Burgins. The best reason to visit York

Go to York.
It's a beautiful place, with its Minster (not a cathedral because it was built by public subscription), Betty's tea rooms, the medieval walls, tiny cobbled streets to get lost in, the National Railway Museum, river boats, and Burgins Perfumery. It's at 2 Coney Street, YO1 9NA.

In York, I generally arrive at the station, get on a bus, visit my mother, get on another bus and go home. Yesterday it was sunny and I decided to walk to the town centre, find something to eat, then take the bus from further along its route. On the way, I spotted a shop I'd only ever seen when it was closed, a small Victorian perfumery with a huge range of scents. Yesterday I was there during opening hours and in the window was a bottle of Ma Griffe reduced from £70 to £22. (It was still in its box of course.) I'm not a huge fan of Ma Griffe, but as I didn't have any and as it's one of those your really ought to have in the collection, in I went.

It's November. They have the new releases that you'll read about in Grazia, and the Christmas gift boxes, but on their beautiful, original wooden shelves they've carefully arranged a huge, floor to ceiling range of classic scents. They have perfumes that most department stores don't bother with because they aren't all the rage: Chanel Cristalle, the more obscure Guerlain masterpieces, Dior gems from the 50s, 60s and 70s (the modern versions, not the originals to be fair). They don't have Lancome. "Department stores" said my chap. Perhaps L'Oreal, their owners, don't bother to supply independents. Stuff L'Oreal; they're missing a trick. There was an abundance of masterpieces at Burgins to satisfy my olfactory desires.
I left with Poison, the original, not one of new watered down versions, ("Courageous," commented the helpful, professional and completely un-judgemental chap who was serving me. Mr Burgin perhaps? I promised not to wear it outdoors.) I took one of the bottles of Ma Griffe; there's one more at £22 for the person who gets there first. I also wandered away with a 50ml Miss Dior, and Tocade by Rochas, one which Luca Turin praises to the skies and which I'd never smelled before. Stunning stuff.

So today I'm wearing Miss Dior. Burgins of York (and my mother) can expect frequent visits.

Pierre Guerlain's House by the Seaside

This is Pierre Guerlain's 19th Century house by the sea, on the Somme Estuary in a little town called Le Crotoy, Picardie. Pierre Guerlain was the founder of the perfume dynasty, and perfumer to the French imperial family. He had the house built expecting a visit from the Empress Eugenie, but she never turned up.

It's now an eco hotel, Les Tourelles, about an hour from Boulogne if you take the quick route. (There are two turrets, it's just that the second one is directly behind the first so you can't see it here.)

The restaurant is a delight, and specialises in seafood, naturally enough, although now the Euro is so wickedly powerful against the pound, if you want to eat there you just have to pretend it's Monopoly money.

That's the view from our window.


The beach is perfect for sandcastles, fine and slightly muddy, a blend of estuary clay and thousands of years of ground up sea shells. The British were out there every day with their buckets and spades building and rebuilding elaborate defences. The bird sanctuary opposite is the temporary home to thousands of shrieking gulls in the far distance.

So the only little problem I had with visiting Pierre Guerlain's former home, a hotel which my wonderful chap hand picked for me because I love perfume, is that there is not one single reference to the chap, his work, his legacy or that he ever lived there at all. The tourist centre has nothing about him. A street is named after him, but otherwise, not a thing. I wore Shalimar, but that was the only olfactory echo of his family's work I could find in the place. Perhaps we're the only people ever to visit specifically in search of perfume history.

If I lived there, I'd open a specialist perfumery and inhale the same sea air as Monsieur Guerlain, then see what inspiration followed.

PS Beware of idiot Englishmen who don't realise that eco hotels don't have air conditioning.