Town Trail Tells the 'Amazing History of Beverley' | HU17.net

The Beverley Medieval Town Trail will provide a glimpse of ” the amazing history of Beverley”.

As part of his exclusive interview with HU17.net, Chris Try, a member of the committee that has created the town-wide trail and installations, revealed the history behind just a few of the 39 pieces of art scattered around the town, and the role Beverley has played in the growth of trade and commerce in the United Kingdom.

He said: “As far as we are aware, no one else has ever done a trail quite like this anywhere else in Britain.

“For example, if we go to the Bar now you will see an artwork set into the pavement which describes some of the bills for paying for the Bar and in it it talks about one tiler, Agnes the Tiler, a lady.

“Six hundred years ago a lady was being paid 3 shillings and 8 pence for one thousand bricks.

“Now, how many ladies are there today working in construction? Today there are many families with members who work in the building trade but how many ladies work in it? Yet 600 years ago Agnes the Tiler was involved in constructing the Bar.

“Or we can go to Highgate to the printers.

“There’s artwork there about a man called Hugo Goose and as we learn more about him we find he was the third ever printer in Britain.

“He came from Flanders and we now have a huge local printing industry. We have today a far bigger local printing industry than we might be expected to have. Hugo Goes started it.

“He printed the first ever wallpaper in Britain and a fragment of it remains in Christ’s College Cambridge.

“Down Tiger Lane there is a loaf of bread. But why down Tiger Lane is there the loaf of bread for the bakers’ guild?

” It’s because the far end of of Tiger Lane, beside Willow Grove, there used to be the Cookstool Pond. The Cookstool Pond was where the ducking stool was.

“People think the ducking stool was there for ducking witches or ducking women who talked too much but often the ducking stool was used for ducking bakers – members of the guild of bakers – where the other members of the guild ducked them if the quality of what it was they were producing was not good enough.

“This was medieval weights and measures. It was medieval trading standards. If your bread was not good enough and you had been warned to put it right but did not do so, you might have a finger cut off, or later you might have an ear cut off, and then your final punishment was ducking and it was, to quote the historians,” a near-death experience.”

One of the more curious installations is a glove, seemingly left at random, cast on a bench at the top of Saturday Market.

This, explains Chris, is part of a bigger story that again emphasises the role Beverley played in shaping the modern world.

He said: “There was a guild of craftsmen that made gloves – these were the glovers – and they had their own production standards.

“But in addition the third oldest school in Britain is Beverley Grammar School. It is the oldest state school in Britain, founded in 700AD – when 1066 and the Norman Conquest happened, incredible as it may seem, our school was 366 years old.

“Beverley Grammar School, as well as being a very old institution, started something that has been copied all over the world.

“What it started was when people finished their education they were conferred with a Bachelorhood – it is where that started.

“Now all graduates wear a mortarboard on their head when they get their Bachelorhood, but that is modern.

“If you went back to 1066 and you got your Bachelorhood from Beverley Grammar School what also was given was a pair of gloves – gloves made by the glovers guild.”

There’s much more to the history of Beverley than just this, as Chris explains.

He continued: “There were butchers, there were tailors, there was international trade with Northern Europe, especially in connection with the export of wool, we had the equivalent 800 years ago of North Sea ferries, we had Britain’s third ever printer, we had invention.

“We hope that people from all walks of life will come and walk round Beverley, take something in, go to lesser known parts of the town and look at them in a different light and find things out.

“We have had huge enjoyment creating the trail and we hope people have great fun discovering it.”