East Yorkshire is the place to be this year, thanks to Hull’s City of Culture status – and the vibrancy of the city is nicely set off by “mini-York”, coach-friendly Beverley
Wednesday in Beverley. Shoppers throng the streets. A busker plays a Johnny Cash song. Market traders sell fresh veg on old-fashioned market stalls, in a square that has been called 'Wednesday Market' for this very reason for generations.
It's mid-week, and Beverley is alive with happy day-trippers. They come from the seaside towns of Bridlington and Scarborough, or from Hull, the City of Culture. Beverley is the perfect place to soak up four or so hours.
There is so much to enjoy in this picture-perfect little town, though, you could stay a few days and not get bored. And in the last couple of years, coach tour operators have found it to be so as well.
The coach welcome
That’s partly because for the last two years, Beverley has been perfecting its Coach Campaign. It's the brainchild of Sharron Wilson, who is “the Beverley person” for Visit Hull & East Yorkshire, and so far it has done wonders for the town's popularity with coach groups.
It means that coach parties that have booked ahead online for a weekday get:
- Free parking
- Free meet-and-greet
- Free goodie bag for the driver (including £8 meal voucher, drinking beaker, keyring and pen)
- Free goodie bag for each passenger (including shopping discounts, Beverley guide and map, pen and postcard)
- Opportunity to arrange guided tours and walks.
Earlier this year, Beverley enhanced its coach-friendliness further thanks to a partnership with the new retail complex Flemingate. A coach welcome is now operational seven days a week at Flemingate, which offers a slightly different package:
- Free secure coach parking (including overnight on request)
- Free meet-and-greet
- A free goodie bag for the driver (including £8 meal voucher Riva Lounge, and a cinema ticket for any film at the Parkway Cinema).
- Free goodie bag for each passenger (including Beverley guide and map).
A minster calls
Flemingate is just a short stroll from the rest of the town; the Minster is just five minutes away.
At around two-thirds the size of York Minster, Beverley's is an excellent alternative to paying admission and battling the crowds at the other. It's the largest parish church in the country, possibly one of the most beautiful, and is also free to enter. To the untrained eye, there is nothing to distinguish it from the great cathedrals of Britain.
We had an excellent guided tour of the ground floor, followed by a rooftop tour, which takes in the fascinating stories of the masonry and woodwork used to build (and then hold up) this magnificent building since the 12th century, plus the lovely views of the surrounding area through large windows.
The highlight of the roof tour is seeing a large boss, which plugs a hole in the ceiling that once let light shine down from the lantern onto the shrine of St John, winched up to reveal the hole – then you can peer down to the quire below, and see the fine Georgian floor designed for a cube effect in all its 3D glory. Nobody below ever seems to notice that the momentary hole in the ceiling.
Our guide, John Phillips, has a keen architectural knowledge, and our tour takes us around the building chronologically, noting in particular the three major phases of Gothic architecture (Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular, if you really want to know). You can see history at work affecting the building; you can see the break of decades when the Black Death put a stop to the building works.
But other subjects are covered. John makes it especially interesting by linking Beverley Minster to other historic ecclesiastical buildings around the north, including Fountains Abbey and Guisborough Priory – both ruins now, so Beverley is the place to come if you want to see how they might have looked. It’s also linked to Westminster Abbey: First as architect Hawksmoor’s inspiration for the abbey’s towers, and secondly as its double in the ITV series Victoria.
John brings the history to life – telling us, for instance, that the Purbeck marble used was in great demand by church builders in medieval times, and records show that at peak times, a large shipment of stone was leaving the Dorset quarries every 15 minutes.
If you enter Beverley from the west, across the common land of Westwood, look out for the spectacular view of the Minster. Lit up by the sun in the late afternoon, it's simply breathtaking.
Walk through town
Beverley has a second church, so fine that it's often mistaken for the Minster.
St Mary's lies across the town, in the lovely Georgian Quarter. It's well worth a look – it has a beautiful interior and is famous for its 'white rabbit' carved in stone, thought to be the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's White Rabbit in Alice's world.
Also in the Georgian Quarter is North Bar, the only remaining medieval gateway; there were four in Beverley once, even though the town was never walled. Adjacent to that is Bar House, one-time home of the Victorian painters Fred and Mary Elwell, who are locally famous. There is currently a lovely art trail of their work around the town.
Speaking of trails, Beverley offers plenty. The historic Beverley Town Trail is a fascinating treasure hunt, taking in the likes of a little thimble cast into a street bench, to a plaque depicting the madder plant used for making dye – key parts of the town's textile heritage.
VHEY also offers a historic pub guide, detailing all of its 30 wonderful drinking dens. We visited the White Horse, which was called Nellie's for decades and is a key part of every Beverley person's culture. It has preserved Victorian interiors: Think ranges and gas lamps, and a dozen tiny, cosy rooms to drink in. It's wonderful.
The names of the streets alone are evocative of the past: Toll Gavel, Lairgate, Sow Hill Road, Butcher Row, Old Waste.
Walk back into the town and you will encounter the pretty Market Cross; the Saturday Market – which, like its Wednesday counterpart, still thrives every week; and a wealth of side streets, picturesque cafes and lovely shops, including St Crispin Antique Centre.
The little theatre
Beverley's drop-off point is directly out the East Riding Theatre, and the theatre is a good place to head to first, especially if it's raining.
Originally an Edwardian Baptist church, the tiny 200-seat theatre was opened in 2014 by a group of enthusiasts, led by local film actor Vincent Regan, who is best known for performances in 300 and Troy. Beverley is a cultured town, but lacked anywhere to stage its own productions.
It's a wonderful story of community spirit, as businesses were approached by the team to contribute to the renovation.
Before the theatre had even opened, the makers of the Dad's Army movie asked permission to film there – and as a result, much of this lovely building appears in the film as the drill hall. "It was great for the region, because it has attracted other filmmakers," says Manager Sue Kirkman.
Once the filmmakers had gone, the crew had just weeks to rehearse their first production, A Christmas Carol, which played to sell-out audiences over Christmas 2014.
Since then the ERT has played nine original productions, plus countless others.
It pays equity rate to its performers, so to be sustainable going forward it needs public funding.
In the meantime, you can help by taking your groups for coffee and snacks in the bright, vibrant cafe, or even for a performance – the Wednesday matinées are particularly good, Sue says, on wet or wintry days. It's a beautiful, atmospheric little venue, well worth a visit.
Once one of England's biggest towns, different circumstances might have seen Beverley become one of the UK's major cities today. But happily, it remains a tranquil, uncrowded and traditional market town with excellent shopping, unspoilt pubs, a minster to rival any in Britain, and – crucially – a great offering for coach visitors.
