It was truly a wonderful day, gorgeous blue sky, bright sunshine and the stones of York Minster just shone. I walk past the Minster several times a week, at the moment it is in the dark, both morning and evening, so I made a special effort on a sunny January day to spend some time getting to know it better, there is so much to appreciate, and next time I will take binoculars because so much of the stained glass and carvings in stone and wood are so very, very high. York Minster was visible from our house in Richmond on clear winter days when the wind was in the north. It was right on the horizon to the south, over fifty miles away. It dominates the city of York, you catch glimpses of it wherever you are, and as you approach York, whether by road or rail, the towers of the Minster seem to act as a guide. So this month I am taking you on a little tour, mostly pictures, and I hope you will appreciate the magnificent artistry that ornaments York Minster. We will look around the outside of the building first. It is positioned right in the middle of Roman Eboracum and the remains of the "Principia" are under the foundations of the earliest church on this site. Eboracum, the name of the Roman city, was established about the year AD 71 when the 9th Legion moved north from Lincoln. On the south side of the Minster, totally dwarfed by its neighbour, is the church of St Michael le Belfry, famously the church where Guy Fawkes was baptised on the 16th of April 1570. He was educated at St Peter's School in York, which never burns a guy on the 5th of November, and he was executed on the 31st of January 1606. Then right next to the south door is this rather splendid statue of the Roman Emperor Constantine. He was declared Emperor when he was in York [AD 306] and during his reign the Roman Empire took the Christian faith. All around the outside of the Minster there are curious carvings such as these. This also shows how the stone is being weathered away, and you can see the face on the right is a recent replacement. The Minster stone is mostly magnesium limestone from quarries near Tadcaster. The modern replacement stones are being sourced from the same area. Air pollution has degraded many of the fine carvings and the Stone Yard, opposite the minster, has a continuous programme of replacing damaged pieces. I can (just) remember when the Minster was cleaned sometime in the early 1960s and suddenly shone white after being blackened by smoke from centuries of coal fires. This carving looks as if it was an image of one of the original masons. There is much more to see outside, but I will save that for another time. Now we will go in by the West Door. Like so many of our great cathedrals York does now charge for entry, but when you see what restoration work is going on you appreciate it is worth it. There is always something happening in the Minster, the day that I visited workmen were on scaffolding vacuuming dust from the stone carving, several school groups were going round with their teachers, and tourists aplenty, even in January. I am not very happy going underground, but the crypt has evidence of the very earliest churches that preceded the current Minster. Here King Edwin was baptised by Paulinus. It wasn't underground then of course, just that the present church is built above earlier ones. Edwin was king of Northumbria and had married Ethelburga of Kent who was a Christian, evidently she spent 17 years praying for her husband until he too was converted to Christianity in 627. Paulinus is a nice link to Swaledale. He had come as a missionary from Rome and when he was made Bishop of York in 627 one of his first acts in his new province was to have a mass baptism in the River Swale near Catterick. The crypt is also the burial place of St William. He was an Archbishop of York in 1141, deposed in 1147 and re-elected in 1153. When he came back to the City such a crowd met him on Ouse Bridge that it collapsed and everyone fell into the river (which is deep). No one drowned and this was seen as such a miracle that after he died in 1154 his burial place became a shrine (part of this is in the Yorkshire Museum having been rescued after the Reformation), and miracles were attributed to him. He was canonised in 1227. His tomb is in the picture above surrounded by a mosaic of the swirling waters of the River Ouse. There are many very splendid memorials, I could not tell you about them all, but a link to the Yorkshire dales is through the Hutton family. There were two Matthew Huttons who became Archbishops of York. The first was born in 1529 and came from Priest Hutton in Lancashire between Kirkby Lonsdale and Carnforth. He died in 1605. He married three and times and established quite a fortune which set up his family very nicely. He gave his son Timothy Hutton £1,900 on his wedding day which set him up as a country gentleman at Marske in Swaledale, establishing a very long line of Huttons of Marske. There is a splendid Hutton memorial in Richmond Parish Church. The second Archbishop Matthew Hutton was born at Marske in 1693, went to school at Kirkby Hill near Richmond, then Ripon and on to Cambridge. He had the ear of all the right people and climbed the clerical ladder until he became Archibshop of York in1747 and Canterbury in 1757. The memorial above is to Matthew Hutton number one. This is the great east window, sometimes referred to as the Cistine Chapel of glass. It is WONDERFUL, and so huge. How did they even imagine that they could create a wall that contained so much glass and it would remain upright ? This has just been restored at great cost, I think £11.5 million. It is the largest stained glass window in the world and dates from 1405 -1408. Can you believe it is so old ? It measures seventy six feet by thirty two feet. The stories in the glass are taken from the Genesis and Revelation on the theme of God the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. Then just as I turned to walk away from the east window this stone is in the floor. In a vault under this marble are deposited the remains of Margaret Wharton, daughter and coheiress of Anthony Wharton Esq of Gillingwood Hall in this County who departed this life the 9th of September 1791 in the 97th year of her age. Mary her sister who is interred in the same vault died May 21st 1776 aged 77. So another link to Swaledale in York Minster. When my children were little and we came to York often, I would notice the time and make sure we were in the Minster approaching a quarter and position them in front of this clock and tell them to watch the knights striking the time with the lances. It still fascinates me. And at certain times after the clocks have chimed everyone is asked to pause and pray, reminding all visitors the purpose of the building and that it has been a place of prayer since the time of King Edwin and Paulinus. This is another of the wonders of York Minster, the Five Sisters' window. Each of the five lancets is fifty three feet high and five feet wide and was completed in 1250. Yes, 1250, isn't that amazing. It could be that the name is a corruption of "five Cistercians", I'm not sure about that but possibly. And just around the corner is the Chapter House. This is the original door. A great design for embroidery? Or quilting ? But the Chapter House has more great designs - The floor - think patchwork here -but not appreciated by all. In an old guide book to York the writer condemns restoration work done in 1843 and calls it "disastrous work" and "inflicted on the buiding a commonplace tiled floor" .... well I quite like it. The ceiling - it just takes your breath away - a nice cushion design ? And all around the Chapter House are the most amusing carvings, just in case the Chapter Meeting was a bit boring. The Chapter House is octagonal, the roof seems to have no supports, and was built between 1260 and 1286. This is the Cathedra, where the Archbishop or Bishop sits, and you can't call a big church a Cathedral unless it has one. Back in the Nave workmen were still cleaning, parts of the Minster are under scaffolding (it is like the Forth Bridge in that respect) and the Choir Screen and organ are currently under restoration. Not all the art work is ancient. This altar frontal is very modern and the work of the Minster embroiderers, it is exquisite. And not all the art work is sacred ! This piece of very ancient glass shows monkeys getting up to various tricks. And here is a stag chasing a hound ! This is the view of the Minster from where I catch my bus. I hope I never take it for granted. The great bell called Big Peter booms out across the city spurring me on , I usually catch the bus by the skin of my teeth. Big Peter is in the tower on the left in this picture and weighs nearly eleven tons. Sometimes the Carrillon is playing hymn tunes and I join in because I know the words ! I don't think many others sing along in the bus queue ! The Carillon was installed in 2008 and has thirty five bells, so can play quite a selection of hymn tunes. These are in the right hand tower in the picture above. I don't think I had appreciated just how OLD the minster is. What we see was built over two centuries between 1220 and 1480, the towers above were built between 1432 and 1474. And they are still there. Will anything we build today last as long ? This is a very special place and I am very grateful to Clive, a chaplain at the Minster, who was my personal guide. [And the Dean Court Hotel just opposite the west door is a very good place for afternoon tea.]
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AuthorThis is where you can share creativity with me. I believe that everyone has something creative within them, and it is a joy to find ways of being creative. Blogging is NEW to me, so here goes ..... Archives
January 2024
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