York and a pub crawl 3

Evensong at York Minster is a delight and with the exception of Sunday it takes place every day at 5.15pm.  The moderate congregation that gathers is guided through The Crossing and under the 15th century Quire Screen.  The screen is one of the most striking parts of the cathedral and it is hard as you file through not to be aware of the watchful and imperious stares of the eight early Kings of England which are carved into it.  Seated in amongst the choir in The Quire (I think it’s pronounced choir too) there is time before the service begins to settle down and let your eyes drift over the ornate wood carvings of the pews and up to the beautiful simplicity of the cream and gold ceiling a long way above you. Having a choir to sing Evensong with you surely helps it a long and there is another upside – it meant I could sing away to my hearts content without having other members of the congregation looking round to see if someone had stood on a cat.  If you are in York early evening I would recommend getting yourself along to the Minster and for the 40 or so minutes of piety and atonement you get to wander around FOC for about 45 minutes afterwards. That trade-off certainly gets my vote. Having had my spiritual fill more practical needs took over and I suddenly realised I was very hungry indeed. My plan was to have something suitably hearty to set me up for the evening ahead. I had taken a few moments now and then during my stroll back from the Jorvik Viking Museum on Coppergate to stop and look at a menu or two but nothing was really engaging me and so I decided I would go back to the Coach House and eat in the restaurant there.  But before that I wanted to wander over to the £210/night Dean Court Hotel and see what I was missing.  The Dean Court Hotel does have a very fine location – right on the Minster plaza and a step away from the Shambles and other tourist attractions.  It has a fine and imposing Victorian red brick exterior and over the course of 140 years has been transformed from three separate dwellings into one 4* hotel.  The inside, though, is a tragedy.