York Historic Environment Record Blog RSS Feed

So the City of York Historic Environment Record department has a an interesting, if infrequently updated, blog covering archeology and historic conservation efforts in York.

Now my preferred way of reading blogs – especially those which are not frequently updated – is to stick that particular blog’s RSS feed in my reader and to let the updates come to me. Unfortunately the YHER Blog doesn’t have an obvious link to a feed, but, after a little poking around at the page’s HTML, I’ve managed to find a URL that seems to work: York Historic Environment Record Blog RSS Feed.

And that should perfect to be fed into your reader of choice!

Tours of Old York #2: The Streets of York, 1988 and Now

And, having found another old video of York on YouTube, it’s time for another Tour of Old York. Alas, the the YouTube video doesn’t seem to be embeddable on any old random website but – in better news – it does seem to be tagged with a permissive licence that allows me to rehost it here…

The streets of York in 1988, Russell Webster (Via Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed))
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Tours of Old York #1: 70s York in Flood

York in flood during (apparently) the late 70s. At about 30 seconds in there’s a lovely shot of a very wet pre-flood defence Marygate. Later on, at around one minute forty, you get a shot along Wellington Row and across the River – notably showing the build that there before the construction of the General Accident (now Aviva) Building. There are also some nice shots of The Kings Arms and the bottom of the Museum Gardens in flood.

Steam at York

The ‘Mayflower’ steam locomotive changing direction on the turn table at York Station.

I like Steam – the sound, the smell, the sheer force of presence that comes from a visible engine pulling up to the platform you are on – far more than the modern trains I’ve taken for work and for leisure. I do under stand the practical reasons that they needed to be retired, but it still seems something of a loss. Perhaps when autonomous vehicles have destroyed mass transit, the remaining national railways can be converted to heritage lines and Steam can rise again…