York Minster - Discount Hotel Reservations York Hotels

York Minster is an imposing Anglican Gothic cathedral in York, Northern England. It is the seat of the Archbishop of York, and cathedral for the Diocese of York.

It has a very wide Decorated Gothic nave and chapter house, a Perpendicular Gothic choir and east end, and Early English north and south transepts. The nave contains the West Window, constructed in 1338, and the Great East Window (finished in 1408) over the Lady Chapel in the east end. In the north transept is the Five Sisters Window, each lancet being over 16 metres high. The organ in the choir has been destroyed by fire on two occasions; the current instrument dates from 1829 and was substantially restored in 1993.

York Minster (daily: June-Sept 7am-8.30pm; Oct-May 7am-6pm; £3 donation requested; ) ranks as one of the country's most important sights. Seat of the Archbishop of York, it is Britain's largest Gothic building and home to countless treasures, not least of which is the world's largest medieval stained-glass window and an estimated half of all the medieval stained glass in England. In its earliest incarnation the Minster was probably the wooden chapel used to baptize King Edwin of Northumbria in 627. After its stone successors were destroyed by the Danes, the first significant foundations were laid around 1080 and it was from the germ of this Norman church that the present structure emerged. The oldest surviving fabric, in the south transept, dates from 1220 and the reign of Archbishop Walter de Grey. A new chapter house, in the Decorated style, appeared in 1300, and a new nave in the same style was completed in 1338. The Perpendicular choir was realized in 1450 and the western towers in 1472. In 1480, the thirteenth-century central tower, which had collapsed in 1407, was rebuilt, thereby bringing the Minster to more or less its present state.

Nothing else in the Minster can match the magnificence of the stained glass in the nave and transepts. The West Window (1338) contains distinctive heart-shaped upper tracery (the "Heart of Yorkshire"), whilst in the nave's north aisle, the second bay window (1155) contains slivers of the oldest stained glass in the country. The north transept's Five Sisters Window is named after the five fifty-foot lancets, each glazed with thirteenth-century grisaille , a distinctive frosted, silvery-grey glass. Opposite, the south transept contains a sixteenth-century, 17,000-piece Rose Window , commemorating the 1486 marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, an alliance which marked the end of the Wars of the Roses. The greatest of the church's 128 windows, however, is the majestic East Window (1405), at 78ft by 31ft the world's largest area of medieval stained glass in a single window. Its themes are the beginning and the end of the world, the upper panels showing scenes from the Old Testament, the lower sections mainly episodes from the book of Revelation.

Before leaving the main body of the interior, give some time to the north transept's 400-year-old wooden clock with its oak knights, and the stone choir screen , decorated with life-size figures of English monarchs from William I to Henry VI - all except the latter carved in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The painted stone shields round much of the nave and choir are those of Edward II and the barons who in 1309-10 held a "parliament" in York. Amongst the many tombs , those of most interest are the monument in the south transept to Walter de Grey, a beautiful grey-green canopy protecting a recumbent stone figure, and the tomb of the 10-year-old William, second son of Edward III, in the choir aisle.

The foundations, or undercroft (£3), have been turned into a museum, fitted into a space excavated during restorations in the 1960s. Amongst precious church relics in the adjoining treasury are silver plate found in Walter de Grey's tomb and the eleventh-century Horn of Ulf, presented to the Minster by a relative of the tide-turning King Canute. There's also access from the undercroft to the crypt , the spot that transmits the most powerful sense of antiquity, as it contains portions of Archbishop Roger's choir and sections of the 1080 church, including pillars with fine Romanesque capitals. Access to the undercroft, treasury and crypt is from the south transept, also the entrance to the central tower (£3), which you can climb for rooftop views over the city. Finally pop into the Chapter House (£1), an architectural novelty whose buttressed octagonal walls remove the need for a central pillar, otherwise a common feature of this type of building.

York Minster has three towers, the two west towers holding bells and clock chimes. The north-west tower contains Great Peter (216 cwt or 10.8 tons) and the six clock bells (the largest weighing just over 60 cwt or 3 tons). The south-west tower holds 14 bells (tenor 59 cwt) hung for change ringing and 11 chiming bells (tenor 23 cwt) which are rung from a clavier in the ringing chamber.

The clock bells ring every quarter of an hour during the daytime and Great Peter strikes the hour. The change ringing bells are rung regularly on Sundays before Church Services and at other times, the ringers practice on Tuesday evenings. The chiming bells are occasionally rung before services .

York has had a Christian presence from the 300s. The first church on the site was a wooden structure built hurriedly in 627 to provide a place to baptise Edwin, King of Northumbria. Moves toward a more substantial building began in the 630s. A stone structure was completed in 637 by Oswald and was dedicated to Saint Peter. The church soon fell into disrepair and was dilapidated by 670 when Saint Wilfred ascended to the see of York; he put in place efforts to repair and renew the structure. The attached school and library were established and by the 8th century were some of the most substantial in northern Europe.

In 741 the church was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt as a more impressive structure, containing thirty altars. The church and the entire area then passed through the hands of numerous invaders, and its history is obscure until the 10th century. There was a series of Benedictine archbishops, including Saint Oswald, Wulfstan, and Ealdred, who travelled to Westminster to crown William in 1066. Ealdred died in 1069 and was buried in the church.

The church was damaged in 1069, but the first Norman archbishop, arriving in 1070, organised repairs. The Danes destroyed the church in 1075, but it was again rebuilt from 1080. Built in the Norman style, it was 365 feet long and rendered in white and red lines. The new structure was damaged by fire in 1137 but was soon repaired. The choir and crypt were remodelled in 1154, and a new chapel was built, all in the Norman style.

Gothic style in cathedrals had arrived in the mid 12th century. Walter de Gray was made archbishop in 1215 and ordered the construction of a Gothic structure to compare to Canterbury; building began in 1220. The north and south transepts were the first new structures; completed in the 1250s, both were built in the Early English Gothic style but had markedly different walls. A substantial central tower was also completed, with a wooden spire. Building continued into the 15th century. The Chapter House was completed in the 1260s. The wide nave was constructed from the 1280s on the Norman foundations. The outer roof was completed in the 1330s, but the vaulting was not finished until 1360. Construction then moved on to the eastern arm and chapels, with the last Norman structure, the choir, being demolished in the 1390s. In 1407 the central tower collapsed; the piers were then reinforced, and a new tower was built from 1420. The cathedral was declared complete in 1472.

The Reformation led to the first Protestant archbishop, the looting of much of the cathedral's treasures, and the loss of much of the church lands. Under Elizabeth I there was a concerted effort to remove all traces of Catholicism from the cathedral; there was much destruction of tombs, windows, and altars. In the English Civil War the city was besieged and fell to the forces of Cromwell in 1644, but Thomas Fairfax prevented any further damage to the cathedral.