Carolyn's Various Travels: Day 8- Yorkminster

I was completely captivated by Yorkminster cathedral. Cathedral = seat of a bishop; Minster = mission church in the region. Some Cathedrals are not minsters, some minsters are not cathedrals, some are both. From our first glimpse down the city street (below) to our inside and tower tour, I took so many pictures!

This was taken from my city wall walk the next day. It's my favorite photo!

As we approached the church, the bells were ringing. There are 14 change ringing bells, 35 carillon bells (Played by keyboard), and Great Peter (which weights 10 tons). Learn more. A wedding party was standing out front taking pictures. I wish we could have seen the bell tower, but that was not an option.

The Nave is remarkably long - longer than a football field! You can see all the way from one end to the other.

Despite its prominence, this dragon high in the wall of the Nave is a bit of a mystery. It is speculated that it was used to hoist heavy objects like the lid of the baptismal font. It has a hole in the neck where a chain might have fit.

Looking straight up at the central tower ceiling.

Five Sisters windows. These windows were finished in 1250. Each one is over 50' high. The style of the glass is 'grisaille' - French for grey (gris) with finely painted uncolored glass set in bold geometric patterns (close up seen further down). In 1925, a local effort to restore the windows in memorial to the women who died in service of their country in WWI began.

North transept ceiling

The Chapter House was beautiful and an interesting contrast to the one in Westminster. Various clerical leaders would meet here (there was not a monastic community on site).

I asked about the beautiful tile floor in the Chapter House and was told it dated to the Victorian era (much newer than the one we saw in Westminster in London.

Astronomical clock given in memorial for Royal Air Force members killed during WWII. The sun rises and sets on the horizon throughout the year at the correct time. It also has a working star map.

The crypt was a mix of old and new. At one part it had been filled in with rubble, then cleared and restored, but some of the pillars needed shoring up.

Here is an old pillar with modern brick vaulting around and over it.

You can see more pillar remenants in the center of the aisle here.

The Doomstone survives from the first Norman minister on the site. It shows the mouth of Hell - with demons pushing lost souls into a pot of boiling oil. There is a man carrying two bags of gold, symbolizing greed, a woman symbolizing lust, and toads which were considered magical and evil.

The diagram above is a guide to some of the biblical references in the window at the very front of the nave. So many windows and different stories!

This is the Quire. It seats approximately 100 people and it was filled with people worshiping at Evensong. We got to attend and listen to a choir from the Netherlands sing. The organ played a magnificent postlude! It dates back to the 1800s. The older organ that was there before was burned along with all of the woodwork in the Quire in an arson-set fire in 1829.

You can get an idea of how big the some of the pipes are with the person walking by for scale.

This is Ketton stone from a pinnacle on the roof of the cathedral. It dates to the 1800s, but is gradually being removed because it reacts chemically with the medieval limestone. It's composition is prone to deterioration. This and other carved pieces will eventually be auctioned off to raise funds for future restoration work.

[from wikipedia]

In 1984, a serious fire destroyed the roof of the South Transept. More than 100 firefighters from across the county came to try to get it under control and decided to collapse the roof to prevent it from spreading further. Investigations indicated it was likely caused by a lightning strike.

When the ceiling was rebuilt, there was a competition among children to design the bosses that go between the ceiling arches. I think my favorite is the diver and the whale in the bottom left corner.

You can see it in the ceiling in the center of the photo.

After touring around on the ground level, we got tickets to climb to the top of the central tower - always my favorite experience when exploring castles and churches.

Love the flying buttresses supporting the walls of the nave!

The first 100 or so stairs took us to the top of the south transept, then across the roofline to another even tighter set of spiral stairs.

Here is an outside look at some of the grisaille glass windows.

The geometric patterns are quite detailed!

After 275 steps - the equivalent of 21 stories - we made it to the top!

The Tower weighs 16 million kilograms, the equivalent of 1,400 double decker buses, or 40 474 jets, twice the weight of the Eiffel tower!

Western nave and bell towers.

On top of the Quire roof -Yes, those are solar panels! I asked one of the staff members about them and he said they provided a good portion of the power for the building. The building has a Gold sustainability rating! Quite unique for a medieval gothic church building. Read more

We ended our visit by attending the Evensong service where a choir from the Netherlands was singing. We also got to hear the beautiful organ. We got to sit right in the Quire stalls behind the singers.

Looking out of the Quire area to the western nave.

The church is longer than a US football field. I couldn't really get far enough away to take a good picture of the whole building. You can see the front bell towers on the far left, and the eastern end to the far right.