The workshop of Robert Thompson (1876–1955) of Kilburn, North Yorkshire, is famous for mice. Its wooden furniture often features as its standard symbol a life-size mouse, carved discreetly into the piece. Their products are often from oak and found in churches, and the cute rodents are a sly reference to woodworkers and artisans generally being poor as church mice. I think ‘artisan’ covers ‘cycling writer’ too.
I enjoyed hunting for ‘Mouseman’s’ pieces in Howden Minster last week, and realised I’d never seen any of his mice in York. So today I put that right, visiting locations suggested by friends and church people. Here, then, is the York Mouse Trail that takes you to all the Thompson mice I know of. It’s five miles flat trundling round the centre, usually on quiet back lanes or bike paths, starting and finishing at the train station.
You’ll get talking to friendly mouse fans en route. Mouse-bagging, it turns out, is a very sociable activity.
1 York Station: 2 mice
In the entrance to York’s fine station is your first mouse, on a bench by a planter. (The planter gained notoriety during Covid lockdown when it was taken over by a goose family.)
The second is on Platform 3, round the corner. (You can wheel your bike there: no barriers or steps.) It’s on a memorial bench for a woman who evidently loved travelling and sadly died young. Poignant stuff.
From the station, grapple with the traffic down to and over Lendal Bridge, and head for the magnificent Minster there in front of you. There are bike racks on Petergate on your left as you approach the West Door.
2 York Minster: 7–13 mice
The interior has countless wonderful things to see, such as the Rose Window. If you’re a resident you can get in free with proof of address, so you don’t need to get full value from a standard £20 admission like most visitors.
I was very lucky to have a guide, Laura, who knew a lot about mice and where to find them. The Minster’s mice tend to be bas-relief rather than fully 3D figures. This, apparently, is down to the bishops of yore, who perhaps didn’t want their robes to be caught, or maybe wanted the rodents to be as discreet as possible.
She showed me four; if you have longer you can find more, anything from seven to 13 depending on what pieces are out in use and which bits of the interior are open.
And if your quest for rodents ends up taking all day, why not stay to enjoy Evensong? This daily free-to-air performance of sublime music from the Minster’s outstanding resident choir is one of York’s vastly underrated cultural pearls.
A short distance beyond the Minster, on cobbled College Street facing the East Door, is St William’s College.
3 St William’s College: 2 mice
No, this isn’t some constituent of York University (which is perhaps surprisingly a 1960s creation). It’s an ancient part of the Minster which is now used for events and so on. The wooden door has two mice at about head-height, though the one on the left has evidently been chiselled off by a souvenir hunter. (Mice actually fashioned by Thompson himself fetch thousands at auction.)
Proceed down Goodramgate, under Monk Bar, left through the Groves, and up Haxby Road.
4 Joseph Rowntree Theatre: 3 mice
Perhaps the most unexpected of York’s mice. These three are on lamp posts on the left hand side of the entrance path to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, home of many an excellent amateur local stage show. The lamp posts were originally on an avenue in the grounds of the former Joseph Rowntree sweet factory opposite, in the heady 20th-century days when York was a world centre of goodies manufacture. (My recent York Chocolate Trail visits the modern site.)
The three mice are at different heights: the first low down, the last high up. On the facade of the theatre itself, a metal figure of a cat is scrambling along in search of something to maraud. Luckily it seems not to have noticed our little furry chums.
Turn back and take the Foss Island bike path route down to James St, from where you cut through the retail park past Morrison’s, dodge your way over Hungate Bridge, go up Stonebow and Coppergate, over Ouse Bridge, through Bishophill and under the city walls, and find your way along the back of Bishy Road to Scarcroft Road.
5 St Clement’s Church: 5–7 mice
The magnificent Minster may grab the Instagram space, but York has many a community church in more modest materials and styles that are lively little social hubs. St Clement’s is one, and a flyer in the entrance alerts you to the presence of mice inside.
A nice lady congregation member offered us tea and biscuits, showed us four, and reckoned there were six or seven all told. The best time to come is the first weekend in July, when there’s a Mouse Trail that reveals all.
From here it’s under five minutes back to the station through a park and along Nunnery Lane. If you’re in need of refreshment, you pass a Wetherspoon at a crossroads by Micklegate Bar; or there’s the superb York Tap in the station itself on Platform 4, plus the usual range of concourse coffee opportunities.
MAP