Is this my favourite bit of York?
I think it might be
I’m starting this newsletter with a quick notice: if you have purchased a print from me through my website in the last few years, please don’t miss the information further down about something to go with it. Now that bit of business is out of the way, I’ll move on to the main reason I’m writing which is to invite you to visit a rather lovely area of my home city.
While York is not short of treasures, surprises, delights and so much history you can positively feel it through your feet, I do sometimes think the area around Stonegate1 is extra special. This week I have a particular reason to encourage you to visit; on Saturday an exhibition by York Printmakers opens in the small but perfectly formed Pyramid Gallery at 43 Stonegate. Our work will be up until the end of November and printmakers will be there in person for the formal opening on Saturday 8th November, from 11am to 2pm. On any other day though (Monday to Saturday, 10am-5pm) you will still find an equally warm welcome from gallery owner Terry and manager Fi.
Once you have finished exploring the gallery and you step outside the door you will see York Minster looming up on your right, but tempting though it will be to visit, I would urge you to save that and instead turn left and spend a bit more time on Stonegate which is filled with fascinating shops. Right next door to Pyramid Gallery is the rabbit warren of the Antiques Centre where you can find extraordinary things like the bronze age arrowheads I gave to my son for his birthday one year (rather different from an Amazon voucher). A few doors further along at Number 35, you might spot the first ever stained glass Blue Plaque, which marks the bookshop where the first volumes of Tristram Shandy were sold. Next door to that outside Number 33 you come to the Printer’s Devil effigy (remember him?) on the wall at the entrance to Coffee Yard. Turn left down this narrow snickelway, and after a few echoey yards you will emerge into the daylight and discover my happy place, Barley Hall, where you may know I volunteer as a room guide. This alone is reason enough to come here, but in the last few weeks an additional reason has been added. The building which forms the north side of the courtyard (with Barley Hall making the east and south sides), and which nearly 300 years ago was Thomas Gent’s print workshop2, has recently reopened as a rather lovely coffee shop. It has been named ‘The Langton’ which reflects the fact that Coffee Yard was once called Langton Lane, and the coffee is quite honestly the best I have ever drunk in York. The pastries are pretty darn good too. (No I am not on commission). Sit for a while and imagine you are in a Georgian coffee house with the thinkers, wits and gossips of the day, because that is in fact exactly what this building became after Thomas Gent moved his presses out.
So authentic I’ve got a certificate to prove it
I have recently started supplying Certificates of Authenticity3 with print orders and will also be providing them for gallery sales (such as at Pyramid Gallery). For a short time* I am also offering them to previous customers, so if you have purchased a print through my website since 2020 and would like a certificate, please drop a line to hello@janeduke.com and I will be happy to send one. I will need your name and address, which should match the original order, and also the print title and the approximate date of purchase. I’m afraid this applies only to online or invoiced purchases as I don’t have the necessary records to authenticate sales made in person at print fairs and events. (Also because of postage costs I have to limit this offer to UK addresses).
*until the end of the month or the first 50 requests, whichever comes first.
New print
I mentioned last time that I was making a simple mini-print as a bit of light relief. Well, as I should have expected, the ‘simple’ print ended up being 12 colours printed over 8 layers and there wasn’t a great deal of light relief.
The image is the gravel-based Mediterranean Garden at Beningbrough Hall which has been created to be more resilient in the hotter, drier conditions we are now experiencing through climate change.
‘Beningbrough’ is an edition of 12 and is in my shop now at just £25, which reflects the 10 x 10cm size but not the time taken to make it. I find the biggest challenge with mini-prints is keeping them simple, but as the whole point is to offer more affordable pieces of art to visitors at fairs and open studios, I really am going to have to be more sensible about how long I spend on them.
I am now back on more familiar ground and am working on another 20 x 30 cm woodland image which I can make as detailed and complicated as I like (and no doubt will).
Do come and visit us at Pyramid Gallery if you are able, but if not I’ll see you again next time. Thanks as ever for reading.
Jane
Additional notes for history nerds: Stonegate is a VERY old road. It was the Roman Via Praetoria which led to the Basilica, where York Minster is now. It has been called Stonegate since at least the early 12th century for uncertain reasons; the name might even suggest the original Roman paving had survived that long. (‘Gate’ is Norse for ‘street’ and the city’s Viking legacy means many York street names end in ‘gate’).
I wrote about the eccentricities of 18th century printer Thomas Gent a couple of years ago.
A Certificate of Authenticity is a document describing a specific artwork, signed and dated by the artist to confirm their authorship.