down on the church floor before climbing the 113 steps up to the roof space for views out from the giant South and North windows and perhaps most impressively of all, down into the church itself from the central tower.

From the minster it was a short walk towards the centre of town and a quick visit to the Champney Treasure House which houses the towns museum and art gallery, as well as the tourist information centre and the library. Whilst the museum is not more than one large room there were a decent number of displays on the East Riding in the space. The neighbouring Gallery was only partially open as the main part was being re-hung, so I was only able to look around a small part.

From the Treasure House I headed across town and paid a quick visit to St Mary’s church. In any other town this would be an impressive large church, but in Beverley it looks small compared to the Minster, but it’s still an important building and well worth a look around.

After St Mary’s I stopped for a quick bit to eat in one of the café’s surrounding the Saturday Market, which, naturally, was in full swing, before walking the short distance over to the bus station.

The weather had got really oppressive and humid, so I’d decided to pop out to the coast for the afternoon, as it’s less than 45 minutes by bus out to Hornsea on the North Sea coast, where, after a sticky ride on a pretty humid bus, I was able to take in the beautifully cooling breeze coming in off of the sea.

I spent a couple of hours looking around the seafront and the town. Hornsea is the starting point for the Trans Pennine Trail, a long distance walking route that crosses England, ending at Southport on the Irish sea coast. The town is also on a part of the coast that is rapidly vanishing.

When the Romans were in the area 2000 years ago, Hornsea would have been about 3 miles inland from the coast. Since then the erosion of the soft sandy cliffs has brough the coastline all the way back to Hornsea and in places it looks like one bad winter could start to take houses and caravan parks, so it’s pretty clear that the town may not see another 1000 years before it’s all swallowed up by the sea.

After spending quite a bit of time in Hornsea I headed back to the bus stop and picked up the bus back into Beverley, stopping off in town to grab a quick bite to eat before heading back to the hotel.