Winter solstice walk, 2004

On the 21 December 2004, the winter solstice, I went for a wander into town. I thought I’d mark the solstice by being by the Minster at midday. Before midday I wandered around Minster Yard and Goodramgate and came back through Dean’s Park. Stood there in the winter sunlight at midday at the Minster’s west end, then went back home via the Museum Gardens and the riverside path, across the area of riverside my friend Vanessa and other locals from that area call ‘Paddy’s Pitch’. At the actual time of the solstice — and it does have an actual time each year — I was standing on Paddy’s Pitch taking photos of trees and their shadows on the sunlit grass. I took a few photos of the views from Paddy’s Pitch in various directions, before heading home.

One or two have notes added in the captions where things have changed. Many things haven’t changed — the Minster and the buildings immediately around it. Most of these images could be replicated today, so perhaps they’re not massively interesting, but they are a record of a walk on this day ten years ago, so I thought it might be nice to share them. I wrote about it back then, but the photos had to be very small, as we were all on dial-up connections.

See also: a few photos taken on the winter solstice 2014.