Today we took a road trip up to the beautiful city of York. We set off early to arrive just as the attractions were opening, but even though I was outside York Minster as it opened at 10am, I had to stand in-line for nearly 30 minutes to gain entry. This is by far the busiest cathedral I’ve ever visited, with what must’ve been at least two coach-loads of tourists queueing to get in.
Finally inside, I missed the first tower tour by 15 minutes due to the queue, so I started to explore the rest of the cathedral. I started with the crypt underneath the Quire, low ceilings, fairly dark, and filled with sarcophagi, it lived up to its name. I thought there was a passage to the Undercroft here as well, but the way was shut, I’d have to take a different entrance to reach there.
Out of the crypt and on to the ground floor again, there were beautiful marble and stone painted statues everywhere, including one of my new favourite Archbishop, Matthew Hutton, who was the Archbishop of York between 1595 and 1606, who has the first statue I’ve ever seen of a servant of God, where he’s lying down resting his head on his hand, like he’s watching TV!
I’d also never seen a “cope chest” before (a chest for storing copes, obviously), I’d have assumed you’d just keep your copes in your wardrobe on a hanger next to your T-shirts, but no, apparently you need an old oak chest the size of a small bed!
The stained glass throughout the cathedral was very impressive, at each end of the building were the “Great West Window” (looking over the Nave which was empty of pews but had dozens of tourists looking round taking pictures, myself included) and “Great East Window”, then on either side in the South Transept was the “Rose Window” (a beautiful circular window with stone-structured “petals”) and in the North Transept was the “Five Sisters Window” (5 extremely tall and incredibly detailed windows).
The rest of the architecture was also stunning, I particularly liked the intricate golden detail in “The King’s Screen” which separates the Nave from the Quire.
By now it was nearly time for my tower tour, but I had to stop and admire the Chapel of Saint Nicholas first, the patron saint of children, a nice brightly coloured chapel with a toybox that’s free for any children who visit the cathedral to sit and play under Saint Nicholas’ watch. I thought this was really lovely, something I’ve not seen before in any cathedral. It’s also the home of the cathedral’s small children’s group called the Minster Mice.
Time to climb the tower. Unlike in Ely cathedral, there was no stopping all the way to the top. In Ely, we stopped after each quarter for a little chat with our guide and to admire the architecture, but here there was no guide, and it was just a non-stop climb all the way to the top. A much less personable approach and much more tiring for everyone, but it was a much quicker tour, I was up and down in under 30 minutes compared to Ely which was just over an hour.
The first opportunity for pictures was half way up to the top, where you walk about 15 metres from the Southern-most mini-tower of the South Transept outside to the central tower before continuing the climb. The buttresses and gargoyles look great from here.
The climb from this half-way-point to the top of the central tower was much steeper, more cramped, and made a few people on the walk up rather dizzy. It’s funny how many people you hear saying things like “I didn’t know there would be this many steps!” or “no-one said it’d be this steep”, despite the fact that you’re made to read the safety notice before buying your ticket at the front desk. The very top of the cathedral is covered in chicken-wire, which takes away from the views somewhat unfortunately. There are about a dozen holes in the chicken wire that you can poke a camera through, but generally once you’re at the top you’re mainly looking through a wall of chicken-wire to admire the view.
I decided to go back downstairs ahead of the crowd so as not to be held up, and found out that the faster you go down a spiral staircase, the more dizzy you get! Helen wanted me to take a couple of snaps of the staircases to give her an idea of how steep and narrow they are, since she struggles with medieval stairs.
From the very top of the cathedral to the very bottom, I continued going downstairs to the Undercroft, a little museum of the history of York Minster. Down here I learnt that the cathedral itself was built on the site of an ancient Roman fort, the remains of which can be seen semi-excavated underneath the cathedral. A large number of maps show the layout of the old Roman ruins, overlayed with the current outline of the cathedral, and a short video played through the evolution of the site, showing how the cathedral organically grew over the centuries.
Another chamber in the Undercroft showed the cathedral’s dedication to those who had given their lives during World War I, of particular interest was “The King’s Book of York Heroes” from 1920, a very large book with oak covers, a leather spine, and silver hinges. The book holds a photograph and biography or obituary of the 1153 men who died during WWI, and a further 300 or so people who have since been killed in combat, all of which who had previously lived in York itself. The book was commissioned as a memoriam of these people, in order to have something tangible for family members and friends to see in York, since nearly all of the graves of the men lost during WWI were abroad either in France or elsewhere. The lighting in this room was unfortunately very poor, so I regretfully couldn’t get a good picture of the book itself.
After reading several more plaques and inspecting various other trinkets, it was time to leave the Minster to meet back up with Helen. Outside, we took a walk around the cathedral and took a few pictures of it, by this time the clouds had started to part and the sun was shining.
The view from the South side outside shows off the “Rose Window”, and is in my opinion the nicest angle to view the Minster from.
By this point it was getting close to midday, and after all that climbing up and down towers, I was ready for some lunch. We went down the road and stopped off at a Cafe Rouge for a croque madame and a steak baguette before continuing our tour of York.