Fiona Phillips and Cllr Runciman, right, at the symptom-free testing site HUNDREDS of symptom-free retail, hospitality and transport staff have booked in for free coronavirus tests at York s rapid test centre since it opened on Monday. And now people who support, live or work with vulnerable people can get a free test, even if they have no symptoms. Around one in three people with the virus have no symptoms so it is hoped that testing will help reduce the spread. The rapid tests provide results in an hour and are being carried out at Foss Sports Hall at York St John University s Lord Mayor’s Walk campus.
IF you ve never been to Yearsley Woods, then you re in for a treat - weather permitting, of course. No,we re not talking about a small patch of trees beside the River Foss in York. This is a proper forest woodland in the Howardian Hills 10 miles or so north of the city. It gets its name from the tiny hamlet of Yearsley, near Ampleforth. And it is glorious. The woods aren t, perhaps, that ancient. Most of the trees are Forestry Commission plantations that date from the 20th century. But there are pockets of traditional English woodland, too. And as Margaret Atherden points out in her wonderful new book Woodland Walks in North and West Yorkshire , the plantations overlie a hidden 18th century landscape which includes carriage drives, fish ponds, the site of a water mill - and even an old deer park.
Martial arts champion and instructor Tony Dias talks to TONY KELLY about the pursuit of his sporting passion. THERE’S an unyielding steel allied to a calming reserve about Tony Dias – qualities which have served him so well for nigh on three decades of competitive combat. Those self-same traits he showed in abundance on the martial arts world stage and they are the same characteristics which he consistently tries to convey to his pupils. For the last three years Dias has dazzled at the highest level and for the last 17 years he has helped a posse of youngsters and adults shine in a variety of disciplines at the United Martial Arts College he runs in Malton.
BATHED in moonlight, Horton Hall looks every inch the magnificent mansion it used to be. Demolished in 1960, the grand house, in Bradford’s Little Horton, was home to Abraham Sharp, assistant to John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal. Sharp had a study above the porch and extended it as an observatory for his telescope. “I painted it in the moonlight because the resident was a famous mathematician and astronomer. The light is on in his study,” says artist Kate Lycett, who captured the long-gone house. Horton Halll is one of a number of lost castles, mansions and grand buildings in West Yorkshire that Kate has brought back to life after painstaking research into their history.
Booking open for mass coronavirus testing in York - even if you have no symptoms YORK residents can now book a free coronavirus test even if they have no symptoms. But the tests will only be available to people who work in retail, hospitality or transport - including taxi drivers - at first. It is hoped asymptomatic testing will then open up to people who work with vulnerable residents. The rapid tests will provide results in 30 minutes and be carried out at York St John University s Foss Sports Hall on the Lord Mayor’s Walk campus. People working in the retail, hospitality or transport sectors, and who are free of Coronavirus symptoms, can book online by visiting york.gov.uk/SymptomFreeCOVIDTest.