Ghosts

The National Trust had introduced a couple of wire mesh sculptures into the centre of the lawn. One was of a horse and the other of a figure that I presumed was a highwayman since he was holding a gun and looked as though he was in the process of making a robbery. They were  actually very good since the wire mesh had a transparency and made them  have a ghostly appearance. Ghost’s and the Treasurer’s House go hand-in-hand…if that is physically possible with a ghost. The house's ghosts include: cats, dogs, two children, Frank Green (the last owner)...well at least the smell of his cigar smoke, and an old lady. There are also occurrences of clocks mysteriously  stopping (for no apparent reason) and furniture being moved unexpectedly overnight. The most famous apparition appeared in the cellar in 1953 where <spoiler alert> I also had a ghostly experience later in the day…more of which later! 

Treasurer's House

The man with the clipboard called the ‘11:00 Group’ in from the garden and we congregated near the reception desk. There must have been about a dozen of us and I reckon I brought the average age down to below 70. We were warned not to touch anything and not to use the flash on our cameras. Our guides were a man and a woman who looked about 70 themselves and would take it in turns to tell us about each room and their artefacts. I have to say, they did an excellent job and knew their stuff.   

The first Treasurer for York Minster was appointed in 1091. The Treasurer managed the church’s finances from the house. This went on until 1547 when Henry VIII made an aggressive takeover and changed the business model. The house then passed through the hands of a number of owners before ending up with a wealthy local industrialist called Frank Green. The house had been split up over the years and he bought most parts of the original house between 1897 and 1898. He then spent a lot of time and money making alterations and filling it with the eclectic mix of possessions that we see today. Our guides gave us insights into the Green family. It all got a bit confusing since everybody seemed to be called Edward, even the women. Fortunately, Frank wasn’t called Edward. He came across as one of those obsessive perfectionists. You see them nowadays on that Grand Designs Channel 4 series where people knock years off their lives, due to the stress caused by building their own house. I’ve no idea why they do it. Maybe afterwards, they just sit in their new masterpiece watching telly like the rest of civilisation. I’d rather be away from the house wandering the country, but each to his own. Of course, these obsessive perfectionists can never, ever be satisfied. Frank Green was like that. Apparently he didn’t like any of his furniture to be disturbed and left out of place by his cleaners. In order to ensure their correct position, he knocked nails into his wonderfully built floorboards to mark where the legs of the chairs and tables etc. should be placed. He threatened to haunt the place if furniture was moved or anything not to his liking occurred. I actually feel a bit sad for Frank and his like since they never actually achieve what they want.

Great Hall

The Great Hall was indeed a great hall and was a surprisingly voluminous space in the centre of the house. The upper floor had been removed so that you could see right up to the rafters. I was initially struck by a long pendulum that was swinging against a wall, which then disappeared into a small hole in an overhanging part of the ceiling. We’d see the clock supporting this pendulum in the Minstrel’s Gallery later in the tour. The clock dated back to 1620. It had one hand and a  face showing 24 hours. The pendulum was actually 13-foot long. The ‘P’ (priceless) word was used a lot during the tour and our guides used the ‘P’ word with this clock.    

The ‘P’ word  was also used with the nearby painting, ‘A Dutch Kitchen Scene’ by the Flemish painter Joachim Beuckelaer. I’d been studying this picture for quite a while even before our guide got around to introducing it. I think it was the complexity of the scene that got me interested. There was a lot going on. Two men and two women were in a kitchen. The younger woman appears to be using an amazing metal contraption to make what looks like waffles. The younger man (I’m guessing he was the husband of the younger woman) was looking away, appearing to be deep in thought, probably thinking about how his neighbour's wife's waffles taste much better. An older man was sitting behind the younger woman and you can see his hand coming underneath her armpit and cupping her right breast! The older woman (presumably the wife of the older man), who completed the foursome, was not surprisingly  giving her husband a very disparaging look. I was about to announce my thoughts about my interpretation of this painting to the guide and group, but they had already moved on to the next room. What a remarkable painting. 

Drawing Room

The Drawing Room area was spacious and reasonably light. The lightness was helped by twin mirrors that were placed either side of the fireplace. There was a metal band that went across each mirror about a foot from the top. Our Guide said that when the mirrors were built, they couldn’t produce glass beyond these dimensions and so larger mirrors had to be created from two mirrors which were held together by the metal band. There was some impressive furniture throughout the room, some positioned with Green’s nails on those wonderful dappled floorboards. The best piece was probably the boule marquetry kneehole desk from 1710 and attributed to Nicolas Sageot. The top of the desk was brass inlaid in tortoiseshell and depicts scenes from a performance of the Comedie-Italienne. I could just imagine myself sitting at that glorious desk looking out the window, across the garden to that incredible view of York Minster. 

Court Room

The central piece of the Court Room was a model of a 132 gun ship-of-the line enclosed in a glass box. The Guide said it was believed that it was made by French prisoners at the time of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15), from a combination of bone and whalebone. The rigging was made out of hair and horsehair.
‘Can you imagine how much time it must have taken to create all that rigging?’ asked the Guide. I was about to reply ‘Yes, probably a lot’, but the Guide was continuing his speel.
‘You see that chair there?’ he asked us, and pointed to a ramshackle chair that you’d might find in your attic and then dump in a skip.  
‘You might find that in your attic and then dump it into a skip’ he continued.  His ability to read my mind flabbergasted me for a moment. ‘That’d be a mistake though, because that chair is…’ and yes he said the ‘P’ word. It was a 17th century backstool and still had the original upholstery. Crikey, on first viewing I wouldn’t have given you 5 of my Tesco’s loyalty points for it.
There was a witches ball hanging near the window. I looked into it, but I couldn’t see any witches. 

Stairwell

We all stood around the landing of the stairwell admiring the glass chandelier and the surrounding paintings. The last picture on the stairwell was an oil painting of Admiral Beaumont.   
‘Look at the direction of his left shoe. Is it pointing towards you or away from you?’ the Guide asked me, presumably because she wanted to ridicule me in front of the group. I thought it might be a trick question, but if it was, I couldn’t see the trick.
‘Away from me’ I concluded.
‘Yes, but if you walk along this landing you’ll find that the foot appears to start turning around towards you!' There was a murmur of astonishment throughout the group. We all started moving to the next room and I kept my eye on the picture. Did the foot start turning towards me? Did it buggery. 

Bedroom

We visited 3 (I think) bedrooms in the house. The most interesting artefact to me was a state bed in one of them, or rather the blanket on top of it. Unfortunately the room was quite dark and we were corralled away from it and so weren’t able to get a close look. I think the Guide said it was 17th century, but I may well be wrong. The blanket was embroidered with various fertility symbols. For example, the male’s side (the right side, so you can quickly grab your sword...oooh-eeer!) had a picture of a pomegranate and its seeds. The most bizarre picture though was near the centre of the blanket where a slug on a leaf had been embroidered. It wasn't what I’d personally class as romantic, but times must have changed.    

The bedrooms concluded the tour. We were told that we could go down to the basement where we could have an unguided look around at the kitchen. There was also a café there.

Basement Ghosts

It was 12:30 and I’d missed my 12:00 entry slot for York Minster. I was busting for a pee though and a sign had indicated the toilets were down in the basement area and so I dashed down the stairs to them. With the entry door in sight, my way was blocked by a fellow who had been in our group. He’d had the annoying habit of engaging the Guides in a chat in every room, just as we were leaving for the next one. This meant we had to wait for him to catch up and mostly contributed to our time overrun.
‘I was speaking to a fellow once and he told me that he knew another fellow who was a tradesman and he worked in this basement and saw some ghosts' he told me. I told the chap I’d read about the ghost stories of the house on the National Trust’s website. He ignored me and continued.
‘Well, this fellow, he’s working down here and he sees all these Roman soldiers marching through that wall over there. They were carrying swords and shields. They were visible from the knees up, but when they marched further along, their feet appeared and they were wearing sandals.’ My bladder was near bursting.
‘Would you believe it, archaeologists found a Roman road coming directly through this basement?' I wanted to say that given the amount of Roman remains in York, I didn’t find it so remarkable, but kept quiet since I didn’t want to encourage him.
‘My mate says this fellow was scared for years afterwards.’ I thanked him for sharing his story and dashed around him to the toilets before my bladder exploded and I haunted this house myself. 

In my pre-teens, I read a book called ‘True Ghost Stories.’ They were documented in a book and so believed them to be true. They even had photographs of ghosts that seemed realistic at the time, but are now laughable compared to what can be achieved with digital images nowadays. Later on in my teens, I read the short story, ‘The Open Window’ by Saki. Ever since, I’ve never believed in ghosts. Reading the story was like learning how a magician carries out a trick. Once you discover rationality, there really is no way back. Well, for most people. I suppose it was interesting to visit the location of a memorable childhood ghost story though. 

The Treasurer’s House really had been a treasure trove and I’d enjoyed the tour around its rooms. It was a lot more interesting than I expected. Treasurer’s House complete, I headed off to York Minster. An account of my tour of this can be found in York Minster.