River Ouse

Let's go.

Cross the river Ouse from the station and within five minutes you're standing in the York Museum Gardens.

Ten acres of free leafy calm and the oldest ground in the city.

Because in the year 71 AD, a Roman legion built a fortress here and named it Iboracum.

Situated roughly 100 miles south of where the head, hands and upper thigh were found, what had Ian done to end up dead and dismembered? Who had he cheated, hurt, offended or blackmailed? The answer is no one.

Six days after the dissected thigh was found in the river Witham, another 95 miles northeast, a team of workers for the Environment Agency were clearing a site on the river Ouse at Skelton, near York, when they stumbled across an identical parcel.

An adult human thigh, wrapped in black bin bags, sealed with electrical tape, with the flesh jagged and ripped, and severed near the hip bone and the knee.

DNA would later prove that they belonged to Ian, But as the river Witham doesn't directly link to the river Ouse, except by a meandering series of rivers and open water, it became clear to the police that his body hadn't been dumped in one spot and then drifted away.

It had been deliberately scattered.

So far, a head, two hands and two thighs were found.

When they looked forward to the harvest of the scythe and sickle, nor dreamt that autumn would bring upon them the sharp chastisement of the sword.

York was the prize for which the invaders offered, and, sailing up the Ouse, they moored at their fleet at the village of Raquel, ten miles from the city, upon which they at once directed their march.

Charles, Edward, and Morcar made strenuous efforts to arrest the invaders, but the northern forces were insufficient to meet so numerous and powerful an army as that of Hardrada.

nevertheless the brothers assembled such troops as they could collect and took up a position at fulford to cover the city hadrada occupied a defensive position with the river on his right flank and the morass on his left edward and morcar showed no lack of spirit in the combat which ensued and promptly charged the norwegian lines which they penetrated making a very great slaughter but being too weak in numbers to reap the full advantage of their valor they were unable to rout the ranks which they had thrown into disorder and the norwegians clung to their ground and maintained a hand-to-hand conflict until the arrival of large reinforcements from the fleet enabled them to push back the Northumbrian ranks, and to charge them in turn.

The Anuas were again at York in the following January, on the occasion of the marriage festivities of King Edward and Queen Philippa.

The foreigners distinguished themselves by firing the suburbs of the city, and by insulting the wives, daughters, and female servants of the citizens, who challenged them to mortal combat.

The foreigners lost 527 men, slain by the sword or the waters of the Ouse, and slaughtered 242 Englishmen.

Several parliaments were held at York in Edward's reign, and when David Bruce invaded Northumbria in 1346, Queen Philippa raised her standard in the city.

In Lower's English Surnames, I found a story of the Osborne name which, whether true or false, mirrors the times and depicts the light regard medieval monarchs had for the lands and property of the people that were vested in the Crown.

Walter, a Norman knight and a great favorite of King William I, playing at chess with his sire on a summer evening on the banks of the River Ouse, won all he played for.

The king said he had nothing more to play for and was about to quit the game.

"Sire," said Walter, "here is land." "There is so," replied King William, "and I will further play with thee.

Yeah, I would just say one thing.

I mean, York's been, you mentioned the River Ouse.

Yeah.

It's had a load of problems with flooding, hasn't it, in the last, you know, 20 years or so.

But we live in a very busy world, and people have been giving this a go.

So the River Ouse, the River Wye, these have both been given a status, so they, you know, the local council has declared that they do have some rights.

So should all rivers be individually be given rights, Paul, or do you think someone should nationally give all the rivers rights? Like, how does this work? Does it work best when it comes from every individual local community, or does it work best when there's some kind of national decision that all our rivers are gonna have rights?

[laughs] I'm gonna be quite annoying and say it's obviously both.

With him was Tosti, Harold Godwinson's own brother, a man whose family tree was basically a circle of knives.

They had sailed three hundred ships up the River Ouse, burning York, taking hostages, and laughing in the autumn sun.

They thought the English were asleep.

They didn't know Harold Godwinson, and this is where the story gets impossible.

While the army was conquering lands, they were also constructing infrastructure.

The first bridges over the Humber and Ouse rivers were rebuilt with timber piles to support larger vessels, enabling a faster movement of troops across northern England.

Moreover, they laid out street plans for their new towns, Bishopsgate and Yorkwick, based on Roman grid principles but adapted with Scandinavian orientation, creating a unique urban fabric that would endure centuries.

The economic impact was measurable.

On the twentieth of September, the Viking army clashed with Anglo-Saxon forces near Fulford.

The battle saw a pitched engagement at the eastern bank of the River Ouse.

The Northumbrian earls Edwin and Morcar met a determined and well-coordinated Norse assault.

Despite initial confusion, the Vikings quickly broke through the Saxon line with superior discipline and heavier infantry.