It was a beautiful morning as I set off for a walk around the centre of York looking for the ‘Ghosts in the Gardens’. I went on a similar walk last year around the Museum Gardens. This year the number of ghosts has increased, and they have been placed at various places of interest around the city centre as well as the museum gardens.

I called into the visitor’s centre on Parliament street for a map which gives you a good guide to the 21 sites around the city centre and where the ghosts are, what it doesn’t tell you is how many ghosts there are at each particular site, but that is another story.

Map in hand, I set of for Stonegate and the snicket leading to Barley Hall a medieval townhouse, where a Tudor lady was seen standing on the balcony looking across Coffee Yard. It was very pleasant in the yard, several visitors were sat enjoying the early morning sunshine with a coffee, chatting with their friends. I continued down Stonegate, crossing Petergate on to Deangate and the Minster Yard, the towering structure of York Minster standing in front of me. I cannot walk past the minster without popping in to have a look around this magnificent Gothic building. The good weather had certainly brought the tourists out this morning, with visitors browsing the shops nearby, others standing in awe at this beautiful building, whilst others busy taking selfies and photographing certain aspects of the Minster. Before I wandered inside, I spent thirty minutes or so photographing many of the stone carvings around the West Door, each carving has a story to tell. Sometime later, on leaving the Minster I continued my ghost walk along Duncombe Place, onto Museum Street, passing the Library on my right and the library gardens where I saw my second ghost, a Jacobean man with similarities to Guy Fawkes (who was born in Stonegate in 1750) was standing gunpowder in hand. From here it is just a short walk to the Museum Gardens, a lovely place to visit no matter what time of year. By now it was pleasantly warm, there were a lot of visitors in the gardens too, either looking around the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey or looking around the Yorkshire Museum. From the entrance to the gardens, I headed down to the river Ouse for a few moments, the river was busy with sightseeing boats and tourists walking alongside the water’s edge. Heading back into the gardens, the sunlight was catching the ever-changing autumnal colours of the trees and Gray Squirrels busily played around my feet. I passed a Saxon Monk close to the ruins of the Abbey, a little further along stood a Bride with a ring in her hand, obviously having second thoughts about getting married, close by the groom with top hat in hand, chasing after his bride. Just around the corner next to the Kings Manor stood a Victorian Chimney Sweep. Close to the Observatory, an Astronomer was bend down on one knee looking through his telescope. From the observatory I headed over to St Olive’s church, were having walked through the graveyard I came across a ghost beekeeper busy tending to his hives. St Olives church has existed since before 1055. The door of the church was open, so I popped inside for a quick walk round.  Back outside and over by the railings alongside one of the raised tombs stood a Saxon monk, praying at the side of one of the graves. Having spent a good hour walking around the gardens I left thinking I had seen all the ‘ghosts in the gardens’. Crossing Museum Street I headed down Lendal, passing the ‘Judges Lodging’ a grade 1 listed town house, once used as a Judges residence from 1806 – 1976, and now a top city hotel. Here the ghost of a Judge was standing at the top of the landing, looking over several visitors sat on the patio area of the hotel enjoying the ambience of the place. York was buzzing today, several buskers were singing a wide selection of music, ranging from opera, instrumental, pop and rock and all very good, I could have listened to them all quite comfortably.

On leaving Lendal I made my way across the town to the Shambles a narrow street of mostly timber buildings that date back as far as the 13th Century. The street was originally home to butchers, with each shop specialising in a different meat. While the street is still home to a butcher, the rest of the street is now filled with a bright mix of mostly independent retailers. As quite an iconic landmark in York, it was very busy with visitors, mainly overseas tourists soaking up the atmosphere of this fine street. I walked up and down this street several times and couldn’t find the butchers shop and couldn’t find the ghost either. On returning home and doing some more research, I realised that I had barely scratched the surface and that there are many more ghosts out there still waiting to be found!

The Ghost in the Gardens runs from the 21^st September through till 5^th November, so I still have plenty of time to come back and try to find the remaining ghosts which I missed from today’s visit.